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In Reply to: RE: Except that posted by DavidLD on December 17, 2015 at 07:10:16
Thanks for the info. I guess the one we had was low- fi!
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The historical view was that the laws of physics determined the quality of a musical audio tape. The wider the magnetic tape track and the faster the tape moved across the head, the better the high frequencies would be recorded and the lower the noise or hiss level.That meant that the big tape units in recording students typically ran at 15 inches per second employing up to one-inch wide tape. The wide tape was especially useful if the intent was to lay down two or more separate tracks for stereo recording.
But for home use, 10-inch reals running at 15 ips were impractical for a host of reasons. That home reel-to-reel market settled into 7 1/2 ips running quarter inch tape. But that still meant big reels and lots of tape. The 3 3/4 inch speed obtained by taking the big capstan off to reveal a smaller capstan, was ok but for "noncritical" recording but not considered as high quality noise and high frequency wise as the higher speeds.
Tape cartridges preceded the development of cassettes as a portable audio product. The first of these were 4 track I believe running at 3 3/4 ips. Soon along came 8-track units, technically inferior from the perspective of physics, but allowing each tape to hold more music.
Cassettes were designed as a non-musical recording medium, and it was developments AFTER The format was set with narrow 1 7/8 inch tape, then researchers started working on converting the format as a hi fi audio medium. The main technologies were dolby noise reduction to reduce tape hiss and new tape formulations initially chromium dioxide and later metal tapes. Each of these new tape technologies required a different tape bias setting and the new generations of premium recorders had a switch to set the bias consistent with the tape you were using. The high-end formulations were expensive, and people generally used the chromium dioxide and metal formulations for high- end recording.
Over time, the quality improved.
Initially no one thought that cassettes would ever be able to compete with cartridge players in mobile audio given that cartridges operated in an endless loop with no need to rewind, but a new generation of audio cassette players largely resolved that and soon cartridges disappeared. Tape hiss was never as big an issue in car audio as in home audio as normal road noise while driving tended to mask it.
There were other developments worth noting that failed. Does anyone remember the short-lived Elcaset format? This was essentially a larger cassette with a wider tape going at a faster speed that supposedly resolved the issues with the original cassette format. As dolby and the tape formulations got better, the format quickly died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcaset
PlayTape was a short-lived cartridge format using a narrower tape in a much smaller cartridge. That quickly died too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayTape
Edits: 12/17/15
Don't forget the RCA Sound Tape Cartridge. It was kind of an overgrown cassette using 1/4 inch tape. I had one those as a teen (probably still have it if the truth be known!). It had pretty good sound, but I quickly regretted the non-standard nature of the format. All my friends had reel models. The machine was compact though, by comparison.
The ELcaset was one of Sony's biggest blunders!
I don't know. There was the mini disk, DAT and the Betamax/VHS fiasco.
Dave
Those lasted a lot longer than the few short years of the ELcaset!
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