Cassette Query!!!

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Charlie1
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Cassette Query!!!

Post by Charlie1 »

A slightly belated question about cassette tapes...

Back in the 80s, which was better, an original tape or a taped LP? - assuming a newly released album and top spec LP12.

Once I moved on from a walkman as my main music source, I turned my nose up at original tapes for some reason but not sure where that prejudice came from.

These guys made me think of it - been enjoying their channel...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcX--giGdas
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Re: Cassette Query!!!

Post by tpetsch »

I made mix tapes a bit when I was a kid with my Proton Cassette deck, perhaps I just wasn't very good at it but I always thought the pre-recorded tapes were usually better, going by a somewhat faded memory though. ..But also interested in what others have to say.
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springwood64
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Re: Cassette Query!!!

Post by springwood64 »

I bought one pre-recorded tape (Beatles 62-64) and never bought another. It sounded as if it was playing from inside a sock, and at the time I resented paying the same as for the LP for such an inferior experience.

However I recorded hundreds of my albums and some mix tapes, to listen in my car.

I used mostly TDK AD, with some SA. To my ears the SA were not better enough to justify the additional cost, but the AD were consistently more enjoyable than the D.

The biggest difference between my one pre-recorded tape and my recorded tapes was the level of hiss - notably higher on my recordings. However, I disabled Dolby NR on my recordings and playback because I didn't like what it did to the music, and learned to tolerate the higher hiss level.

I was using entry level kit for recording though - a Sony music centre or a Sansui tape deck.
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Re: Cassette Query!!!

Post by Charlie1 »

I used mostly TDK AD, with some SA. To my ears the SA were not better enough to justify the additional cost, but the AD were consistently more enjoyable than the D.
I used the SA-X cos they were more expensive so must be better...

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...but was later surprised how much I enjoyed the late-80s D version in the car, although (like you said) more hiss...

Image

Think I had some AD too which were good but never did a proper comparison. Not sure I would have picked the most musical back then anyway.

One of the reasons I ask is that I recall hearing a new Michael Jackson album on original tape in a Ford Transit and it sounded great. It was just released and the guy had run into the record shop to buy it. This must have been early to mid 90s.
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Re: Cassette Query!!!

Post by ThomasOK »

Ah, yes, cassettes. springwood64 hit the nail on the head in a number of ways. Pre-recorded cassettes were generally junk. There were a few problems with how this was done. One is that they were generally made from tape copies that were a few generations away from the masters, usually farther away than those used to cut records. Just as important is that they were generally made on high-speed duplicators where the master tape and the cassette duplicate were being run as a multiple of the original speed, usually a high multiple. This causes a problem in that if you quadruple the speed of the tape what was a 20kHz frequency is now 80kHz! (8 to 20x duplication is probably more likely what was normally used.) Tape head design for cassette decks was already really pushing it to be able to get 22kHz (the top end of a typical 3 head Nakamichi) off a tape at normal speed as the gaps necessary are very small. Getting them to do 80kHz, 160kHz or more just really wasn't possible. So you were losing a lot of high frequency information and having other problems caused by the tapes going by the heads so fast. Even now the companies who make prerecorded tapes offer full speed duplication or double speed with the reduction of the high frequency range to 17kHz. There is a lot more complexity to the way cassettes were duplicated back when they were the most popular medium and it is safe to say that this complexity was also detrimental to the music.

Then there is the question of the quality of the tape used which was generally very cheap on the prerecorded cassettes. As to the quality of tape in general? Like most I used to buy SA or metal tapes thinking they would be better because they were supposed to be. As usual a big mistake. I had heard that Julian Vereker had said that the Sony Pro Walkman WM-D6C was a good cassette machine. Since Naim was working on their own cassette deck (which was never released) and since Julian had nice things to say about very little other Hi-Fi (the only others I heard of were the Harman Kardon Citation 14 FM Tuner, which he paid homage to in the NAT 101, and the Quad ESL) I took notice and bought one. I found it was more musical than the Nakamichi Dragon, although they were close. I was aware of the tune method by this time and I decided that I should do tune method comparisons on tapes. I quickly determined that Dolby noise reduction screwed up the music, with C being even worse than B. Then I got down to the tapes and found out that the normal, or Type I, tapes were the best and neither the Type II (Chrome - SA, SA-X, XLII, etc.) nor Type IV (Metal - MA, MX, etc.) were as musical. I don't remember now which of the two was the worse but I think it was the high bias. Somewhere I probably still have it all written down, I tested a lot of tapes from every brand I had handy but the TDK came out on top and Maxell second. The best tapes were the top tine Normal bias tapes with the TDK AR and AD edging out Maxell XLI and even TDK D being pretty good. So I used only normal tapes, mostly AR and AD, from then on. I still have the WM-D6C stashed away and last time I tested it everything worked except the level LEDs. Maybe I should get it back out and make some new mix tapes!
Last edited by ThomasOK on 2022-07-06 17:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Charlie1
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Re: Cassette Query!!!

Post by Charlie1 »

Really interesting post Tom. All that seems quite a long time ago now.

I didn't realise pre-recorded tape manufacture was so compromised. They actually sounded better than I would have expected after reading that.

Just been reading some forum threads on A, AD, AD-X, AR, AR-X, etc. Wow, some of these guys really get into it. I also didn't know that only recording on one side was a 'thing' as well.

I'd forgotten about That's tapes as well.
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Re: Cassette Query!!!

Post by Arjen »

Just got some old cassettes for my daughters VW bus.
Lenny Kravits, The Pogues, The Cranberries, Flip City (Costello).
An ode to old times, but useful in an old van cassette radio.
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springwood64
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Re: Cassette Query!!!

Post by springwood64 »

Thanks Tom for a very interesting post. I had no idea that pre-recorded tapes were produced that way. It's a reminder that price and musicality are not linked!

I can't claim to a systematic appraisal of tapes. I came across the tune method much much later.

At the time I was very price sensitive, so paying a premium for TDK AD over D was not a given. I started with the D and then went to the expense and time of replacing and re-recording them with AD because I enjoyed the AD recordings more. I can't really remember what was different, just that it was enough to justify replacing.

I tried some Maxell tapes but I think I stuck with the TDKs despite the extra cost. Not because they sounded better, but I preferred having all the same aesthetic on my tape shelf! I got hooked on those blue and white card inserts. I even made sure I used the same blue ink to write the titles 😁
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Re: Cassette Query!!!

Post by Naimsake »

Back in the eighties, I thought home recorded tapes sounded superb. I had a Dual cs505mk2 Tt, a creek cas4040 amp and an Aiwa adf350 tape deck. Used TDK D mainly (cheap) and the odd AD but as long as the bias was set correctly, the tapes sounded pretty much as good as the Tt. During lockdown I bought an Aiwa adf660 mainly for nostalgic reasons but was pleasantly surprised at the results recorded from my Akurate spec LP12. Very underrated medium mainly due to the fact that most peoples experience was of pre-recorded tapes as discussed above. Oh, and they tended to jam up in car stereos regularly 😀
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