Cassette vs. CD?

Cassettes had their own equivalent to the frequency "smear" which happens with MP3 called fflutter. Flutter was caused mainly by imperfections in the roundness and/or straightness of the tiny capstan(s) which pulled the tape through the mechanism, as well as other factors which caused non-smooth operation of supply and takeup. Dual capstan "closed loop" decks offered by far the lowest flutter. I had a BIC T3, which had a very good dual capstan transport with the ability to run at either 1 7/8 or 3 3/4 IPS, as well as really decent electronics. It produced some of the best sounding cassettes I've heard. The major problem was that it used a somewhat non-standard EQ curve, so the great sound never transfered well to other decks.

That said, when the first digital adapters came out (Sansui, Sony PCM701ES) I moved up to the digital age and have not looked back, Given the choice to record on cassette or one of even the early digital adapters, I'd go with the digital adapter every time...

 

Aside from the portability, cassettes were awful (pre-recorded in particular). I still have a number of personal dubs from LPs that are very pleasant to listen to, but really I think CDs have it all over cassettes in terms of sound quality and convenience.

I still remember the horror of a favorite tape getting "eaten", the tape getting stretched, the hassles of fast forwarding and rewinding. It's my opinion that my more recent efforts at capturing LPs -> CDs sound much better than my cassettes ever did.

 

Cassettes: the audio equivalent of the Polaroid picture. I don't miss them.

 

Cassette qualtiy from home made to commerical is varible at best. The high noise floor really mars the audio presentation, but the biggest issue are the phasing problems with the small width of the cassette tape and the slow 1 7/8 ips. Images are just not as stable in the presentation.

The cassette is a remarkable medium in that it was made with Dolby to perform very well and is certainly considered a high fidelity medium. With the twice as low noise floor, no wow or flutter, and excellent phase characteristics the CD is a great way to present audio.

We complain now about CD quality and wish the sample rate was higher from the beginning, but the technology did not exist early on. I also think that with the earliest converters, they were not achieving 16 bit quality anyway when put on the test bench and why many of us found the sound brittle, edgy, and just bright overall.

I still listen to cassettes once a week as I have no intention of replacing all of it with cds. I do because the music matters more than the medium.

 

Analog music recorded to tape retains more of the quality of the source (imo). I have taped albums which I like to listen to, and play them rather than playing the record (which involves taking it out, setting it on the turntable, etc..) It saves time and wear on the vinyl. Sounds better than a cd-r needle-drop (imo). I will play tapes until my deck stops working.

 

Most good sounding cassette decks tend to be very high maintenance items. Virtually no cassette decks lack belts (changing belts in one is the ultimate pain in the rear end). Parts for many of the best are no longer easily available when needed. Currently available tape isn't that great anymore. For me, Tandberg made the best sounding cassette machines. ReVox and Studer the best mechanically speaking. Nakamichis are fine when working. Most cassette decks have very distracting flutter which is annoying to these pitch sensitive ears. For analogue recording, I prefer open reel tape at 7 1/2 IPS or higher, 1/2 track preferred.

 

Me too. Always avoided Dolby (except for my younger years where I thought you should never throw away something you paid for ). Dolby had too many potential problems. As soon as you lost some of the highs or didn't have the correct levels (or switched machines, as Robin L pointed out), it all went wacky. I just pushed the levels up (as far as I could get away with) above the hiss and they sounded great.

With cassette recording and good equipment (I have a Nak BX300) you can get back pretty much what you put in. Can't say that about MiniDisc or other lossy formats. I would say that MD kills the cassette in every category except sound and fun. Too bad. Those are the two that really matter!

 

I still use my Nak ZX-7 just for fun... Surprisingly good sound.

 

I think a lot of this discussion would re-align if people heard what good players/recorders could do with good tapes.

As I noted in my previous post, when I compare dubs I've made at the same time of vinyl to both CDr and cassette on my CR-7A, they equal each other for detail IMO. I really do think are equivalent overall as far as sound quality (that is, the results of the Nak vs. my Tascam cd recorder), the caveat being that each has its own sound reproduction strengths and weaknesses that may make someone prefer one over the other.

Bear in mind we're NOT talking about convenience, durability or any other practical consideration. Yes, FFing and rewinding is a pain. Well, it's not a pain for me -- I don't do it. Most of what I've got on cassette are things I can listen to the whole way through.

And yes, I know, cassettes were never an audiophile medium, etc., etc. The truth is I probably bought all of 3-4 pre-recorded music cassettes during the period from 1973-1989 -- the sound quality just stunk. I think the last pre-recorded cassette I bought was in 1988 and I only bought that to take on a trip for use with a WalkMan. I may have bought a couple of lectures on cassette though.

But back to the sound quality of dubs to CDr vs cassette, I think it's clear that for average equipment and for most people CDr is going to be better.

It's just that pieces like my Nak can muddy the waters a bit:

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/hfw/oldeworldehtml/nakamichicr7e.html

Dale

 

I still use my Yamaha KX-930 cassette deck, but mostly for playback nowadays and the occasionally necessary cassette creations (where friends don't have a CD player in their vehicle)...

As I stated before and will again, my major disappointment with cassettes was the speed inconsistency with tape decks (most, especially those in cars, ended up playing too fast, which drove me crazy). Thankfully some (not all) decks had some sort of "internal" adjustment (either a pot on the back of the motor or on the circuit board. The only other issues were those with head alignment and of course, the choice between "hiss" or the dreaded Dolby Noise Reduction ("B", or "C"), which all but required perfect head alignment and circuits in order to work consistent with the recorded tape. To me, the latter issues were secondary to the nagging speed issue. Oh, and I almost forgot, the dreaded "drop-outs", where the music would "blip" out for milliseconds, notably if the tape wasn't stored properly or left un-rewound at a specific point and left to sit in the hot car (or worse, if part of the reel got too close to a magnetic source, partially erasing the music, resulting in a "wow-ing" effect of "muddiness" and "clarity". ....Of course, to be fair here, CDs have their own issues (notably CD-Rs).. Left improperly stored (too hot or scratched) it will render them unplayable.

 

Maybe the trick for all of us is if we feel the urge to complain about cds, put in a cassette and listen for about 5 minutes and then...well, you get the idea.

I have owned 3 NAKs that I loved and still have a 3 head Denon with bias adj given to me by a great friend that still sounds "as good as it can". Home-made tapes on it sound very good even with the limit of a -60db noise floor. This deck as Dolby C and I never owned one with Dolby S.

Now if we could just start a movement to have the government ban all compressors and limiters we could really find out what great engineering is all about and really hear into the original performance. The government intrudes on the rest of our lives, at least here they might do some good.

 

LOL, good thoughts, even if the last paragraph is at risk of getting this whole thread closed down... All bad points of the cassette set aside, it's a miracle that the format is capable of sounding as good as it does, especially running at the slow 1-7/8 ips speed! I still can enjoy a good cassette copy every now and then (and especially if it was recorded on a good quality deck that actually ran at the correct speed)...

 

Whether cassette sounds good or not, is largely dependant on the quality and condition of the deck and the quality of the tape used. How it is used matters too. I tape albums to listen to them start to finish (no fast foward, start/stop etc.) I only play the tapes on the deck I recorded them on. I keep the deck clean, and occasionally de-mag the heads. I store my tapes cool and dry. Like anything else, if you take care of things, you will usually get good results.

 

FWIW, (I have posted this in the past) I still occasionally use my cassette deck to make needle drops (and on very rare occasion to copy a CD) because my wife's aging BMW does not a cd player. I use Dolby B noise reduction when I so and the tapes sound very good in here care.

My cassette deck is a Sony TC-KA3ES. It is amongst the last of true well engineered and built Sony decks in the 90's. I bought the deck because at an audio show in NYC back in the 90's Dolby Inc. was there demonstrating Dolby S noise reduction and they had installed it on a Sony deck similar to the one I bought which, of course, has Dolby S. On very rare occasion (an just for fun) while I am doing a needle drop to my TASCAM DSD digital recorder I will make a Dolby S cassette tape copy as well (I use Type IV metal tape). Playing the tape back on the same deck that made the tape I compare the LP, DSD digital copy and the Dolby S cassette tape. I invite any forum members to come hear such a test anytime you are in my neighborhood. It is remarkable how good and accurate the Dolby S tape is.

 

I had a deck that offered DBX noise reduction in addition to Dolby B & C. I thought that the Dolby was more intrusive and obvious than the DBX.

 

I remember DBX. The problem was that is was not ubiquitous like Dolby, so could not use it everywhere, on portables and in car stereos.

 

Although I never had a deck with dbx built in, I had a couple dbx Type II external encoder/decoder boxes. An advantage was that dbx had no "knee" like Dolby, so no "alignment level" was necessary and mis-tracking was generally not as much of a problem (expecially with limited bandwidth of the Type II side-chain as opposed to Type I). I never used dbx on a cassette, but I used it to good effect on reel-to-reel and even on the equalized transmitter loop at one radio station. In this case the phone company could only give us about 60 dB between the noise floor (crosstalk) and 1% IM distortion, so I put a dbx encoder at the studio and a decoder at the transmitter. This dropped the noise floor to inaudible, allowing us to keep the levels low enough that distortion was not a problem, while moving the S/N obstacle away from the phone company, back to the FM exciter where it usually is in a good FM setup.

 

I have another dbx story. National Public Radio used a 3:1 companding scheme on their original analog satellite system, which was more aggressive than a normal 2:1 dbx system, however it gave theoretical 120 dB performance out of a 40 dB satellite channel. The actual performance was limited by two factors:
1) the radiated magnetic hum field from the power supply module on the left side of the demod shelf, which degraded the left-most demod's performance to about 90 dB.
2) noise in the distribution system at the NPR studios. Originally, this degraded everything to about 70 dB, but they improved it over time.

Anyway, the 3:1 companding of the satellite system noise imparted a slightly raspy sound to the announcer's voices when I listened on the B&W monitors at the studio.

 

A practical response with no agenda. Dale, you've given a unbiased opinion, which is much appreciated which also outlines your experiences with both worlds using the equipment that you own.

Thanks

 

Compact casette is a joke. Get a reel to reel, 15ips half track.