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#1
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Cassette Decks
Since I'm off until the end of the year, I decided to finally archive a large
quantity of audio cassettes. Unfortunately, when I cranked up my cassette deck for the first time in a while, it was toast. The logic is screwed up on the left well such that the door will not open. The pressure roller on the right side is coated and hard to clean. There turned out to be a couple of cold solder joints in the power supply, which I fixed, and that allowed me to get the right deck going, but I don't have any confidence in the deck. It already ate one tape. Are the new cassette decks ($300 range) any good? I hate to spend that much money to buy a deck just to archive, but if I don't, I'm going to end up finding tapes that I can't play. Alternatively, does anyone here have a semi-pro deck in great shape to sell? |
#2
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Cassette Decks
mcp6453 wrote:
Since I'm off until the end of the year, I decided to finally archive a large quantity of audio cassettes. Unfortunately, when I cranked up my cassette deck for the first time in a while, it was toast. The logic is screwed up on the left well such that the door will not open. The pressure roller on the right side is coated and hard to clean. There turned out to be a couple of cold solder joints in the power supply, which I fixed, and that allowed me to get the right deck going, but I don't have any confidence in the deck. It already ate one tape. Replace the pinch roller and all belts. Russell Industries will have kits that will not be a lot of money. Are the new cassette decks ($300 range) any good? I hate to spend that much money to buy a deck just to archive, but if I don't, I'm going to end up finding tapes that I can't play. Not really, and you will have to modify them in order to make the azimuth adjustable too. Alternatively, does anyone here have a semi-pro deck in great shape to sell? I suggest if you are doing archiving work on a large but known and finite number of tapes that you borrow some money, buy a used Nakamichi Dragon, and then sell it at a slight profit when you are finished with the job. The Dragon is really the only machine that does automatic azimuth control, so you can just let it run unattended without fighting with the tape. And there are numerous people refurbishing them these days so you can buy a refurb. It's expensive, but it won't get any cheaper so it can be resold for good money. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#3
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Cassette Decks
On 12/21/2011 3:24 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
mcp6453 wrote: Since I'm off until the end of the year, I decided to finally archive a large quantity of audio cassettes. Unfortunately, when I cranked up my cassette deck for the first time in a while, it was toast. The logic is screwed up on the left well such that the door will not open. The pressure roller on the right side is coated and hard to clean. There turned out to be a couple of cold solder joints in the power supply, which I fixed, and that allowed me to get the right deck going, but I don't have any confidence in the deck. It already ate one tape. Replace the pinch roller and all belts. Russell Industries will have kits that will not be a lot of money. Are the new cassette decks ($300 range) any good? I hate to spend that much money to buy a deck just to archive, but if I don't, I'm going to end up finding tapes that I can't play. Not really, and you will have to modify them in order to make the azimuth adjustable too. Alternatively, does anyone here have a semi-pro deck in great shape to sell? I suggest if you are doing archiving work on a large but known and finite number of tapes that you borrow some money, buy a used Nakamichi Dragon, and then sell it at a slight profit when you are finished with the job. The Dragon is really the only machine that does automatic azimuth control, so you can just let it run unattended without fighting with the tape. And there are numerous people refurbishing them these days so you can buy a refurb. It's expensive, but it won't get any cheaper so it can be resold for good money. --scott Who would you recommend for a source? I'm not sure how much money I'm willing to spend, but I'm willing to take a look. |
#4
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Cassette Decks
mcp6453 wrote:
Who would you recommend for a source? I'm not sure how much money I'm willing to spend, but I'm willing to take a look. You could try Stephen Sank in Tucson. He has had some medical issues in the past few years but seems to be doing okay now. He might be willing to rent a unit as well. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#5
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Cassette Decks
mcp6453 wrote:
Since I'm off until the end of the year, I decided to finally archive a large quantity of audio cassettes. Unfortunately, when I cranked up my cassette deck for the first time in a while, it was toast. The logic is screwed up on the left well such that the door will not open. The pressure roller on the right side is coated and hard to clean. There turned out to be a couple of cold solder joints in the power supply, which I fixed, and that allowed me to get the right deck going, but I don't have any confidence in the deck. It already ate one tape. Are the new cassette decks ($300 range) any good? I hate to spend that much money to buy a deck just to archive, but if I don't, I'm going to end up finding tapes that I can't play. Alternatively, does anyone here have a semi-pro deck in great shape to sell? You could check eBay for a Sony WM-D6C Professional Walkman. |
#6
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Cassette Decks
In article ,
mcp6453 wrote: Since I'm off until the end of the year, I decided to finally archive a large quantity of audio cassettes. Unfortunately, when I cranked up my cassette deck for the first time in a while, it was toast. The logic is screwed up on the left well such that the door will not open. The pressure roller on the right side is coated and hard to clean. There turned out to be a couple of cold solder joints in the power supply, which I fixed, and that allowed me to get the right deck going, but I don't have any confidence in the deck. It already ate one tape. Are the new cassette decks ($300 range) any good? I hate to spend that much money to buy a deck just to archive, but if I don't, I'm going to end up finding tapes that I can't play. Alternatively, does anyone here have a semi-pro deck in great shape to sell? If you're interested in a Teac Z5000 http://www.vintagecassette.com/Teac/Z-5000 drop me a note: -- www.jennifermartinmusic.com |
#7
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Cassette Decks
"RitaWL" wrote in message .. Cassette Decks How do you make a lot of money ? Spam deleted I somehow doubt you'd make a lot of money from cassette decks these days! Trevor. |
#8
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Cassette Decks
On Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:59:50 +1100, "Trevor" wrote:
"RitaWL" wrote in message .. Cassette Decks How do you make a lot of money ? Spam deleted I somehow doubt you'd make a lot of money from cassette decks these days! Trevor. I have a beautiful Denon DRM-800A sitting on the shelf right by me. It is far too good to simply throw away, and I do use it every now and then just to keep it in good fettle. But I know that on the second hand market it is essentially worthless. Such a shame. d |
#9
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Cassette Decks
On 12/22/2011 5:25 AM, Don Pearce wrote:
On Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:59:50 +1100, "Trevor" wrote: "RitaWL" wrote in message .. Cassette Decks How do you make a lot of money ? Spam deleted I somehow doubt you'd make a lot of money from cassette decks these days! Trevor. I have a beautiful Denon DRM-800A sitting on the shelf right by me. It is far too good to simply throw away, and I do use it every now and then just to keep it in good fettle. But I know that on the second hand market it is essentially worthless. Such a shame. d My brother has a nice Denon, as well, but it needs new belts, and I'm not up to the task. |
#10
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Cassette Decks
"mcp6453" wrote in message ... Are the new cassette decks ($300 range) any good? Good question. I'm totally out of that market, and haven't looked at it for maybe a decade. I used a better-than-average Sony consumer machine that I've owned since the 90s for the last cassette transcriptions that I did. The fact is that I see far more demand for vinyl transcriptions than cassettes. VHS = DVD is calling. Alternatively, does anyone here have a semi-pro deck in great shape to sell? The last generation of consumer machines became very plastic, but given that even VHS machines were successfully made that way, this somewhat disturbing trend for us old timers may not be a really bad thing. Well done plastic usually beats poorly done steel. My biggest fear would be that a $300 last-generation consumer machine was just a $80 low end consumer machine with a fancier case and front panel. I ended up getting some hands-on experience with pro grade tape machines, particularly Tascam and Marantz. The Tascams were IME built like tanks. Repair and refurbishment parts for them should still be available. I'd stay clear of cassette machines that look pro but are really designed for the low end DJ market, e.g. Pyle, Vocopro, Vestax, etc. It might be possible to find a Tascam deck in good shape on eBay fro a reasonable price. I'd look there first. I'd rather have a Tascam than a Nakamichi if you're talking bread-and-butter machines. At the high end, Nakamichi had few peers, but you will probably still pay a big premium to go there. |
#11
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Cassette Decks
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
... My biggest fear would be that a $300 last-generation consumer machine was just a $80 low end consumer machine with a fancier case and front panel. I ended up getting some hands-on experience with pro grade tape machines, particularly Tascam and Marantz. The Tascams were IME built like tanks. Repair and refurbishment parts for them should still be available. I'd stay clear of cassette machines that look pro but are really designed for the low end DJ market, e.g. Pyle, Vocopro, Vestax, etc. It might be possible to find a Tascam deck in good shape on eBay fro a reasonable price. I'd look there first. I'd rather have a Tascam than a Nakamichi if you're talking bread-and-butter machines. At the high end, Nakamichi had few peers, but you will probably still pay a big premium to go there. Update - I just looked at recent eBay and Audiogon closing prices for Nakamichi Dragons, and they are still = about one $large. IOW, completely out of the price range mentioned in the OP. |
#12
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Cassette Decks
On 12/21/2011 2:29 PM, mcp6453 wrote:
Are the new cassette decks ($300 range) any good? No, but if you have a decent cassette deck (forget Scott - he isn't satisfied with any cassette deck that you can't continuously adjust the azimuth whlle the tape is playing - and that you actually do it, like he does) you can surely get it repaired for less than $300, and then you'll know what you have. Pinch rollers and belts can be replaced, it can be cleaned and lubricated, and aligned (you can save some money if you tell the shop to not bother with record alignment) for less than you can buy a new deck. -- "Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and interesting audio stuff |
#13
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Cassette Decks
On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:29:40 -0500, mcp6453 wrote
(in article ) : Since I'm off until the end of the year, I decided to finally archive a large quantity of audio cassettes. Unfortunately, when I cranked up my cassette deck for the first time in a while, it was toast. The logic is screwed up on the left well such that the door will not open. The pressure roller on the right side is coated and hard to clean. There turned out to be a couple of cold solder joints in the power supply, which I fixed, and that allowed me to get the right deck going, but I don't have any confidence in the deck. It already ate one tape. Are the new cassette decks ($300 range) any good? I hate to spend that much money to buy a deck just to archive, but if I don't, I'm going to end up finding tapes that I can't play. Alternatively, does anyone here have a semi-pro deck in great shape to sell? How about an ION Tape2PC deck. I use one here. Regards, Ty Ford --Audio Equipment Reviews Audio Production Services Acting and Voiceover Demos http://www.tyford.com Guitar player?:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWaPRHMGhGA |
#14
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Cassette Decks
I used to have a Dragon, but sold it when times got tough. Beautiful
machine, but probably overkill for dubbing anything other than the very best tapes. (By the way, if you remove the playback LPF, the Dragon can record to 30kHz with metal-particle tape.) Consider the following as an alternative... If you find a deck with a easily accessible azimuth screw, you should be able to adjust the azimuth for each tape by monitoring the deck's output on an XY scope display. This takes a bit of patience, as you have to wait for the tape to "settle down" each time you tweak the head. |
#15
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Cassette Decks
On 12/22/2011 11:12 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
I used to have a Dragon, but sold it when times got tough. Beautiful machine, but probably overkill for dubbing anything other than the very best tapes. (By the way, if you remove the playback LPF, the Dragon can record to 30kHz with metal-particle tape.) Consider the following as an alternative... If you find a deck with a easily accessible azimuth screw, you should be able to adjust the azimuth for each tape by monitoring the deck's output on an XY scope display. This takes a bit of patience, as you have to wait for the tape to "settle down" each time you tweak the head. I just ordered a Dragon. It will be refurbished and delivered by the end of January. If it works as well as it should, I'm probably going to offer to archive cassettes for family and friends. Every tape I've touched in the last two days has bad pads. Some of them have warped shells. Two of them squealed when they played (until I exercised them.) Not having a fantastic reel-to-reel machine, cassette machine, or VCR drives me nuts. Much of my life is on tape. I hate tape. I did my first transfer with my refurbished Panasonic AG1980 VCR, and it tracked the old tape perfectly. Now I need to optimize my settings on my Canopus ADVC300. Or get a Black Magic converter. |
#16
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Cassette Decks
"mcp6453" wrote in message
... On 12/22/2011 11:12 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote: I used to have a Dragon, but sold it when times got tough. Beautiful machine, but probably overkill for dubbing anything other than the very best tapes. (By the way, if you remove the playback LPF, the Dragon can record to 30kHz with metal- particle tape.) Consider the following as an alternative... If you find a deck with a easily accessible azimuth screw, you should be able to adjust the azimuth for each tape by monitoring the deck's output on an XY scope display. This takes a bit of patience, as you have to wait for the tape to "settle down" each time you tweak the head. I just ordered a Dragon. It will be refurbished and delivered by the end of January. If it works as well as it should, I'm probably going to offer to archive cassettes for family and friends. Every tape I've touched in the last two days has bad pads. Some of them have warped shells. Two of them squealed when they played (until I exercised them.) Exercised or exorcised? It seems you have no choice. The Dragon pushes the pad away from the head, and does a fairly good job isolating the tape from the shell. Not having a fantastic reel-to-reel machine, cassette machine, or VCR drives me nuts. What about DAT? |
#17
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Cassette Decks
On 12/22/2011 11:56 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
"mcp6453" wrote in message ... On 12/22/2011 11:12 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote: I used to have a Dragon, but sold it when times got tough. Beautiful machine, but probably overkill for dubbing anything other than the very best tapes. (By the way, if you remove the playback LPF, the Dragon can record to 30kHz with metal- particle tape.) Consider the following as an alternative... If you find a deck with a easily accessible azimuth screw, you should be able to adjust the azimuth for each tape by monitoring the deck's output on an XY scope display. This takes a bit of patience, as you have to wait for the tape to "settle down" each time you tweak the head. I just ordered a Dragon. It will be refurbished and delivered by the end of January. If it works as well as it should, I'm probably going to offer to archive cassettes for family and friends. Every tape I've touched in the last two days has bad pads. Some of them have warped shells. Two of them squealed when they played (until I exercised them.) Exercised or exorcised? It seems you have no choice. The Dragon pushes the pad away from the head, and does a fairly good job isolating the tape from the shell. Not having a fantastic reel-to-reel machine, cassette machine, or VCR drives me nuts. What about DAT? I have an Otari DTR-8S DAT. Gosh, I must have used it 20 times. Who knows if it will even power on now. I only have about 10 DATs to transfer. That's next, I guess. Interestingly enough I just found another consumer cassette deck (Teac) in my storage room. It looks like new and works perfectly. This possessed Sony hits the trash before dark today. The last tape of the cassette series that I've been trying to transfer is playing as we speak. If it make it through without squeaking, I'm in good shape until the Dragon gets here. Now that I've committed to buy the Dragon, if there is any reason I should NOT buy it, other than cost, speak now! I could buy a new guitar or a fantastic computer for $1500. |
#18
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Cassette Decks
"mcp6453" wrote in message
... Now that I've committed to buy the Dragon, if there is any reason I should NOT buy it, other than cost, speak now! I could buy a new guitar or a fantastic computer for $1500. It's possible you might become so attached to this wonderful piece of technology that you'll be unwilling to sell it and recoup your purchase price. |
#19
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Cassette Decks
"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ... Now that I've committed to buy the Dragon, if there is any reason I should NOT buy it, other than cost, speak now! I could buy a new guitar or a fantastic computer for $1500. It's possible you might become so attached to this wonderful piece of technology that you'll be unwilling to sell it and recoup your purchase price. That seems very unlikely to me. The only reason to keep one is IF you can make enough money copying tapes for others, to justify it. That is hard to do IME. There are people who want tapes copied, but few are willing to pay enough to justify keepin a Dragon to do it. And like all ponzi schemes, some people will eventually get stuck with Dragons that they can't sell. (or at least not for anything like they are paying atm) Trevor. |
#20
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Cassette Decks
On 12/22/2011 7:14 PM, Trevor wrote:
"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ... Now that I've committed to buy the Dragon, if there is any reason I should NOT buy it, other than cost, speak now! I could buy a new guitar or a fantastic computer for $1500. It's possible you might become so attached to this wonderful piece of technology that you'll be unwilling to sell it and recoup your purchase price. That seems very unlikely to me. The only reason to keep one is IF you can make enough money copying tapes for others, to justify it. That is hard to do IME. There are people who want tapes copied, but few are willing to pay enough to justify keepin a Dragon to do it. And like all ponzi schemes, some people will eventually get stuck with Dragons that they can't sell. (or at least not for anything like they are paying atm) Trevor. Yeah, I'm usually the guy who gets stuck with the last one that nobody wants. It happens with guitars and all sorts of electronics equipment. I keep telling my best friend that if I buy gold or silver, the market will collapse, and he'll be in hot water. |
#21
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Cassette Decks
On 12/22/2011 12:21 PM, mcp6453 wrote:
Now that I've committed to buy the Dragon, if there is any reason I should NOT buy it, other than cost, speak now! I could buy a new guitar or a fantastic computer for $1500. That would be reason enough for me to not buy it. -- "Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge of audio." - John Watkinson http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and interesting audio stuff |
#22
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Cassette Decks
"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ... "mcp6453" wrote in message ... Now that I've committed to buy the Dragon, if there is any reason I should NOT buy it, other than cost, speak now! I could buy a new guitar or a fantastic computer for $1500. It's possible you might become so attached to this wonderful piece of technology that you'll be unwilling to sell it and recoup your purchase price. The problem with the higher end cassette decks was always that while they were able to make slight improvements on the performance of the cassette format, they could not make improvements that in any way compared, either technically or from a listening standpoint, with those that became available at a far lower cost with even the now-endemic and cheap 16/44 digital. The spec sheet for the ION Tape2PC shows the bitter truth quite well: Frequency response (-20 dB recorded level) 40-15,000 Hz +/- 3 dB (Chrome tape) 40-14,000 Hz +/- 3 dB (Normal tape) (0 dB recorded level) 40-8,000 Hz +/- 3 dB (Chrome tape) 40-8,000 Hz +/- 3 dB (Normal tape) The +/- 3 dB often manifested itself as maybe a 0.5 to 1 dB rise followed by a -5 or more dB roll off at the indicated frequency. The above is for a modern, basic cheap dual-well cassette deck costing about $100. What did the Nakamichi Dragon do to improve this situation? (-20 dB recorded level) 20-21,000 Hz +/- 3 dB (Chrome tape) 20-22,000 Hz +/- 3 dB (Normal tape) I cannot find any documented bench tests that show how the Dragon works at 0 dB recorded level, but it is probably appreciably better than the $100 cheapie. Thing is, when we are transcribing tapes, we are limited by the machine the tape was made on, and its pretty well guaranteed that any tape we have to work with was not made on a Dragon or something like it. As a rule, commercially duplicated cassette tapes sounded worse than tapes made at home, even tapes made on average home machines. Compare that to the CD format: (-20 dB recorded level) 1-20,000 Hz +/- 0.1 dB (using any media that records and plays reliably) (0 dB recorded level) 1-20,000 Hz +/- 0.1 dB (using any media that records and plays reliably) |
#23
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Cassette Decks
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
... The problem with the higher end cassette decks was always that while they were able to make slight improvements on the performance of the cassette format, they could not make improvements that in any way compared, either technically or from a listening standpoint, with those that became available at a far lower cost with even the now- endemic and cheap 16/44 digital. Absolutely true. But that doesn't change the point I was making... The Dragon is a marvelous piece of technology. |
#24
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Cassette Decks
"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ... "Arny Krueger" wrote in message ... The problem with the higher end cassette decks was always that while they were able to make slight improvements on the performance of the cassette format, they could not make improvements that in any way compared, either technically or from a listening standpoint, with those that became available at a far lower cost with even the now- endemic and cheap 16/44 digital. Absolutely true. But that doesn't change the point I was making... The Dragon is a marvelous piece of technology. Agreed. I don't know of any effective tricks for exploiting the cassette medium that they missed. In some cases the Dragon may have been the first mainstream commercial implementation of them. |
#25
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Cassette Decks
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
... "William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ... "Arny Krueger" wrote in message ... The problem with the higher end cassette decks was always that while they were able to make slight improvements on the performance of the cassette format, they could not make improvements that in any way compared, either technically or from a listening standpoint, with those that became available at a far lower cost with even the now- endemic and cheap 16/44 digital. Absolutely true. But that doesn't change the point I was making... The Dragon is a marvelous piece of technology. Agreed. I don't know of any effective tricks for exploiting the cassette medium that they missed. In some cases the Dragon may have been the first mainstream [???] commercial implementation of them. If so, it was the last. I don't think the Dragon used the HE (headroom extension) system that was on -- I think -- some B&O decks. It came about when someone discovered the self-biasing effects of high-frequency signal components. The combination of HF energy and bias tended to overbias the tape. If you dynamically varied the bias level in inverse proportion to the HF signal level, you got more HF headroom. Perhaps the best feature was the dual-capstan asymmetrical drive, which was invented by an Austrian camera manufacturer. (Can't think of the name.) It audibly reduced sideband noise -- you could definitely hear the difference. Tapes were quieter, even though the conventional S/N ratio showed no improvement. |
#26
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Cassette Decks
On 12/23/2011 9:39 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ... "William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ... "Arny Krueger" wrote in message ... The problem with the higher end cassette decks was always that while they were able to make slight improvements on the performance of the cassette format, they could not make improvements that in any way compared, either technically or from a listening standpoint, with those that became available at a far lower cost with even the now- endemic and cheap 16/44 digital. Absolutely true. But that doesn't change the point I was making... The Dragon is a marvelous piece of technology. Agreed. I don't know of any effective tricks for exploiting the cassette medium that they missed. In some cases the Dragon may have been the first mainstream [???] commercial implementation of them. If so, it was the last. I don't think the Dragon used the HE (headroom extension) system that was on -- I think -- some B&O decks. It came about when someone discovered the self-biasing effects of high-frequency signal components. The combination of HF energy and bias tended to overbias the tape. If you dynamically varied the bias level in inverse proportion to the HF signal level, you got more HF headroom. Perhaps the best feature was the dual-capstan asymmetrical drive, which was invented by an Austrian camera manufacturer. (Can't think of the name.) It audibly reduced sideband noise -- you could definitely hear the difference. Tapes were quieter, even though the conventional S/N ratio showed no improvement. For the record, and I should have mentioned this, I am only interested in playback. I cannot ever imagine recording to a cassette again. At this point, I have two plus days invested in transferring FOUR cassette tapes to digital. If the Dragon speeds up the process and obtains the best quality that is available from the tape, then it's worth the price. If I have to fight the squealing tape problem on the Dragon as much as I do on the Teac, my productivity will not be enhanced as much as I hope it will. |
#27
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"mcp6453" wrote in message ... On 12/23/2011 9:39 AM, William Sommerwerck wrote: I don't think the Dragon used the HE (headroom extension) system that was on -- I think -- some B&O decks. It came about when someone discovered the self-biasing effects of high-frequency signal components. The combination of HF energy and bias tended to overbias the tape. If you dynamically varied the bias level in inverse proportion to the HF signal level, you got more HF headroom. My research shows that the Dragon used Tandberg's DYNEQ system, which appears to *not* involve modulating the bias. It was a dynamic preemphasis system. B&O's system did as you say modulate the bias and was remarketed by Dolby as "HX Pro". I recorded on a deck with "HX Pro" for many years and it was IMO not all that effective. The cassettes I made with it still sounded like cassettes and were not exceptional IME. When we switched over to burning CDs it was a *huge* improvement, even for just spoken word. Perhaps the best feature was the dual-capstan asymmetrical drive, which was invented by an Austrian camera manufacturer. (Can't think of the name.) It audibly reduced sideband noise -- you could definitely hear the difference. Tapes were quieter, even though the conventional S/N ratio showed no improvement. "sideband noise", IOW analog jitter. For the record, and I should have mentioned this, I am only interested in playback. I cannot ever imagine recording to a cassette again. At this point, I have two plus days invested in transferring FOUR cassette tapes to digital. If the Dragon speeds up the process and obtains the best quality that is available from the tape, then it's worth the price. If I have to fight the squealing tape problem on the Dragon as much as I do on the Teac, my productivity will not be enhanced as much as I hope it will. Squealing tape sounds an awful lot like sticky shed. You might want to bake one and see what happens before you drop the big bucks on what could be an ineffective approach. Tape baking recopies are all over the web. There are people who post here who have been there and done that and obtained good results. |
#28
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Cassette Decks
On Fri, 23 Dec 2011 06:39:40 -0800, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote: "Arny Krueger" wrote in message m... "William Sommerwerck" wrote in message ... "Arny Krueger" wrote in message ... The problem with the higher end cassette decks was always that while they were able to make slight improvements on the performance of the cassette format, they could not make improvements that in any way compared, either technically or from a listening standpoint, with those that became available at a far lower cost with even the now- endemic and cheap 16/44 digital. Absolutely true. But that doesn't change the point I was making... The Dragon is a marvelous piece of technology. Agreed. I don't know of any effective tricks for exploiting the cassette medium that they missed. In some cases the Dragon may have been the first mainstream [???] commercial implementation of them. If so, it was the last. I don't think the Dragon used the HE (headroom extension) system that was on -- I think -- some B&O decks. It came about when someone discovered the self-biasing effects of high-frequency signal components. The combination of HF energy and bias tended to overbias the tape. If you dynamically varied the bias level in inverse proportion to the HF signal level, you got more HF headroom. Perhaps the best feature was the dual-capstan asymmetrical drive, which was invented by an Austrian camera manufacturer. (Can't think of the name.) It audibly reduced sideband noise -- you could definitely hear the difference. Tapes were quieter, even though the conventional S/N ratio showed no improvement. My Denon has dynamic bias. And it also has a front panel control for fine tuning the bias. It also has three heads - vital for making the most of that feature. d |
#29
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Cassette Decks
On 12/23/2011 10:45 AM, Arny Krueger wrote:
Squealing tape sounds an awful lot like sticky shed. You might want to bake one and see what happens before you drop the big bucks on what could be an ineffective approach. Tape baking recopies are all over the web. There are people who post here who have been there and done that and obtained good results. Is there any evidence that cassette manufacturers ever used the Ampex or Scotch tape formulation that exhibited SSS? Scott has probably nailed the problem on my current set. The tape has lost its lubrication. They were duplicated in 1976. |
#30
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Cassette Decks
William Sommerwerck wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message ... The problem with the higher end cassette decks was always that while they were able to make slight improvements on the performance of the cassette format, they could not make improvements that in any way compared, either technically or from a listening standpoint, with those that became available at a far lower cost with even the now- endemic and cheap 16/44 digital. Absolutely true. But that doesn't change the point I was making... The Dragon is a marvelous piece of technology. What makes the Dragon worth every penny is the ability to automatically match the azimuth of a tape made on a misaligned machine. You can't do anything about the flutter or the incorrect bias of the original recorder. But you CAN do something about the azimuth alignment and the Dolby levels. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#31
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Cassette Decks
William Sommerwerck wrote:
I don't think the Dragon used the HE (headroom extension) system that was on -- I think -- some B&O decks. It came about when someone discovered the self-biasing effects of high-frequency signal components. The combination of HF energy and bias tended to overbias the tape. If you dynamically varied the bias level in inverse proportion to the HF signal level, you got more HF headroom. Dolby HX-Pro does precisely this, and it works pretty well at giving you a little more headroom at high frequencies. Perhaps the best feature was the dual-capstan asymmetrical drive, which was invented by an Austrian camera manufacturer. (Can't think of the name.) It audibly reduced sideband noise -- you could definitely hear the difference. Tapes were quieter, even though the conventional S/N ratio showed no improvement. Eumig? A number of machines have actually used the dual-capstan drive over the years, but it's difficult to do well. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#32
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Cassette Decks
In article ,
mcp6453 wrote: On 12/23/2011 10:45 AM, Arny Krueger wrote: Squealing tape sounds an awful lot like sticky shed. You might want to bake one and see what happens before you drop the big bucks on what could be an ineffective approach. Tape baking recopies are all over the web. There are people who post here who have been there and done that and obtained good results. Is there any evidence that cassette manufacturers ever used the Ampex or Scotch tape formulation that exhibited SSS? Scott has probably nailed the problem on my current set. The tape has lost its lubrication. They were duplicated in 1976. I have never seen a cassette that was backcoated or actually had real sticky shed, nor has Mr. Hess. That doesn't mean that there isn't some out there from some weird Nigerian cassette factory somewhere, though. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#33
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Cassette Decks
Perhaps the best feature was the dual-capstan asymmetrical drive,
which was invented by an Austrian camera manufacturer. (Can't think of the name.) It audibly reduced sideband noise -- you could definitely hear the difference. Tapes were quieter, even though the conventional S/N ratio showed no improvement. Eumig? Yes, thanks. They had a machine with it a few months before Nakamichi. A number of machines have actually used the dual-capstan drive over the years, but it's difficult to do well. Not dual-capstan -- asymmetrical dual-capstan. I don't think anyone but Nakamichi and Eumig used it. |
#34
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Cassette Decks
On 12/23/2011 11:48 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
In article , mcp6453 wrote: On 12/23/2011 10:45 AM, Arny Krueger wrote: Squealing tape sounds an awful lot like sticky shed. You might want to bake one and see what happens before you drop the big bucks on what could be an ineffective approach. Tape baking recopies are all over the web. There are people who post here who have been there and done that and obtained good results. Is there any evidence that cassette manufacturers ever used the Ampex or Scotch tape formulation that exhibited SSS? Scott has probably nailed the problem on my current set. The tape has lost its lubrication. They were duplicated in 1976. I have never seen a cassette that was backcoated or actually had real sticky shed, nor has Mr. Hess. That doesn't mean that there isn't some out there from some weird Nigerian cassette factory somewhere, though. --scott I meant to ask before. Is there any way to "re-lubricate" or rejuvenate the lubrication on the tape? You mentioned something about pellon fabric. What would I do with that fabric? |
#35
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Cassette Decks
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message ... You can't do anything about the flutter ... of the original recorder. http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=capstan "With Capstan there is now for the first time a program capable of removing wow and flutter from musical recordings - whether on tape, compact cassette, wax, shellac or vinyl. Capstan detects wow and flutter by analyzing the musical material itself, so the medium is of no relevance. In this, Capstan is clearly superior to solutions such as bias tracking, because Capstan still works even if the tape has already been copied several times or digitized only in low resolution. " Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqpMmDkLzWw |
#36
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Cassette Decks
Arny Krueger wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message ... You can't do anything about the flutter ... of the original recorder. http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=capstan "With Capstan there is now for the first time a program capable of removing wow and flutter from musical recordings - whether on tape, compact cassette, wax, shellac or vinyl. Capstan detects wow and flutter by analyzing the musical material itself, so the medium is of no relevance. In this, Capstan is clearly superior to solutions such as bias tracking, because Capstan still works even if the tape has already been copied several times or digitized only in low resolution. " Yes. I was less than impressed with this process. On the other hand, the Plangent system is pretty amazing. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#37
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Cassette Decks
I have a Nak MR-1, and couldn't imagine life without it!
Arny Krueger wrote: : As a rule, commercially duplicated cassette tapes sounded worse than : tapes made at home, even tapes made on average home machines. That's generally true. Although weren't there some decent classical tapes produced? |
#38
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Cassette Decks
mcp6453 wrote:
I meant to ask before. Is there any way to "re-lubricate" or rejuvenate the lubrication on the tape? You mentioned something about pellon fabric. What would I do with that fabric? Fast forward and rewind the tape across it. Hess mentions it in that article. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#39
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Cassette Decks
wrote:
I have a Nak MR-1, and couldn't imagine life without it! Arny Krueger wrote: : As a rule, commercially duplicated cassette tapes sounded worse than : tapes made at home, even tapes made on average home machines. That's generally true. Although weren't there some decent classical tapes produced? We tried. We tried really hard, doing realtime duplication (and not with those awful Kaba machines either) as well as trying to do bin mastering at lower speeds. We tried all kinds of fancy shells and gadgets that were supposed to keep the azimuth from drifting and we went crazy trying to keep duplicator slaves aligned. I don't miss those days at all. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#40
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Cassette Decks
wrote in message
... Arny Krueger wrote: As a rule, commercially duplicated cassette tapes sounded worse than tapes made at home, even tapes made on average home machines. That's generally true. Although weren't there some decent classical tapes produced? Sure. Advent was the first to do so. I have a Vanguard PDQ Bach cassette that has much cleaner sound than the LP. |
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