dave weil wrote:
On Mon, 3 May 2004 11:03:54 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

dave weil wrote:
On Mon, 3 May 2004 09:57:12 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

I used a fresh Maxell XL-II tape. I recorded with Dolby B NR, as
this was more-or-less the defacto standard for cassette
recordings.

That's a mistake. Dolby C is much better.

How many commercial Dolby-C prerecorded cassettes do you have?

I don't think that *anyone*, at least anyone around here, has ever
claimed that commercial cassettes were anything other than barely
acceptable in quality, just above 8 tracks in terms of sonics.

Agreed.

That's why I was surprised that you introduced that issue.

Which issue?

Also, I
don't think it was really clear that you were indicting
commercially-recorded cassettes. It looked to me that you were
indicting the entire format.

I don't think that there is any need to indict cassettes of any kind. They
are what they are - an obsolete, legacy format like 78's and 8-tracks.

I don't have a problem with the concept
that cassettes are distinguishable for digital. I *do* have a problem
with the implication that this makes it an "inferior" format.

I don't think that there should be any controversy over the idea that the
compact cassette is one of the worst sonic abortions that was imposed on the
audio world, particularly given that it was imposed in a context where we
had other readily-available forms of media ( 7.5 ips open reel tape, vinyl)
that performed and sounded better. Cassettes are that convenience-driven
generally worse-sounding media that some mislead people claim that CDs are.

I'm not
all that interested in rehashing this issue though, since it boils
down to personal preference.

How someone could say they generally prefer the sound of cassettes over
7.5 ips open reel tape, vinyl or any of the better digital formats escapes
me. Yes, I've heard some cassettes whose sound I preferred to that of a CD
with the same music on it, especially in a certain circumstance. But, that's
about the particulars, not any meaningful generality.

However, in the day of, Dolby-C was a bit controversial. It put a
bigger premium on good gain tracking because it involved the use of
more compression and expansion. Gain tracking is a big problem with
cassettes. Dolby tried to address this problem, but some listeners
disagreed with Dolby's claims about how effective their technology
was. The good news is that we don't have to worry about this kind of
thing any more, except with legacy recorded material.

Yes, and I guess it's just as controversial today that some people
find well-recorded cassettes perfectly acceptable and, in some cases,
preferable to digital.

Let's not confuse the basic properties of formats with the characteristics
of specific examples of each. A preference for the sound of a certain
cassette over a CD with the same basic music on it, should not be
interpreted in terms of the general properties of the respective formats,
because there are so many other very strong relevant variables, such as
mixing and mastering.