I am conveting a lot of my cassettes to CD's. My computer has a
Turtle Beach card, and the deck I am using for cassettes is a
Nakamichi 700 Tri-Tracer. While trying to clean up the digitized
track, I realized there was not any hiss to hear. Maybe I do not hear
it becuase the computer speakers (and my normal speakers) are not
exactly audiophile quality. But still I could hear the hiss from the
previous low-end BX-100 Nak, as well as from boom boxes. Is Nak 700
Tri-Tracer of such good quality that there isn't any hiss? or I am
just missing it? Or is it my speakers?

Also, given that I cannot hear any hiss, should I still use noise
(hiss) correcting steps in the audio program (Audacity, in my case)?

Regards.
-Surinder

In , on 12/11/03
at 04:46 PM, (SPS22) said:

I am conveting a lot of my cassettes to CD's. My computer has a
Turtle Beach card, and the deck I am using for cassettes is a
Nakamichi 700 Tri-Tracer. While trying to clean up the digitized
track, I realized there was not any hiss to hear. Maybe I do not hear
it becuase the computer speakers (and my normal speakers) are not
exactly audiophile quality. But still I could hear the hiss from the
previous low-end BX-100 Nak, as well as from boom boxes. Is Nak 700
Tri-Tracer of such good quality that there isn't any hiss? or I am
just missing it? Or is it my speakers?

That Nak 700 is old enough that you may have a loss of high end
somewhere in the playback section. Without some sort of noise reduction
box, there is no such thing as a cassette deck without hiss.

If you turn off the Dolby on both decks and play a blank tape, the
noise levels should be similar when using the same amplifier and
speakers. Start with a new, unrecorded cassette (or one that has been
bulk erased). Record a short tone (one is available on the 700) at the
beginning of the tape so that you can adjust the amplifier for the same
output from the tape on both machines. Be sure to set both machines for
the same type of tape.

Don't expect the noise to be exactly the same, but if one machine is
absolutely quiet and the other is not, some alarms should go off. My
bet is that the silent machine has the problem.

Also, given that I cannot hear any hiss, should I still use noise
(hiss) correcting steps in the audio program (Audacity, in my case)?

Using noise reduction is a judgement call because there are always side
effects. If you aggressively remove noise, some signal will go with it.
You must decide what is best for you. Each tape will require tweaking
of your strategy. Be prepared for an "expert" friend to listen to your
results and claim that you did it all wrong -- it's all part of the
audio game. At that point you should thank them for their opinion and
suggest that the friend make their own CD's.

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