Lou Ottens, Dutch inventor of cassette tape, dies at 94

Ottens, who engineered the concept of magnetic tape players and compact discs (CDs), passed away at his home in Duizel, the Netherlands.

Lou Ottens, the Dutch inventor of audio cassette tapes, has died at the age of 94, Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported. Ottens, who engineered the concept of magnetic tape players and compact discs (CDs), passed away at his home on Sunday in Duizel, the Netherlands. The cause of his death has not been given yet.

In this file photo, Dutch engineer Lou Ottens poses with cassette tapes in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, 23 January 2013. (DHA)

Born on June 21, 1926, Ottens showed keen interest in engineering and even built a radio as a teenager which his family used to receive Radio Oranje during Germany’s wartime occupation of the Netherlands. The device that he made was equipped with a directional antenna which he termed as “Germanenfilter” because it was resistant to the jammers used by the Nazi regime. After the war, Ottens obtained an engineering degree and joined Philips in 1952. Five years after joining Philips, Ottens became the head of the company’s product development department at its audio plant in Hasselt, Belgium. In 1960, Ottens with his team developed the first portable tape recorder and two years later, he invented CDs.

“Nothing can match the sound of the CD,” Ottens had then told the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. “It is absolutely noise and rumble-free. That never worked with tape … I have made a lot of record players and I know that the distortion with vinyl is much higher. I think people mainly hear what they want to hear.”

In 1963, the devices invented by Ottens and his team were presented at the Internationale Funkausstellung which is a trade exhibition for audio products in Berlin and were widely praised. Ottens struck a deal between Sony and Phillips with the aim to manufacture cassettes at feasible rates for the portable tape recorders after which Japanese manufacturers quickly copied Ottens’ ideas and sold the copies of the model in the Japanese market in a different format, according to Philips. Ottens himself managed to sell approximately 100 billion cassette tapes worldwide, according to Philips, before retiring in 1986.

On the 50th anniversary of the invention of the cassette tape in 2013, a special exhibition was created at the Philips museum to honour Ottens' work. "When your time has gone, it’s time to disappear,” Ottens was quoted saying during the exhibition.