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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 13 Dec 2012, 01:33 
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my current tape deck has dolby b. no options for bias.
why is it tape decks and tapes read "dolby system", but are dolby b?
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 13 Mar 2013, 13:54 
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Because the default Dolby NR system is "B"

If it had Dolby C, it would more than likely say "Dolby B-C NR"
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 13 Mar 2013, 18:34 
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it's baffled me for years, how come cassettes say dolby system and not dolby b nr.
i prefer dolby b and s. dolby c is not compatable with dolby b nr
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 13 Mar 2013, 19:27 
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elieb wrote:
it's baffled me for years, how come cassettes say dolby system and not dolby b nr.
i prefer dolby b and s. dolby c is not compatable with dolby b nr

how many cassettes do you own James T. Mariokart?
:yawn: :yawn: :yawn: :yawn: :yawn:
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 13 Mar 2013, 21:23 
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well, i have 40. lost 25 over the years.
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 13 Mar 2013, 21:45 
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I have about 3000 :P

But I have also open reel tapes (various speeds and tracks), DCC, DAT, Minidisc, 8Track, Elcaset.

Cassettedecks that I have are 4 track 2 channel @ 4,8-9,5cm/s, 3 track 3 channel @ 4,8-9,5cm/s, 4 track 4 channel @ 4,8-9,5cm/s, 6 track 6 channel @ 9,5cm/s and 8 track 8 channel @ 9,5cm/s.

Most of them are Tascam :P
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 13 Mar 2013, 22:45 
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well, i have some 8 tracks.
still planning to buy a better tape deck.
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 14 Mar 2013, 02:14 
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i do NOT miss having tapes eaten by machines. VHS and K7s are the worst. discs RULE
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 14 Mar 2013, 03:12 
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elieb wrote:
well, i have some 8 tracks.
still planning to buy a better tape deck.

let me guess, in the next 2-3 years, and is it worth the risk :yawn:
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 14 Mar 2013, 03:13 
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tsak wrote:
i do NOT miss having tapes eaten by machines. VHS and K7s are the worst. discs RULE

now, i don't miss tapes either, and i had VHS back in 1984 to 1994 or around there.
but i've never had any tapes eaten by the decks, is that due to the fact that my father may have
bought better players? or were we just super lucky???
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 14 Mar 2013, 22:16 
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for sure worth the risk, there's still cassettes i have to buy. and a better tape deck while i'm at it.
can't forget about cleaning supplies (head cleaner, demagentizer, capstan cleaner etc)

i do NOT miss vcr's eating precious tapes or the tape deck eating a tape.
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 14 Mar 2013, 23:38 
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I never had a VCR or tapedeck that has eaten a tape....

Maybe good service... ?
Quality equipment and tapes?
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 15 Mar 2013, 00:07 
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integra wrote:
I never had a VCR or tapedeck that has eaten a tape....

Maybe good service... ?
Quality equipment and tapes?


you are lucky, i had a samsung that ate 30 of my favourite videos, and a jvc that ate 12. and that same jvc got shocked one day and ate my 1984 copy of doctor dolittle--the 1967 version.

lost 60-120 tapes due to my mom packing them up, and forgetting them in cold storage, probably no good now.
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 15 Mar 2013, 00:08 
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integra wrote:
I have about 3000 :P

But I have also open reel tapes (various speeds and tracks), DCC, DAT, Minidisc, 8Track, Elcaset.

Cassettedecks that I have are 4 track 2 channel @ 4,8-9,5cm/s, 3 track 3 channel @ 4,8-9,5cm/s, 4 track 4 channel @ 4,8-9,5cm/s, 6 track 6 channel @ 9,5cm/s and 8 track 8 channel @ 9,5cm/s.

Most of them are Tascam :P


you are lucky to have hi-end stuff, i only got mid-grade and low end stuff.
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 15 Mar 2013, 00:33 
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For VHS I only use Panasonic, consumer, Panasonic Pro and Sony Pro VTR's
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 15 Mar 2013, 01:20 
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i had a samsung vcr, which ate lots of my videos, 2 jvc's.
my mom used to have a sony pro machine and an old panasonic. they both died.

sadly, my tape deck has ate my first tape.
time to replace it.
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 17 Mar 2013, 04:32 
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I love tape! It's a great analog medium if you can tackle it. I still have quite a bit of it; and a couple of machines.

In the R2R department; my collection consists of a Sony TC-357 deck; that looks like it's been through a war. I've also got an Akai GX-365D machine. Both are just standard quarter-inch consumer reel decks. Both are in need of massive restoration work to the electronics. The Sony needs to be recapped; and both preamp sections in the Akai need to be *completely* torn down and redone. They both function fine; just sound bad. The great thing about the Akai is it has a second roller to enable 15ips.

Cassettes....are a whole different ballgame. Smaller track width and slower speed lead to lower fidelity. The compact cassette wasn't even originally designed for music storage in mind; the original specification was aimed toward dictation. After it started finding use for that..that's when they quickly started trying to improve on it. The recording emphasis was modified; ferric-oxide formulations improved; tape head design advanced...and somewhere in the mix, Dolby got thrown on.

The biggest difference in cassettes is the fact the various tape stock used requires a different amount of biasing; where that's usually not as big of an issue with the R2R stuff I've worked with. This isn't the biasing difference between normal and chrome/metal tapes; if you're recording a tape it can make a huge difference. Different brands of type I cassettes all require different levels biasing; if your deck is fixed bias...one brand will sound better than another. Better decks give you a manual bias adjustment; which is a pain if you don't have a 3-head deck...higher end decks automatically calibrate the amount of bias for the type of tape selected/detected. Too much biasing kills the HF response; which is why if you ever played around with really cheap tape stock, it usually sounded bad. Too little bias has the opposite effect; it brightens up the high end due to harmonics. To add to all this; HF from the content you're recording has a level of self-biasing..often times causing itself to attenuate. The biasing signal is essentially a high-frequency AC signal that's pumped on to the tape to excite the particles so they respond in a linear fashion to the audio spectrum. My Onkyo is a 3-head deck with a manual bias adjustment; and 30 seconds of A/Bing pink noise while adjusting the level; and just about any time comes out sounding spectacular. So if you've seen a bias knob and wondered what exactly that is; that's what it's for.

However, type II and type IV tapes are also called "hi-bias" tapes; in those cases...there's a bit more going on. I'm sure you've noticed "70us EQ" somewhere on a higher-grade tape; this refers to a time constant for emphasis EQ. Much like an LP; you can improve the quality of the recording by using an emephesis/deemephisis EQ curve. So they require a higher level of bias than a normal type tape; but also use a different EQ curve. The EQ curve is largely what made type II/IV tapes slightly incompatible playback-wise on decks that only supported type I; resulting in really bright playback. This really wasn't a huge problem later on; as more decks added the 70us EQ stuff to players; many never even advertised they were compatible..or simply said "metal compatible". BASF did supposedly make a type II tape that was "compatible" with the 120us EQ setting; and released chrome types that were universally compatible; I also think the professional and some really high-end decks (like the Nak Dragon) let you pick which one you wanted to use.

Then there's Dolby. Prior to AC-3/Dolby Digital, I think people knew Dolby more for being on cassette tapes and never sounding right; than they were known for the Dolby Stereo theater format (though I've just pulled that line out of nothing...so I can't substantiate it with anything). Dolby came out with a professional NR system in '66 known as Dolby A; it was widely adopted in studios as multi-track recording was becoming the standard. So, two years later; they come out with a stripped down version known as Dolby B; which was aimed at the consumer market. Not only being cheaper to implement; it had the advantage of having acceptable sound without proper decoding. The decoder didn't have to be built in to the player either; there were some external processors that could be used with RTR or, later on, a cassette without dolby circuitry. However, this acceptable "backwards-compatibility" with non-decoding is why it was quickly adopted for commercial releases. They even tried to make a B-variant known as Dolby FM take over the airwaves. Dolby C got a little more exposure than Dolby S; but they were largely used on special audiophile releases...or by home tapers; both sound pretty rough without proper decoding. Dolby B was the de-facto standard for consumer level; so much so that they often just called it "Dolby System". Decks that supported B and C are labeled something like "Dolby B - C NR"; of course there's also things like "Dolby B - C HX Pro"

As far as Dolby "never sounding right"; that's largely in relation to how the tape is made...and what's playing it back. Dolby is pretty sensitive to HF response; as it's a sliding-band system. Commercial cassettes are usually made on cheap stock; and dubbed quickly. If that wasn't enough of an insult to any HF response it may have; your deck's heads could vary slightly...and your Dolby levels may not be calibrated exactly like what was used to encode the tape. This usually wasn't a problem in higher quality decks; but I've heard some decks where the Dolby never sounded right. Dolby C has a bit of an interesting twist to it; as I've never heard a deck play back a C encoded tape exactly the same as the deck it recorded it...close; but not quite. I've never had an S deck to play with it.

Dolby also wasn't the only compasion-based NR game out there; dbx also made a system that was so aggressive; it requires decoding. It also sounds absolutely outstanding. They also put a less-aggressive version on a few LPs. I can also throw a LD reference here; since it uses the CX NR system.

Now, if your deck says HX Pro...or you've seen cassettes that say HX Pro..that's something different. HX Pro isn't a noise reduction system; rather, it's a dynamic bias adjustment that aims to increase the dynamic range and frequency response of the tape. It does this by adjusting the amount of bias based on the power of the high-frequencies in the audio signal. Some see this as a really good idea; some see it as bad..since you're technically "under-biasing" the tape and any improvement is due to harmonics. It doesn't require any decoding; since it's basically optimizing recording levels.


Reel-to-reel is still easier. :)
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 17 Mar 2013, 16:29 
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elieb wrote:
i had a samsung vcr, which ate lots of my videos, 2 jvc's.
my mom used to have a sony pro machine and an old panasonic. they both died.

sadly, my tape deck has ate my first tape.
time to replace it.



No, it's called "time to clean it".

You need to take a Q-tip; soak it with alcohol; then go after the rubber capstan roller. The capstan is the (only) thing that moves the tape across the head; though in cassettes the take-up reel does run somewhat at speed. when this thing gets sticky; THAT'S why it eats tapes.

Also, old cheap cassette stock can stick to a roller.
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 17 Mar 2013, 16:35 
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elahrairrah wrote:
Speaking of which, has anyone ever owned a Digital Compact Cassette recorder/player?

http://home.netvigator.com/~ntomyng/dcc900/

I first read of these way back in a multi-paged ad in Entertainment Weekly way back in like 1991 or 1992, but never thought much about them (especially since I jumped into MiniDisc a few years later.)

Now, I've seen a few decks pop up in the trading posts near me. Almost considered buying one, but wasn't sure if I could even get blank DCC's for recording, let alone any pre-recorded software (I know some are out there, but they've got to be even more scarce than pre-recorded MDs!)


DCC was....a failure. It tried to bank on the former popularity of the compact cassette...which people now thought was really inferior to CD in every day. It was also competing with Minidisc...which Sony was trying to push.

DCC was...interesting. It's a 4:1 lossy compression...so it's really no better than listening to say a 256kbps MP3 (though the codec was no where near as efficient). It could play analog cassettes...but the digitals were completely incompatible...and most people still had analog decks in their cars. It was also really expensive.

As far as blank DCC's...I don't think you can....however; the DCC unit used it's own set of holes in the case to signify a DCC...much like type II and Type IV tapes used thier own holes for automatic detection. I've heard of people taking TypeIV tape...punching the DCC holes...and recording to it just fine..since DCC formulations were mostly metal anyway. You results would vary with different types.
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 Post subject: Re: Compact Cassettes Making a Comeback?!?
PostPosted: 17 Mar 2013, 16:42 
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laserdisc_fan wrote:
signofzeta wrote:
If I had any good memories of cassette it would be for the extreme levels of innovation (some would say gimmickry) in the blank cassette market. I had this TDK blank once that ran me $11 (in 1989 blanks were usually $1-3). It had a cast aluminum frame (like an iPhone 4), roller bearings and reversible write protects. I assume it was a Type IV Metal, but I lost it, evidently. I would like to have a mint one of those in the package just for old times sake.


That will be this tape - a TDK MA-XG90 Type IV:
Image

I recorded a copy of Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing from CD back in December 1987 onto this tape and it still sounds perfect played today.
Not a single drop out even during the really quiet intro track 'Tom's Diner'.



Gimmick? No. That TDK cassette was a fine cassette; top rated in Consumer Reports in 1995.

Adding to my previous long post; the tape transport plays a critical role in quality; afterall, if you can't play the tape back properly to begin with; how in the hell can you expect it to sound good. Most cassette shells were cheap plastic things. The tape dragged; it moved at an uneven tension..all things that add up to a bad cassette.

Real good example of this is reel-to-reel. You have no shell to interfere; that's one of the reason a reel-to-reel tape usually sounds substantially better...even if you slow the speed down to tape speed. The transport was designed to keep the tape at a nice even tension as it pulled it across the head.

That TDK tape embodiied the idea that a high quality shell lead to a higher quality tape. The tape never had an uneven winding; the tension was better kept even...it''s proof that the quality of the shell does determine the quality of the tape.

Sadly...most people didn't want to spend that kind of money.
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