“We need to bring back terrible audio quality”
No kiddin’!
I got equipment through the Navy Exchange system in the early 80s when stationed in Puerto Rico.
It WAS possible to recreate the sound quality of the CD format which was just gaining traction with cassettes. But you had to have top of the line cassette decks with Dolby noise reduction and use high formulation (metal) cassettes. I had a three head Nakamichi deck at that time and could produce cassettes that were indistinguishable to my ear on it if I used Dolby C noise reduction on metal tapes.
But why? Now I have my 1400 CD collection stored on a Sony music server that I hide downstairs out of sight and which I control from my iPad. It’s just so much better. Why go back?