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Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc.

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Old 7th Dec 2022, 11:42 pm   #141
jamesperrett
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

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Just read through the whole thread, but didn't see any mention of Dolby C. My last Walkman (an Akai actually) and decent tape deck (can't remember the make) both had Dolby C, which I think came out after CDs were available. Does it have any benefits over Dolby B? The fancy decks all sported DBX instead.
Dolby C gave more noise reduction than B and tried to overcome some of the limitations of B. It worked fairly well when properly aligned. The ultimate domestic noise reduction was probably Dolby S which came out around 1990 and initial encoders/decoders used six Dolby chips instead of the single chip needed for Dolby C. They later developed a single chip for Dolby S.

DBX had its drawbacks - in particular the noise modulation was fairly obvious.
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Old 8th Dec 2022, 10:55 am   #142
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Thanks for the explanation. Yes, Dolby S, I had forgotten about that one, that was what was usually offered on the all singing all dancing players at the end.

It is a bit sad when a format is elevated from something as basic as a dictation media, into a refined, true HiFi format, then just ends.

There was some comments about DAT earlier in the thread, and the implication was that DAT does not count because it was not a mainstream HiFi recording format, but that was a deliberate ploy by the owners of the recorded media, who were frightened about their future revenue streams if DAT had taken off (as it no doubt would have done).

I read that Sony bought Bertelsman Media Group just so that it had a stake in the technology AND the media to be played on the technology. It was because it could not get the music titles onto its new formats, that formats had been killed off (e.g. Mini Discs).

So the story of cassette tape is somehow linked to the power struggle between the 'majors' who own the content, and the technical brilliance of the technology suppliers who were democratising the distribution of content, maybe unwittingly.
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Old 8th Dec 2022, 1:17 pm   #143
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

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Just read through the whole thread, but didn't see any mention of Dolby C. My last Walkman (an Akai actually) and decent tape deck (can't remember the make) both had Dolby C, which I think came out after CDs were available. Does it have any benefits over Dolby B? The fancy decks all sported DBX instead.
When it works, Dolby C is a significant improvement over Dolby B in terms of S/N ratio. However, if the record and replay deck/heads are not pretty much exactly aligned with each other then Dolby C fails and starts "pumping" distorted sounds.

Case in point, I recorded a lovely David Bowie gig live from BBC Radio in 1990 on an Onkyo deck with Dolby C. When I upgraded to a Nakamichi a couple of years later it never played that cassette back properly and I had to play it without Dolby engaged - which introduces it's own distortion....but was better than trying with Dolby C. A later Yamaha purchase was the same....but in 2015 I got hold of another Nakamichi deck which is perfectly aligned compared to the original Onkyo and that tape plays like the original radio broadcast.

Dolby B was more forgiving when played back on a different deck than that used to reocrd, and also more forgiving played back without any Dolby. Hence it became the standard for most pre-recorded cassettes, portable players and preferred by most home users who had more than one machine.

Dolby S was indeed better in all respects and played OK with Dolby B or no Dolby engaged....but probably came along too late to make that much of an impact.
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Old 8th Dec 2022, 1:28 pm   #144
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So the story of cassette tape is somehow linked to the power struggle between the 'majors' who own the content, and the technical brilliance of the technology suppliers who were democratising the distribution of content, maybe unwittingly.
The cassette tape's time as a mainstream format ended because cars and walkmen moved to CD media. The decline was hastened by blank CDs becoming cheaper than good quality cassettes too.

While there is no doubt that the record companies were scared of a format like DAT, which effectively permitted near perfect copies of a CD or vinyl record, they failed to foresee the CD-R and associated computer drives meaning one could make a literal copy of a CD in three minutes.
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Old 8th Dec 2022, 11:44 pm   #145
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

I remember being impressed when a friend mentioned about CD ripping & burning for the first time in the late 1990s, & that the entire Beatles back catalogue could fit onto a single CD when converted to MP3 files.
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Old 9th Dec 2022, 3:03 am   #146
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Dolby C gave more noise reduction than B and tried to overcome some of the limitations of B.
Yes Dolby Labs limited the encoder and decoder's sphere of action to below 10 kHz, meaning no NR above 10 kHz (human hearing is increasingly insensitive to the spectrum above about 4 kHz).

They also required tighter mechanical alignment specs on manufacturers' decks, knowing how small misalignments could play havoc with the Dolby tracking.
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Old 9th Dec 2022, 12:09 pm   #147
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

As I have said elsewhere on this thread, I am one of those people who avoided Dolby and still do. This is largely down to not understanding how it worked and how to get the best from it. Now I try it and, to my ears, I just like non-Dolby'd recordings I make.

So my question is whether there was much done at the time to increase understanding of Dolby amongst the tape-buying general public?

I suspect many will have either used it when recording as it was an option but not understood its benefits, used it (or not used it) accidentally when the button was selected and not known, or felt they should use it but preferred the sound of recordings without it (I was in that camp).

I am talking about the general public here rather than those on this thread who know what they are doing.
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Old 9th Dec 2022, 1:14 pm   #148
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As I have said elsewhere on this thread, I am one of those people who avoided Dolby and still do. This is largely down to not understanding how it worked and how to get the best from it. Now I try it and, to my ears, I just like non-Dolby'd recordings I make.

So my question is whether there was much done at the time to increase understanding of Dolby amongst the tape-buying general public?

I suspect many will have either used it when recording as it was an option but not understood its benefits, used it (or not used it) accidentally when the button was selected and not known, or felt they should use it but preferred the sound of recordings without it (I was in that camp).

I am talking about the general public here rather than those on this thread who know what they are doing.
The principals behind Dolby NR were often printed in the instruction manuals....but I suspect many users never bothered to read them. I recall reading in user manuals about what Dolby does, how it achieves it and how to get the best from it.

These were the days when user manuals were written in actual words, not pictograms, and included full specifications for the unit and sometimes even a circuit diagram should the end user wish to conduct fault finding. As the 1980s progressed, manuals became reduced to merely instructing people how to operate the most basic functions and the "specifications" gradually became limited to physical dimensions and weight....save for higher end gear.

Nevertheless, the info was out there. Manuals also tended to give tips on basic recording technique, where to set the levels for types I, II, IV. Again, cassettes found in the wild suggest people ignored this advice.
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Old 9th Dec 2022, 2:22 pm   #149
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

I agree, although I think the first time I read a manual properly was when I got my Yamaha deck from a forum member a couple of years ago
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Old 10th Dec 2022, 3:41 am   #150
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Dolby certainly wasnt a cake walk, and many people who cared about the sound quality avoided it altogether, but problems could be minimised if users read the manual and stuck to the recommended cassette types for which the deck was (hopefully) factory aligned. Then set bias and EQ switches as recommended for that tape.

Understanding how the system works is great for those who can, but for most people, following the deck manufacturers' recommendations was not a bad start.
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Old 10th Dec 2022, 11:55 am   #151
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Ray Dolby became the audio industry's first billionaire, yet the system which carries his name - in my experience - was only ever consciously used by the sort of people who read hifi magazines. Every OEM implemented it, but maybe fewer than 1/10 who used cassettes actually searched out the Dolby button and applied it. I can't ever recall my parents mentioning it, and they had copious amounts of cassettes.

And while we're here: Dolby HX Pro is NOT noise reduction (no one's claimed it to be so far, but I thought preemptively I'd head it off -)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_...m#Dolby_HX_Pro
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Old 10th Dec 2022, 12:33 pm   #152
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I remember my Dad explaining the Dolby system was to reduce the tape hiss.
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Old 10th Dec 2022, 4:28 pm   #153
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More than anything, though, the Dolby system enabled an increase in s/n ratio to the point where the cassette system became viable as a hi fi medium, driving improvements in deck, head and tape design to bring distortion, wobble and instability to low levels. It can't be denied that the package on offer by the mid seventies was impressive - ferrite heads, dual capstan transports, cobalt-modified oxides and so on. True, it needed careful setting up and maintenance, but the results were very good. Pre-recorded tapes were another matter, unfortunately.
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Old 10th Dec 2022, 7:23 pm   #154
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I was born in 1982 and cassettes were the only sensible portable media when I was younger. I don't really use it nowadays except for a few old cassettes I have in my likewise old car and that is more for the fun of it than any rational reason.

Audio cassettes is often poked fun at nowadays which I don't think is fair. It was a marvellous systems for it's time. To be able to bring your music everywhere and to be able to choose the repertoire yourself may be taken for granted now but that hasn't always been the case. The same can be said about video cassettes.

Unfortunately I believe many individuals opinions on cassette was based on their experiences from cheap cassettes and players in combination with no maintenance.

Regarding Dolby I don't think it was that well understood by the public, I guess many did like me when playing a tape - tried it with and without Dolby switched on and picked what sounded best. My idea of the Dolby button back then was that if you pressed it it just made the sound a bit muffled. In fact, playing a Dolby recorded tape without Dolby applied gave a treble boost that was benificial in noisy environments like cars.

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Old 10th Dec 2022, 7:42 pm   #155
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

I first started using cassettes in 1975, and the quality improvements around that time were amazing. I remember that early Sony decks around 1974 sounded awful with completely unacceptable noise levels, whereas by 1976 companies like Akai were making reasonably priced consumer decks that produced results almost indistinguishable from the vinyl sources they'd recorded from. Partly this was down to Dolby B, but the introduction of new formulations and quality control by TDK and Maxell made a huge difference.
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Old 11th Dec 2022, 12:29 am   #156
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In around the mid 1970's Teac produced the A450 cassette deck which at the time was one of the finest machines available and being quite well paid and single I bought one for £250, I still have it and it still sounds superb. In fact at one stage I actually had two, I used them mainly for producing cassettes for band members which I had recorded live using my Revox A77 (which I also still have) The Teac's couldn't match the Revox for quality but when I used it for background music it did then (and still does now) sound pretty good. Around 10 years ago whilst walking to my place of employment I happened upon a Teac V770 sitting in the street soaking wet, I picked it up and took it to work where it sat under the desk with the cover off drying out. A week or so later I took it home to discover that it's only faults were two broken belts, once these were replaced this machine sounded better than the A450 although nothing like as well made (the A450 is built like a tank). I still use both machines to play tapes made years ago rather than digitise them.
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Old 11th Dec 2022, 1:03 am   #157
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...by 1976 companies like Akai were making reasonably priced consumer decks that produced results almost indistinguishable from the vinyl sources they'd recorded from.
I acquired a second hand Akai GXC46D around this time and it wasn't half bad - decent wow and flutter, which was a weak point on earlier machines, and with Dolby B it gave good results. Must still have it somewhere...
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Old 11th Dec 2022, 11:13 am   #158
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Just read through the whole thread, but didn't see any mention of Dolby C. My last Walkman (an Akai actually) and decent tape deck (can't remember the make) both had Dolby C, which I think came out after CDs were available. Does it have any benefits over Dolby B? The fancy decks all sported DBX instead.
My AIWA AD-F660 (not currently working) has Dolby B,C and I never used C because although it did further reduce noise the sound was dull and not as bright as from Dolby B.
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Old 11th Dec 2022, 12:28 pm   #159
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By the time C was introduced, tapes had improved so much that noise reduction companding wasn't really necessary with most material. Most people continued to use B though, as they usually had existing tape collections recorded with B.

HX-Pro bias did make a big improvement when it became widely available though. It improved prerecorded cassette quality too.
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Old 12th Dec 2022, 12:56 pm   #160
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More than anything, though, the Dolby system enabled an increase in s/n ratio to the point where the cassette system became viable as a hi fi medium, driving improvements in deck, head and tape design to bring distortion, wobble and instability to low levels. It can't be denied that the package on offer by the mid seventies was impressive - ferrite heads, dual capstan transports, cobalt-modified oxides and so on. True, it needed careful setting up and maintenance, but the results were very good. Pre-recorded tapes were another matter, unfortunately.
I had some fun a few weeks back, where I made a recording of various LPs using low distortion MC cart to a Naka CR-7 + metal tape and Astell + Kern (expensive Ipod) @ 192K / 24-bit, in tandem at same time. I then level matched the o/p of the Naka and A+K player and flipped between them (using PMC monitors), to see if my mixing engineer friend (a pro with an enviable discog) could reliably discern between the Naka and the AK player. I used records that he supplied, so he knew the material. He couldn't reliably discern which was which (the records were big budget, with few quiet passages so as to spot the tape hiss and spoil the game). I thought it might embarrass him to find this out, as most pros think of cassette in the same way a Michelin chef views a doner kebab, but he was philosophical and admitted that it simply proved how much Naka managed to extract from the format.

* Neither of us felt 192K was needed or makes sense from an objective point of view. We used it simply as the AK recorder / player offered it, and it's what most golden-eared audiophiles will opt for, simply as the test was for fun. 192 / 24 spits out files so large that analogue tape starts to look like better value!
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