With improving specifications of cassette recorders, tape manufacturers also made progress in the formulation of tape. Standards committees decided to classify tapes into three main categories: oxide tape, chrome tape and metal tape. The newer categories allowed improved recording performance, but also required different recording bias levels to achieve the improvements.

Manufacturers of cassette recorders incorporated switches to adapt the recording characteristics to the tape, and later a system of slots at the back of the cassette were standardised, so that the recorder was set to the correct type of tape during recording. It should be added that once recorded, replay conditions were identical for all tape types, so that once the cassettes were recorded, they could be replayed on any machine.

Beocord 6000 closely resembled the top of the range Beocord 8000 but had black keys to match those on the Beomaster 6000. The Beocord 8000 was replaced at the time of the introduction of the 6000 by the 8002 which offered Dolby HX Pro in addition to its other features.