Date:         Sat, 26 Aug 2006 12:58:50 -0400
Reply-To:     Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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From:         Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Can 78s sound better than LPs?
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The studios I worked at or saw in the 1980's invariably had Tascam 122 decks. I still have one and 
love it. It needed a new drive belt but that was it. Tascam was an early adopter of Dolby HX, which 
I think made for more universally-good-sounding cassettes. I ran many a dupe of rough mixes or 
finished commercial soundtracks on the bank of 122's at Sigma NYC during my high school summers. 
Could never type the little Maxell tape labels fast enough for a reel of 5x 30-second spots.

My brother had one of those Nak's that mechanically turned over the cassette. He didn't do NR but 
the tapes still didn't sound so hot in my Teac deck. OTOH, my Dolby B tapes made in the Teac deck 
didn't sound so hot on the Nak.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Phillips" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Can 78s sound better than LPs?


This issue with the Nak's was known to us at the place I worked at in
the '80's. It was the only reason we didn't use the Nak's, as they would
have been the choice otherwise. We had to have decks that made tapes
that sounded good on as many 'outside' decks as possible, and the Nak's
just didn't do that. It was a shame, because they were terrific sounding
decks when recording/playing their own tapes.

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 6:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Can 78s sound better than LPs?

Hi Lou:

This has been discussed, I think on this list, but it was a while back.
You are a good businessman!
It is VERY smart to have a client bring in his deck if it's a Nak. Nak
has some non-standard things with Dolby (non-standard = not compatible
with other manufacturers). If you have, say, a Nak Dragon, you should be
able to reproduce his tapes perfectly (and then some since the Dragon's
transport is more stable), but if his portable got dropped a few times,
it might have unique azimuth and speed issues all its own. I forgot the
particulars, but I think some argue that Nak is the only one who
followed the Dolby B standard to the letter while everyone else didn't,
but whatever the reason, Dolby B tapes made on another deck can sound
wrong played back on a Nak and vice-versa. Not all the time, but
sometimes. I'm hoping Richard Hess pipes up with the technical
particulars on this.

-- Tom Fine

PS -- Your client is not so crazy about using the original deck. The
tapes I made on my late Teac deck, which made it through high school,
college and beyond and probably played 2500+ 45-minute cycles, never
sound as good on other decks, including the Naks in the studio. That
Teac deck was definitely in standard azimuth per a STL cassette, as are
the decks in the studio. It just sounded brighter and more alive with
tapes it made.

PPS -- Given the advantage of age and the advances of
science/technology, I'd classify cassettes as a junk medium. But, less
junky than Minidisc to my ears. At least cassettes tried to capture the
full audio spectrum instead of come up with some robo-"perceptual
encoding" scheme to avoid it!


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lou Judson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 2:04 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Can 78s sound better than LPs?


All I can say it it is the client's machine and he thinks it is fine...
Were it mine I would check all the parameters. It's a Nakamichi
portable.

I resisted changing the subject to, can cassettes sound as good as 78s?

<L>

Lou Judson * Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689

On Aug 25, 2006, at 2:34 PM, Michael Shoshani wrote:

> On Friday 25 August 2006 13.49, Tom Fine wrote:
>
>> Using the original tape machine, especially with cassettes, and a
direct
>> signal path will beat any claims on any cable any day.
>
> Well...
>
> Assuming that the heads were demagnetized at the time of recording and
are
> demagnetized now, assuming the azimuth is correct, AND assuming that
the
> speed of the tape transport hasn't changed since the recording was
> made...yes :)
>
> Michael Shoshani
> Chicago
> Who inherently distrusts cassettes at all since working in a studio
with three
> different cassette decks, NONE of which ran at the exact same speed as
the
> other two...