Who Is National Audio Company?
Who Is National Audio Company?
We’re National Audio Company, and we’ve been devoted to true sound reproduction since 1969. Known as “The Great American Cassette Company”, we’re the only music-quality cassette tape manufacturer in the world.
In an era dominated by streaming and digital downloads, how does NAC not only survive, but thrive? The answer lies in our commitment to professional-grade audio fidelity, music preservation, and expert knowledge of what makes magnetic tape recording special.
Our Journey from Distribution to Manufacturing Excellence
Our story began over five decades ago in Springfield, Missouri, where we started as a distributor of professional recording equipment. For 12 years, we built our reputation distributing Ampex recording tapes and Fidelipac broadcast cartridges to radio stations, studios, and audio professionals across the country. We learned the business inside and out, understanding what audiophiles, broadcasters, and musicians needed from their magnetic media.
In 1980, we took a pivotal step: we began manufacturing audio cassettes using Ampex tape. This wasn’t just a business decision; it was a commitment to quality control and innovation. We wanted to produce blank cassette tapes that met the exacting standards we’d come to appreciate through years of working with professional audio equipment.
By the late 1980s, our “Audio Pro” cassettes had become the industry standard for cassette duplication. The secret? Precision manufacturing, carefully formulated tape coatings, and quality control protocols that ensured consistent frequency response and signal-to-noise ratios across every single cassette we produced.
Growing When Others Were Shrinking
As demand for our professional-quality cassettes grew, we expanded twice—relocating to a 28,000-square-foot facility in 1989, then moving to our current 135,000-square-foot factory in 1998. While our competitors were eyeing the CD revolution, we were doubling down on cassette manufacturing excellence.
The early 2000s brought massive industry shifts and major cassette duplicators pivoted entirely to CD production. We saw something different. We recognized that cassettes still served vital roles in educational materials, religious programming, audiobooks, and increasingly, among music enthusiasts who appreciated analog sound quality.
Rather than abandon the format, we expanded our cassette duplication services. As competitors chose other avenues, we acquired their equipment, restored and upgraded it, mastered its use, and retrofitted an entire floor of our historic building to produce top-quality magnetic tape.
Today, National Audio Company offers three types of tape purpose-built for different recording needs:
- FerroMaster C256™ – the classic ferric cassette tape you know and love. It is refined for use in consumer cassette decks for high-quality recording and playback.
- FerroMaster C456™ – the highest quality ferric cassette tape available in the world today. This product has been tested in high-speed duplication equipment and delivers outstanding quality.
- FerroMaster C756™ – This Cobalt oxide Type II High Bias tape is made for the most demanding recording applications and is the gold standard in Type II performance.
We are also refining and enhancing our Magne-Sheen tape coating and finishing process. This will allow smoother contact with recording and playback heads, along with superior audio performance.
Learn more about NAC’s cassette manufacturing capabilities
The Science of Superior Sound
What makes a music-quality cassette tape superior? It comes down to physics and chemistry working in perfect harmony.
Our Type I ferric oxide formulation delivers excellent high-frequency response while maintaining low noise floor characteristics essential for music reproduction. The tape coating must be applied uniformly to within microns of tolerance—inconsistencies create audible artifacts called dropouts and alter frequency response curves. We’ve refined our coating process to achieve remarkable consistency.
The cassette shell itself matters tremendously. Poor shell design creates mechanical friction, uneven tape tension, and wow-and-flutter variations that degrade audio quality. Our cassette shells are precision-molded with tight tolerances, ensuring smooth tape transport and optimal head contact throughout the entire playback duration.
We also understand cassette tape longevity. Properly manufactured and stored cassettes can preserve audio fidelity for decades because magnetic tape is inherently stable. Unlike optical media that can delaminate or digital files dependent on functioning storage devices, quality cassette tape is remarkably archival.
Global Reach Through Strategic Partnerships
We’re proud to be America’s cassette manufacturer…and now, our reach extends globally. Thanks to our recent partnership with Revox, the renowned German audio equipment manufacturer, we’ve connected with international markets that value precision engineering and analog audio quality.
This relationship reflects shared values:
- Meticulous craftsmanship
- Technical excellence
- Respect for analog audio’s unique characteristics
Revox’s legendary reputation for high-fidelity audio equipment complements our cassette manufacturing expertise perfectly. Together, we serve audiophiles, archivists, musicians, and audio professionals worldwide who demand exceptional quality.
Beyond Cassettes: Complete Audio Solutions
Our commitment to music quality and preservation means we’re not just a blank cassette tape factory. We offer comprehensive services including:
Whether you’re a musician releasing an album, an organization preserving spoken word archives, or a publisher producing audiobooks, we provide end-to-end solutions from layout and design through duplication, printing, assembly, and shrink wrapping.
We’ve also produced custom private-label cassettes brands, demonstrating our flexibility and manufacturing expertise at scale.
The Analog Renaissance
Today, we’re experiencing something remarkable: musicians and music fans are rediscovering cassettes. For Gen X, it’s the memory of making (or getting) that first mixtape. For Millennials and Gen Z, it’s discovering what their parents knew—that cassettes offer something streaming can’t.
They’re drawn to the warmth of analog sound, the tactile experience of holding real music in your hands. It’s about audio character, about the subtle tape saturation that adds richness to recordings, about the ritual of physical media. If that sounds right to you, you need to know about us.
Like cassettes themselves, National Audio Company is here for the long haul. We’re the world’s only music-quality cassette tape manufacturer, and our tape is still rolling!
Stay tuned—you’ll be hearing more from NAC.
