[[email protected]]

Has anyone had lots of experience with transferring large numbers of
cassettes (we're talking 500-1000) to CD or MP3? I am contemplating
this project as my collection is rather large, and the Plusdeck 2C
looks like it could make it easier. However my main concerns would be,
if you are xferring many many cassettes (which would be the case for
me) how easy is it to degauss & clean the heads / rollers / etc. I
don't suppose it has glass heads like the high end reel-reels in the
60s? (yeah right) My main fear is after a couple hundred transfers or
so the unit will begin to eat tapes. Also how good are the actual
audio components? How often will you need to degauss/clean it and
where can you get good cleaner cassettes (Radio Shack sells them but
they are expensive) or is it better to use old fashioned Q-tips and
Tascam head cleaner & rubber cleaner solutions (which I still have a
couple bottles of)? It looks like a car cassette deck, so getting
inside with Q-tips doesn't look like an option. Still I am intrigued
at the idea of being able to install a unit like this on a PC at work
and digitize cassettes in the background while earning a living. But
if the recordings aren't preserved to the best sound quality possible
(after all, cassettes need all the help they can get) or the unit
begins eating tapes, maybe it's better to pursue another solution
(such as using a full sized component deck). Any advice would be most
appreciated.

http://www.plusdeck.com/

http://products.howstuffworks.com/bt...eck-review.htm

http://www.mobilewhack.com/reviews/p...converter.html

http://www.pcstats.com/NewsView.cfm?NewsID=57801

http://www.frequencycast.co.uk/plusdeck.html

http://www.worshipmusic.com/plusdeck2c.html

http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Perip...usdeck-Review/

http://www.thinkcomputers.org/index....reviews&id=403

http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20060815/plusdeck-2c/

http://www.firebox.com/product/1700

http://www.bizrate.com/miscellaneous/oid595834129.html

http://www.amazon.com/Meritline-DIGI.../dp/B000CSGIJW

http://www.amazon.com/PC-Cassette-De.../dp/B000OT9L98

http://www.discountcomputerwarehouse...p3-p-4375.html

http://www.ipodsuperstore.net/search...P3/per_page=25

http://www.ipodsuperstore.net/buy.ph...P3/v=Geeks.com

http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/search/cassette+to+usb

http://stuff.tv/news/gadget-of-the-d...c/default.aspx

http://www.techzine.nl/exreviews/907...k-at-Ocia.html

http://pricemagician.wordpress.com/

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7597_102...geID=212847 2

http://www.gadgetell.com/2006/03/pop...-into-your-pc/

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/53469/

http://www.pcper.com/news.php?page=6&s=14

http://www.texxors.com/2007/08/01/co...assette-tapes/

http://pricemagician.wordpress.com/2...cassette-deck/

http://fillserv.com/cic/product.php?...nverter&ref=BR

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Revie...ck2/index.html

http://www.gadgetell.com/wp-print.php?p=989

[Scott Dorsey]

It's a cheesy car-style transport that mounts in a computer. It is not
a good way to get decent sound quality and it is not going to hold up to
heavy use.

Just go the Nak Dragon route. Your time will be radically saved because
you won't be having to redo anything, and the azimuth control is automatic
so you can do the work more or less unattended. Run it for a thousand hours
and you might need to replace the heads but that's just a normal thing.

Yoou do NOT use cleaner cassettes, you use the "Head, Red and Roll cleaner"
from Precision Motor works or something similar and a swab. And you do it
after every reel change. You can use 92% isopropanol in a pinch but it takes
a lot more elbow grease.

Don't waste your money on crap. Get a good deck either with manual or
automatic azimuth control.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[[email protected]]

Thanks for your reply.
How important is azimuth control?
Are all cleaner cassettes bad? Are there any good ones?
What is the best degausser?

On Aug 7, 2:41 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
It's a cheesy car-style transport that mounts in a computer. It is not
a good way to get decent sound quality and it is not going to hold up to
heavy use.

Just go the Nak Dragon route. Your time will be radically saved because
you won't be having to redo anything, and the azimuth control is automatic
so you can do the work more or less unattended. Run it for a thousand hours
and you might need to replace the heads but that's just a normal thing.

Yoou do NOT use cleaner cassettes, you use the "Head, Red and Roll cleaner"
from Precision Motor works or something similar and a swab. And you do it
after every reel change. You can use 92% isopropanol in a pinch but it takes
a lot more elbow grease.

Don't waste your money on crap. Get a good deck either with manual or
automatic azimuth control.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
How important is azimuth control?

It's critical. Because azimuth stability on the cassette is so awful, you
will need to adjust azimuth for every cassette, or let the automatic device
do it for you. Otherwise you will either have no high end on half the
tapes you find, or it will wander in and out.

Note that if you have a thousand tapes, you should expect to find at least
a few dozen that need to be transplanted into new shells or at least have
the pressure pad replaced. Get a box of fifty SHAPE shells to have around
for the job.

Are all cleaner cassettes bad? Are there any good ones?

Well, none of them clean the whole path, and they are more trouble than just
doing it with a swab.

What is the best degausser?

You don't need one. If you _really_ want one, get the Annis Han-D-Mag with
the magnetometer, which allows you to measure remnant flux so you only wind
up demagnetizing when it's necessary. But with a proper transport, you should
not have any magnetic metals anywhere near the tape except in the head. The
erase and record heads get demagnetized when you use them, and the playback
head should not easily be magnetized. Note that the Annis today costs more
than most cassette decks.

Most people do more harm than good with a degaussing wand.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[[email protected]]

Wow, I never knew that azimuth stability was such a problem with
cassettes. Thanks so much for pointing that out.

How do you know how to adjust the azimuth - or how would a device know
what the correct setting is? Is there some fail safe way to tell, or
do you have to use your own ears?

Thanks again.

On Aug 7, 3:36 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
How important is azimuth control?

It's critical. Because azimuth stability on the cassette is so awful, you
will need to adjust azimuth for every cassette, or let the automatic device
do it for you. Otherwise you will either have no high end on half the
tapes you find, or it will wander in and out.

Note that if you have a thousand tapes, you should expect to find at least
a few dozen that need to be transplanted into new shells or at least have
the pressure pad replaced. Get a box of fifty SHAPE shells to have around
for the job.

Are all cleaner cassettes bad? Are there any good ones?

Well, none of them clean the whole path, and they are more trouble than just
doing it with a swab.

What is the best degausser?

You don't need one. If you _really_ want one, get the Annis Han-D-Mag with
the magnetometer, which allows you to measure remnant flux so you only wind
up demagnetizing when it's necessary. But with a proper transport, you should
not have any magnetic metals anywhere near the tape except in the head. The
erase and record heads get demagnetized when you use them, and the playback
head should not easily be magnetized. Note that the Annis today costs more
than most cassette decks.

Most people do more harm than good with a degaussing wand.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

On Aug 7, 5:55 pm, wrote:

How do you know how to adjust the azimuth - or how would a device know
what the correct setting is? Is there some fail safe way to tell, or
do you have to use your own ears?

You got it! On the bench, you can use a test cassette and an
oscilloscope but when ajusting the deck to match an already recorded
tape, your ears are the best guide. It's pretty apparent when you have
it right, or at least close enough. For routine transfers just for
fun, you can probalby get away with adjusting it once, but to to a
really good job, you need to listen continuously and when you hear it
getting off, stop the tape, stop the recording, re-adjust the azimuth,
continue the copying, and then edit the pieces together.

The automatic adjustment looks at phase difference between the
channels and drives a motor which adjusts the head.

[Richard Crowley]

wrote ...
Wow, I never knew that azimuth stability was such a problem with
cassettes. Thanks so much for pointing that out.

That and the low tape speed were primary deficiencies
of the format.

How do you know how to adjust the azimuth -

"Tune" for maximum high-frequency response.

or how would a device know
what the correct setting is?

It adjusts for maximum HF response. In much the
same way that an "auto focus" camera does.

Is there some fail safe way to tell, or
do you have to use your own ears?

Depends on what you have available to do the job.
Your ears are the minimum requirement. You can't
tell when you have optimum adjustment without some
way of monitoring.

[[email protected]]

On Aug 7, 5:55 pm, wrote:
Wow, I never knew that azimuth stability was such a problem with
cassettes. Thanks so much for pointing that out.

How do you know how to adjust the azimuth - or how would a device know
what the correct setting is? Is there some fail safe way to tell, or
do you have to use your own ears?

Thanks again.

On Aug 7, 3:36 pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

wrote:
Thanks for your reply.
How important is azimuth control?

It's critical. Because azimuth stability on the cassette is so awful, you
will need to adjust azimuth for every cassette, or let the automatic device
do it for you. Otherwise you will either have no high end on half the
tapes you find, or it will wander in and out.

Note that if you have a thousand tapes, you should expect to find at least
a few dozen that need to be transplanted into new shells or at least have
the pressure pad replaced. Get a box of fifty SHAPE shells to have around
for the job.

Are all cleaner cassettes bad? Are there any good ones?

Well, none of them clean the whole path, and they are more trouble than just
doing it with a swab.

What is the best degausser?

You don't need one. If you _really_ want one, get the Annis Han-D-Mag with
the magnetometer, which allows you to measure remnant flux so you only wind
up demagnetizing when it's necessary. But with a proper transport, you should
not have any magnetic metals anywhere near the tape except in the head. The
erase and record heads get demagnetized when you use them, and the playback
head should not easily be magnetized. Note that the Annis today costs more
than most cassette decks.

Most people do more harm than good with a degaussing wand.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

here are two nakamichi decks with azimuth controls listed with
AudiogoN
nak DR1 http://tinyurl.com/2rv2rd
nak CR7A http://tinyurl.com/34tb7g

[William Sommerwerck]

The automatic adjustment looks at phase difference between
the channels and drives a motor which adjusts the head.

Actually, that isn't the way it works. As the phase between the channels of
a stereo recording has no necessary standard or fixed relationship, it's not
a useful way to set azimuth.

In the Nakamichi, the outermost track (the one closest to the tape edge) is
split into two head gaps, each with its own amplification. The head block is
moved until the HF output of these heads peaks. (Or is it that the phase
difference is minimized?) Anyhow...

[Arny Krueger]

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
. ..
The automatic adjustment looks at phase difference between
the channels and drives a motor which adjusts the head.

Actually, that isn't the way it works. As the phase between the channels
of
a stereo recording has no necessary standard or fixed relationship, it's
not
a useful way to set azimuth.

In the Nakamichi, the outermost track (the one closest to the tape edge)
is
split into two head gaps, each with its own amplification. The head block
is
moved until the HF output of these heads peaks. (Or is it that the phase
difference is minimized?) Anyhow...

I'd put my money on nulling based on minimizing the phase difference. It is
going to work well with less regard for program material HF content.

We had circuits like this in the missile systems I worked on in the Army.
They did a really good job of getting missiles to collide with airplanes,
radar receivers to ignore ground clutter, and transmitters to have minimal
RF noise on their carrier.

[Arny Krueger]

wrote in message
oups.com...

Wow, I never knew that azimuth stability was such a problem with
cassettes.

Its a very major problem, exasperated by the low tape speed.


How do you know how to adjust the azimuth - or how would a device know
what the correct setting is? Is there some fail safe way to tell, or
do you have to use your own ears?

The best way to adjust azimuth is to have a mono test tape, and adjust the
azimuth until tape heads tracking the top and bottom edges of the recorded
track reproduce waves with identical timing.

William's story about tape heads that split one of the tracks on the
cassette is very believable. It turned every track into a mono track by
having two narrow heads that split the track. The narrowness of each head
would hurt its dynamic range, but summing them together to create an
output signal would eliminate that problem.

[William Sommerwerck]

I'd put my money on nulling based on minimizing the phase difference.
It is going to work well with less regard for program material HF content.

You're almost certainly right. The operative adjective is "less" -- I've
noticed that tapes without much HF content just don't want to "align".

[William Sommerwerck]

William's story about tape heads that split one of the tracks on the
cassette is very believable.

I checked the Dragon service manual and confirmed this is the way it works.
However, if my life depended on explaining the details of the electronics,
I'd be dead pretty quickly.

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:
Wow, I never knew that azimuth stability was such a problem with
cassettes. Thanks so much for pointing that out.

Azimuth stability and speed variations are the main reasons for the cassette
being such a miserable format. Oh yes... and no reference tones for Dolby
decoding either (although some early cassette machines did have the ability
to lay down tones).

How do you know how to adjust the azimuth - or how would a device know
what the correct setting is? Is there some fail safe way to tell, or
do you have to use your own ears?

You have to use your own ears and peak for best high end. A scope can be
very helpful for mono material but only a rough guide for stereo material.
And the problem is that it drifts... the right angle at the beginning of
the reel may be way off by the end of the reel. God, how I hate cassettes.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Mike Rivers wrote:

The automatic adjustment looks at phase difference between the
channels and drives a motor which adjusts the head.

In order to do this, though, it has two or more channels for each channel
on the tape, so it can look at two halves of one track to determine the
angular error. This makes the automatic azimuth machines electronically
a good bit more complex.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
William's story about tape heads that split one of the tracks on the
cassette is very believable.

I checked the Dragon service manual and confirmed this is the way it works.
However, if my life depended on explaining the details of the electronics,
I'd be dead pretty quickly.

I dunno if the Dragon uses the 4016 PLL chip as a discriminator, but that
used to be a common way to do that sort of thing. The data sheet for the
4016 explains it all.

And yes, the whole notion of PLL discriminator circuits came out of the WWII
radar effort. Some of Norbert Weiner's math went into them, but lots of
other guys helped.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

On Aug 7, 7:03 pm, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

In the Nakamichi, the outermost track (the one closest to the tape edge) is
split into two head gaps, each with its own amplification. The head block is
moved until the HF output of these heads peaks. (Or is it that the phase
difference is minimized?) Anyhow...

Anyhow . . . like I said, the phase. That's easier to detect (and
closer to absolute) than the HF peak.

[Mike Rivers]

On Aug 7, 7:11 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

The best way to adjust azimuth is to have a mono test tape, and adjust the
azimuth until tape heads tracking the top and bottom edges of the recorded
track reproduce waves with identical timing.

That's the best way to adjust it to a standard, but the cassettes to
be played may not have been recorded with the heads set to that
standard. And the real problem is with instability of the tape
relative to the head, both when recorded and again when played.

For a "better than random" setup, making one adjustment before playing
a tape is probably sufficient, but it should be done for each tape.

[Paul MR]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
It's a cheesy car-style transport that mounts in a computer. It is not
a good way to get decent sound quality and it is not going to hold up to
heavy use.

Just go the Nak Dragon route. Your time will be radically saved because
you won't be having to redo anything, and the azimuth control is automatic
so you can do the work more or less unattended. Run it for a thousand hours
and you might need to replace the heads but that's just a normal thing.

Yoou do NOT use cleaner cassettes, you use the "Head, Red and Roll cleaner"
from Precision Motor works or something similar and a swab. And you do it
after every reel change. You can use 92% isopropanol in a pinch but it takes
a lot more elbow grease.

Don't waste your money on crap. Get a good deck either with manual or
automatic azimuth control.
--scott

Indeed, the Dragon was an exceedingly high-end consumer machine. But it
is expensive overkill for most people's old cassette collections. This
is especially true for most commercially recorded cassettes, which were
duplicated at high speed on tape stock that was run-of-the-mill or worse.

Paul in San Francisco

[Scott Dorsey]

Paul MR wrote:
Indeed, the Dragon was an exceedingly high-end consumer machine. But it
is expensive overkill for most people's old cassette collections. This
is especially true for most commercially recorded cassettes, which were
duplicated at high speed on tape stock that was run-of-the-mill or worse.

The problem is that the high speed duplication tended to produce even worse
azimuth wander, and too many of those bin duplicators were run by sloppy
folks who were not careful about alignment. This, sadly, increases the
expense on your end when you're trying to get decent sound out of the junk.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Arny Krueger]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Aug 7, 7:11 pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:

The best way to adjust azimuth is to have a mono test tape, and adjust
the
azimuth until tape heads tracking the top and bottom edges of the
recorded
track reproduce waves with identical timing.

That's the best way to adjust it to a standard, but the cassettes to
be played may not have been recorded with the heads set to that
standard.

Right. Since these are cassettes, the demands for precision are high due to
the slow speed, but the hardware is inherently sloppy.

And the real problem is with instability of the tape
relative to the head, both when recorded and again when played.

That's one reason why a system like the Nak's, that adjusted the azimuth on
the fly as needed, could improve sound quality so much.

For a "better than random" setup, making one adjustment before playing
a tape is probably sufficient, but it should be done for each tape.

In an ideal world there would be some test tones recorded at the beginning
and end of the tape, and between every musical selection.

[Mike Rivers]

On Aug 7, 9:24 pm, Paul MR wrote:

Indeed, the Dragon was an exceedingly high-end consumer machine. But it
is expensive overkill for most people's old cassette collections.

It depends. If you're really going to transfer 1000 cassettes, you
must really care about preserving that collection, and anything that
will make the copies better with less effort surely is worth an
investment of what amounts to about an extra buck a tape by the time
you get the Dragon and a good tune-up job. If you were to have the
collection transferred even semi-professionally, it would probably
cost $25 or more per tape, a $24,000 saving.

[[email protected]]

Well, recently I got a preamp for my turntable and a new needle, and
have been buying a lot of vinyl lately of music I used to like in my
youth that I only had on cassette, and recording records directly to
digital. It's nice having the actual record to enjoy the art /etc,
even if the music itself is just an mp3 file. However I am finding a
lot of these records, especially the ones on independent labels, are
out of print or never came out on CD, and cost quite a bit on eBay. So
I went back to my tape collection. Yeah I do really care about
preserving my collection, I'm an avid record collector.

It depends. If you're really going to transfer 1000 cassettes, you
must really care about preserving that collection, and anything that
will make the copies better with less effort surely is worth an
investment of what amounts to about an extra buck a tape by the time
you get the Dragon and a good tune-up job. If you were to have the
collection transferred even semi-professionally, it would probably
cost $25 or more per tape, a $24,000 saving.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Has anyone had lots of experience with transferring large numbers of
cassettes (we're talking 500-1000) to CD or MP3? [snip]

Yes. I've had a lot of experience doing that. I wouldn't recommend it
unless the only alternative is to buy a new CD. If you feel that you
absolutely must have a CD copy of a cassette, and the material is out of
print, then use the same tape deck you made the original cassette on as the
source and make a .wav file of it on your computer.

But honestly, I wouldn't bother if there's a commercial CD available.

Norm Strong

[dizzy]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Just go the Nak Dragon route.

Might be a bit extreme.

Just going to a 3-head deck makes an immense improvement...

[William Sommerwerck]

Just go the Nak Dragon route.

Might be a bit extreme.
Just going to a 3-head deck makes
an immense improvement...

There are two excellent reasons for using a Dragon. First, Nakamichi
playback heads tend to have more HF output than other manufacturers' heads.
This introduces its own set of problems, but it means you might get a better
transfer of a worn or dull-sounding tape. Second, the asymmetrical
diffused-resonance transport produces significantly lower audible modulation
noise.

[Scott Dorsey]

dizzy wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

Just go the Nak Dragon route.

Might be a bit extreme.

Try it.

Just going to a 3-head deck makes an immense improvement...

3-head design is a given. If it's not a 3-head deck, it's nearly impossible
even to get the record alignment right.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[pinksky459]

On Aug 7, 3:08 pm, Mike Rivers wrote:
On Aug 7, 5:55 pm, wrote:

How do you know how to adjust the azimuth - or how would a device know
what the correct setting is? Is there some fail safe way to tell, or
do you have to use your own ears?

You got it! On the bench, you can use a test cassette and an
oscilloscope but when ajusting the deck to match an already recorded
tape, your ears are the best guide. It's pretty apparent when you have
it right, or at least close enough. For routine transfers just for
fun, you can probalby get away with adjusting it once, but to to a
really good job, you need to listen continuously and when you hear it
getting off, stop the tape, stop the recording, re-adjust the azimuth,
continue the copying, and then edit the pieces together.

The automatic adjustment looks at phase difference between the
channels and drives a motor which adjusts the head.


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