Successors

Elcaset was a short-lived audio format created by Sony in 1976 that was about twice the size, using larger tape and a faster recording speed. Unlike the original cassette, the Elcaset was designed from the outset for sound quality. It was never widely accepted as the quality of standard cassette decks rapidly approached high fidelity.

Technical development of the cassette effectively ceased when digital recordable media such as DAT and MiniDisc were introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Anticipating the switch from analog to digital, major companies such as Sony shifted their focus to new media.^[38] In 1992, Philips introduced the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC), a DAT-like tape in the same form factor as the compact audio cassette. It was aimed primarily at the consumer market. A DCC deck could play back both types of cassettes. Unlike DAT, which was accepted in professional usage because it could record without lossy compression effects, DCC failed in both home and mobile environments, and was discontinued in 1996