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In Reply to: RE: You obviously don't have ... posted by Dave Pogue on September 06, 2013 at 05:58:30
I have a perfectly fine Denon cassette deck, that I used to transmogrify my Mom's tape collection into iPod-friendly digital files; similarly for my wife's teaching music on tape.
Cheers!
Follow Ups:
Me, since I got the Nak BX-300 a few months ago I've been dubbing my best cassettes (off-air "Jazz Alive" performances I originally recorded in the 70s and 80s) onto OPEN REEL TAPE. Beat that, tape fans.
For those scratching their heads, the original cassette performances (Freddie Hubbard, Stan Getz, Warne Marsh, Joe Henderson, Bobby Shew, etc) either started in the middle of a cassette or started on one side and continued to the second one. NOT TIDY, and hard to locate when searching. Yeah, I could have dubbed them onto CD via my Tascam CD-RW700, but what's the fun in that? Besides, the resulting open reel tapes via an Otari MX5050 BII2 and deHavilland 222 tapehead preamp sound better (well, to me) than the original cassettes.
"Sometimes I question your commitment to Sparkle Motion." (Donnie Darko)
I have committed to high-rez, weightless digital. Broke down all the silos between music originally sourced on LP, CD, the occasional cassette,or purchased download. Everybody plays nicely together now.
Cheers!
... is definitely the perfect word.
This has been fun, Tom.
LOL!You guys are cracking me up with your jib-jabs at each other. :)
But, seriously, really...
An Aiwa, Akai, Denon, Fujimoto, Nakyourmichi, Sony, Teac, Tandberg, Whatevervox cassette deck all fail due to the technical constraints of the format - tiny track width, slow tape speed and extremely thin tape. There's no getting around it. Now, if you've got a cassette machine which runs at, say, 7-1/2 ips, and uses the "full" tape width to store only two tracks instead of four, then, by golly, you'd have a more convenient format than the typical consumer reel-to-reel machine (4-track, 7-1/2 ips on 1/4 inch tape), with similar fidelity.
Don't misunderstand - I have many cassettes, primarily Maxell and TDK type II/high bias (CrO2, not metal), which I enjoy on my Harman/Kardon TD202, and they sound quite good. But really, it's not even close to 15 ips 2-track, or even 7-1/2 ips 4-track (which is quadruple the tape speed and double the track width of cassette).
Regarding your reel-to-reel copies sounding better than the cassettes they were made from... It's clearly possible that they sound different (in fact, it's likely), but "better" is in the ear of the beholder. As the old saying goes, you can't make a silk purse from a pig's ear. Which, in this case, simply means that you can't intentionally & predictably improve upon the sound of the original simply by copying it to a different format. The sonic quality of the new format copy, with its somewhat different tonal balance, may or may not be judged to be "better", simply because it's different. Some people may judge the copy to be more to their liking, and others may judge it to be less to their liking. But there is no escaping the fact that tape hiss and various distortions cannot be removed or reduced simply by making a copy, without incurring a commensurate change in the desired audio signal.
:)
Edits: 09/11/13 09/11/13
Of course I bow to your superior wisdom.
But I do have the ability to play and record 2-track 15 ips open reel tape (current RMGI and ATR formulations), with playback through a new deHavilland tapehead preamp, and I do have this three-head Nak casseette deck, and I do find it amazing how much the latter sounds like the former. And you haven't heard any of this. But like I say ...
This is the sentence which is potentially misleading to folks of lesser intellect than you and I:
"Besides, the resulting open reel tapes via an Otari MX5050 BII2 and deHavilland 222 tapehead preamp sound better (well, to me) than the original cassettes. "
The only reason I haven't sent my team to your house to set you straight is that you included the disclaimer "well, to me". ;)
But then you went and said this: "I do find it amazing how much the latter sounds like the former."
Well, geez, Dave. Which is it? Better, or similar? I would hope "similar", even "nearly identical". That would indicate that the r-r machine/tape isn't imparting a new sonic signature/tonal quality onto the inputted audio signal.
Btw, I love your TV programs. ;)
:)
First, I'm not that David Pogue. There even may be MORE than two of us in the known universe.
Second, in the first quote you, um, quoted, I was speaking only of how the sound compared when I dubbed one of my 1970-era cassettes from the Nak BX-300 to the Otari MX5050. BTW I dubbed one of these at 15 ips, the rest at 7 1/2 ips, all 2-track. In other words how the original cassette sounded to me on the Nak compared to how its dub sounded to me on the well tuned and serviced Otari. I know that's repetitious but I wanted to be sure you got it :-)
I was clearly not comparing the sound of the Otari/deHavilland combo playing the best imaginable 15 ips tape to the sound of the Nak playing a cassette. I made THAT comparison in the second quote. Interestingly, I had a flock of people here Sunday, three of whom wrote down the specifics of a commercial cassette I played for them on the Nak, so they could buy the CD of it if it's out there somewhere.
BTW, looked up the measurements of my Nak in an old High Fidelity magazine review published at the time the deck came out (1985). Seems it's essentially flat from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, without Dolby, on your preferred Type 2 cassettes. And whatever we say about how High Fidelity and Stereo Review didn't know how to listen, they sure did know how to measure stuff like frequency response.
For those of us curious enough to try?
big j.
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
"Oracle" by Michael Hedges on Windham Hill.
Another group fave was "Times Like These" by a Gary Burton group (Michael Brecker, Marc Johnson, John Scofield and Peter Erskine) which I remember as very pleasant but not anything special from a sonic standpoint, until I got the Nakamichi.
Ian Tyson's "COWBOYOGRAPHY" cassette that was released in 1987 is excellently recorded as well, if you can find it.
My audiophile friend was very surprised of how good Tyson's cassette sounded while playing it on my Nakamichi RX-505 couple of nights ago.
If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well
(Proverb)
Just received my 440A today. Perhaps I could listen to these on there together a measure of its sound.
big j.
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
"First, I'm not that David Pogue. "
lol I know, you're the one in DC, he's the one in NY. Still, it was fun to bring it up again, just to get your reaction. :)
"Seems it's essentially flat from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, without Dolby,"
Wow, you just ruined many a Studer A80 owner's day. ;)
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