thefsb
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2019
- Messages
- 796
- Likes
- 657
That looks implausibly sanitized. There's no mess at all.Jarre in the Oxygene period:
That looks implausibly sanitized. There's no mess at all.Jarre in the Oxygene period:
publicity shot I'd say.That looks implausibly sanitized. There's no mess at all.
One major impediment to a comeback is that only one company makes tape mechs ( tashin I think ) and they are shite.
Must have had a resurgence due to this movie;Who is buying cassette tapes and why?
Techmoan covers this a lot.
I'll buy one and I know a few people who should too.If the format ever gains traction again, someone will step up with a quality mech.
At the end of the day, cassette mechs could be done way better in 2021 than before. Four motors. One BSL Quartz PLL DD capstan motor, two brushless for supply and takeup and a screw-type stepper for head block control. The supply and takeup could be micro driven for back tension/takeup and FF/REW at variable/high speed.
Instead of mechanical control with idlers, clutches, brakes it can all be done with motor control using the two reel motors. Basically a miniature high end RTR structure.
We already had BSL Quartz PLL DD cassette decks in the late 80s/early90s with W&F below 0.025%WRMS and with the decades of advancement due to DVD/CDROM drive motors, miniature, precision, medium torque brushless motors are easy.
This is already being done in the remastering field. For cassette, I'd imagine that this type of processing would be too expensive to implement unless cassettes really became mainstream, which ain't gonna happen.I'll buy one and I know a few people who should too.
Could a good new mech compensate at all for defects in the tape? For example, is it possible to recover the bias tone from the tape and use that to servo control playback speed to compensate speed variation in the recorder?
The machines are fun to play with.I've been ordering new music recently and noticed an odd trend. Every site I've visited recently is offering cassette tapes alongside LPs, CDs and downloads.
Some examples:
Who is buying cassette tapes and why?
- https://shop.aurora-music.com/
- https://shop.adele.com/
- https://usstore.edsheeran.com/music-1.html
- https://store.billieeilish.com/collections/music
Martin
Mass produced cassettes were pretty poor Firstly, they were bulk copied at 32x or even 64x speed, so levels and frequency responses were 'variable' as results depended entirely on how well maintained the duplicators were. My first job after university involved designing electronics for high speed tape duplicators, so I'm familiar with their limitations. Dolby tracking was especially difficult.Just curious but in the days before CD became available, might cassette have actually been the highest fidelity pre-recorded medium? I'm talking about the regular sorts sold by the big music labels. Rather than buying a fancy turntable, would I have done better to buy a dual-capstan, 3-head cassette deck?
A recent YouTube video was gushing about the open reel pre-recorded tapes from the 50s and 60s and claiming they were so 'good' because they were duplicated 1:1 in real time. I had to practically beat the guy in the head for him to realize that they were in fact duplicated at high speed, usually on Ampex duplicators. In the late 60s I only bought open reel pre-recorded tapes and not records; I realized even then that these tapes had problems with noise, dropouts, and high frequency saturation so bad that there were bursts of static noise where violins should be. Even in current HiFi News (UK) reviews, reviewers like Ken Kessler use these tapes, even ones duplicated at 3 3/4 ips, and waxes poetically about how great and definitive they are. Just pure bullshit.Mass produced cassettes were pretty poor Firstly, they were bulk copied at 32x or even 64x speed, so levels and frequency responses were 'variable' as results depended entirely on how well maintained the duplicators were. My first job after university involved designing electronics for high speed tape duplicators, so I'm familiar with their limitations. Dolby tracking was especially difficult.
Secondly, the tape used was ordinary ferric and cheap, as were the C0 cassette blanks.
There were a few specialist labels that used real-time duplication on chrome or metal cassettes, one I knew of used a bank of Nakamichi recorders, and their tapes were very good, if expensive. However, CD put an end to all that.
S
umm, nope.Just curious but in the days before CD became available, might cassette have actually been the highest fidelity pre-recorded medium? I'm talking about the regular sorts sold by the big music labels. Rather than buying a fancy turntable, would I have done better to buy a dual-capstan, 3-head cassette deck?
......
I may have to dust off some ol' tapes, get a deck out and join the movement.
JSmith
Let's think more mainstream 1970s, because I might have wanted to listen to Elton John, ELO, Linda Ronstadt or Queen more than say, Martin Denny, which is the sort of thing my dad bought. I realize that pre-recorded open reel tapes existed, but by the time I came of age, they were no longer a thing.umm, nope.
Something like this would be closer.
ReVox WHRB Dead aircheck by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
(sorry, I don't have a more modern "prosumer" deck -- other than a Pioneer RT-909 which currently needs rehab and of which I don't have any photos handy)
Actually, carefully engineered live FM broadcasts on empathetic radio stations were pretty darned hi-fi in the 1960s. Even reproduced tapes could be pretty astonishing. I remember listening to an FM radio documentary called Bells in Europe on one of the "public radio stations" in the DC/Baltimore metro area (at the time, most likely either WBJC or WETA) in the late 1970s and it was phenomenal.
EDIT: I should mention that the A77 above has been modified (by Charles "Stellavox" King ) to a high-speed, half-track configuration. The speed setting reads "3-3/4" but it is in fact 7-1/2 ips
True and yes I remember doing this often.Cassettes can be changed without even looking.