@Felthry @Nine Ferric implies iron though, so how are those not metal?
(Heck, chrome too?)

@BatElite @Nine Ferric uses ferric oxide as the magnetic material--basically rust. chrome tapes are also a chromium compound (metallic chromium is actually completely useless for magnetic recording, but some of its compounds have good magnetic properties)

@Felthry @BatElite I take it the type 4 "metal" tapes use a different compound than chromium for better, more hard wearing tape and more accurate (and less prone to degradation over time and copying) recording?

@Nine @BatElite The metal tapes use actual metal powder or foil; I'm not sure what specifically but I would assume some type of iron alloy, possibly with some cobalt added

they'd want to prevent rust, but it won't be normal stainless steel because that has poor magnetic properties (you may have noticed that magnets don't stick to stainless steel silverware)

@BatElite @Felthry All cassette tapes have (presumably, please correct if I'm wrong) ferrous particles on the tape because that's how it stores data, with magnetic arrangements of the electrons. The default type 1 is just an iron compoound of-whoops okay nevermind Felthry's doin' the explaining way better than I could. ^^

@Felthry I always wondered what that sorta thing meant! I think I remember having a couple type 4 metal tapes at some point but I have no idea what happened to them. I can't remember if I ever encountered the type 3s myself. But this is amazingly good info! Thank you ^^

@Nine It makes sense that you wouldn't have encountered type 3s; they were not very much better than type 2 and not exactly cheap

@Nine Type 4s weren't cheap either but the quality was quite good so they still did fine

I think the only magnetic tape being made now is type 1 though, just because the kinds of people who want type 4, especially who'd choose it over CDs, are few and far between