For Car Cassette Decks, Play Time Is Over

For all of you who were planning to pack up your oldies tapes and go shopping for a 2011 car, there is bad news: you’re too late, writes Stephen Williams at nytimes.com.

According to experts who monitor the automotive market, the last new car to be factory-equipped with a cassette deck in the dashboard was a 2010 Lexus.

While it is possible that a little-known exception lurks deep within some automaker’s order forms, a survey of major automakers and a search of new-car shopping Web sites indicates that the tape deck is as passé as tailfins on a Caddy.

In most respects, that’s not a bad thing.

Although the technologies behind the compact tape cassette, which was invented by Philips, improved through the years — longer play times, better tape quality, Dolby noise reduction — magnetic tapes were subject to wear. They stretched, wound themselves around the innards of the drive mechanism and melted their cases in hot weather.

Still, for more than two decades the cassette ruled the road. It offered less distortion and higher fidelity than its predecessor, the wobbly eight-track tape, a positively primitive format.

But the cassette’s epitaph was being written with the arrival of the compact disc. The CD, not subject to wear because it was read by a laser beam and had no physical contact with the player, delivered even less distortion, even higher fidelity — and remains the ubiquitous audio source in new cars.

Audio seers say that the CD, too, will eventually fade away. Technology marches on, and automakers are wary of becoming stragglers in that parade.

For now, a variety of high-quality tape decks remain available for self-installation. And should you one day make the leap to a modern digital music player, the files could be accessed through the cassette slot using an adapter readily found in electronics stores.

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