Determining Unknown Cassette Tape Type

Tape Trail

Reel to reel, cassette and other analogue tape formats.

The tapes: a cassette tape dubbed by a recording studio called Ster Art
in Reisterstown Maryland in 1979. The shells have the appearance of
being, from what I can tell, fairly good quality, although the pressure
pads, which I had to replace, were of the glued-on type; the shells themselves
have no brand name on them and have screws holding them together.
The tapes were dubbed from a master recording of a live high-school
musical performance and, I think, sold as a fundraiser. In case
anyone's wondering what's on them: the performance was called
"Spectacular '79" in which music from Chorus Line, The Wiz,
Little Orphan Annie and Ain't Misbehavin' were performed, in addition
to some other music such as Bread's "Freedom."

I've no idea as to whether the tapes are type I,CrO2 or metal, or if
any type of Dolby was used. There are check-boxes for "Dolby" and
"Stereo;" both are unchecked---but I know for a fact that it's a
stereo recording. When played back with Dolby (type B) off, the tapes
sound a little on the harsh side, but not much noticable hiss. With
Dolby on, the high frequencies seem to be attenuated too much and the
s's at the ends of words seem chopped off. I should have mentioned
that's with the EQ and bias set to "normal."
When dolby is off and eq and bias are set to either metal or CrO2,
the recording sounds better, I think a little better set to metal,
but I can't detect much difference yet between the metal and CrO2
settings---although I think it sounds better set on metal. Would
metal have typically been used for such a tape back in those days?

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Topic - Determining Unknown Cassette Tape Type - Thrifty Audiophile 22:51:23 12/12/06 (1)

Re: Determining Unknown Cassette Tape Type - oldglide 10:37:29 12/13/06 (0)

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