My brother and I bought the same album back in 1994. Stone Temple Pilots—Purple.

I had it on CD, he bought the tape.

The CD sounded (obviously) so much better than his tape. But a little while later I made my own tape copy of the CD, and my copy sounded really close to the CD! Way better than his store-bought copy.

Those bastards didn't even have the decency to use Type II cassettes for the released album.

A Type II (or even better, Type IV-Metal) tape could sound pretty damn good. Still sucked to have to rewind or fast-forward, though.

(Also, Dolby NR was terrible. I'd rather have the hiss than have the muted highs)