Cassette vs. CD?

I used cassettes for car and for travelling. Convenience type use.

 

When people make comments like this it's clear they haven't heard properly recorded, properly played back cassettes on players that are in proper order. Nobody that has listened to either pre recorded cassettes, or cassettes that I have recorded on my Nak ZX-7, would with you.

 

Just isn't true. I spoke of this in an earlier post. I once had someone on these very forums post a sample of a cassette recording that they thought sounded fantastic. It didn't. Cassettes don't sound good. You're welcome to try to convince me otherwise but I don't think you can.

Ed

 

To each his own. I've heard people make the exact same comments about vinyl.

 

In the early '90s, I started making compilation tapes to listen to at work (Denon cassette deck at work hooked up to a Sony midi system) using a £100 Aiwa deck. By the time I finished working there in 2010 I'd got up to around 60 volumes of my favourite singles, plus another 200 or so of my favourite albums on tape. All sounded great at the time and still do. I have my decks serviced every two years and treat the cassettes as carefully as I do my vinyl. The tapes all play and wind perfectly (never let them anywhere near a car player), all good quality chromes but not very expensive. I'll be using my decks until I can't get them serviced anymore.

 

I remember some mag did a shootout years back with cassette vs CD. Very controlled they thing. The only time anyone could even come close to reasonably discerning between the two formats was with some critical solo piano, and even then it was not a slam dunk for telling which source was which. I'll have to see if I can find that.

 

I have read all your posts and got the impression that you have owned and tried a lot of different cassette decks, One wonders why you bought and put them in your sound system at all if you already back then had the approach that cassette was an inferior music format? Why didn't you stay with vinyl or whatever music format you prefered and then went directly for CD after trying only one of all the cassette decks you write about?

I believe that one has to be very humble about what we're discussing here. A well trimmed high end cassette deck combined with a cassette tape of higher quality still can deliever very good sound, there's no doubt about that. I honestly believe that a lot of the sceptics writing in this tread never have had the opportunity to sit down and listen to what a well trimmed high quality cassette deck can deliver soundwise. I'm a vinyl buff myself and prefer vinyl records ahead of all the other music formats but I still have a lot of respect for the other music formats since they in their best moments can sound really good.

And by the way....Nak Dragon never had the Dolby S feature....

 

Most folks have no clue as to Dolby S, they just like to talk like they have. The fact is it not only cleans up top end hiss, it also cleans up low end noise as well as, yes....extending the high end response. It is light years better than Dolby B, C or DBX. It has no sonic penalties either unlike the pumping of DBX. The dead quite back background of a properly recorded Dolby S tape is amazing considering the slow tape speed and small amount of tape width available.

It's obvious the negative posts here are made by people who really have no real factual basis to comment on this subject.

 

Nak Dragon with Dolby S... ... ...

Sounds dang nice without it.

 

I don't know about others; but, I'm no longer in the business of trying to persuade anyone (or dazzle them). I live with the gear. I know what it's capabilities are and what they sound like. And, I'm enjoying the heck out of 'em. Whether someone else is so inclined to seek out the truth... not sure I care. My door is open. But, I don't have the time or the will to try and drag folks in.

 

Perhaps a DR rating would do something for naysayers? Recording a cassette direct to a standalone CD-R like my Pioneer PDR-509 usually produces quite high DR values.
I did a dub of Pink Floyd's "Soundscape" (a track only commercially available on tape btw) from my Aiwa ADS750 and it came up with a DR rating of 16, IIRC.
Similarly my CD-R dubs of 'Digalog' tapes, like Yesyears and Jimi Hendrix Stages sound spectacular, and I've never felt the need to 'upgrade' to CD.

 

It's actually too darn bad, I'd bet it would have been killer with S.

 

And I don't believe the guy claimed it did, qualified by his comment "I think " right after he said it. I get where he's coming from, maybe not to the same degree, but tape was convenience.

That a few companies made high end tape decks was great and I heard a Dragon play once at a hifi show in Edinburgh. I'd been lucky to get the room to myself, good timing, with me and just the Dem guys. Only had about ten minutes and it was good to hear. There was much made of its auto reverse system but while the Dragon was lauded, they reckoned another Nak was better.

But this was the early 80s, the peak of the vinyl era, the dawn of CD, and only a handful still had R2R. Tape lasted for a decent length of time, but its time came and went and when it did go, it happened fast.

Superseded by a better system, easy access and superior sound quality, tape is for nostalgia heads. And that's no bad thing, but, well, but...

Would I take a TOTL Pioneer today? I'll pass. My requirements are different and need flexibility and sound quality. Tape gives me a small percentage of the first and a bit more of the second. Not enough these days.

When I can get 100+ albums on my portable digital player, in lossless audio, then it's a no brainer.

Headphones showed up tape's limitations all the more for me in any case, so going down that road was never an option for anything more than casual listening.

Then again, making a compilation tape? Great fun! How we did playlists in the old days!

 

Perhaps. But then like SACD you needed to buy a new tape deck, you needed to record again, you needed to do a whole bunch of stuff that just was not going to happen if you had a huge take collection.

In effect, Dolby took SR, made a domestic version of it then limited the number of players. Never a goer long term. Iffy reviews for some players didn't convince the public.

It was SACD before SACD happened. If you have to then filter out the good gear from the patchy, you're either an enthusiast or an early adopter for new tech.

 

No, Dolby S was backwards compatible, and sounded fine on on decks that didn't have it, unlike Dolby C.

 

The Dolby S decks were the last incarnations of high quality cassette decks. I believe it's worth mentioning the Dolby S as it took the cassette format to another level, but it arrived to late to save the format.

 

To clarify, tapes recorded on Dolby S deck played back OK on a non-S equipped deck.
Dolby C was impressive on a good deck like a Nakamichi, and even HX Pro decks.
dbx could also give stunning results on an Aiwa XK-007 for example.

To say that there was audible w&f or hiss on these decks is preposterous IMO. They were rock solid and had very little noise.

 

Dolby S would have been great had it been introduced earlier enough to have been widespread. However, in cassettes let us pause for McLover's law of cassette decks. "The Higher Performance the cassette deck is, the more finicky and prone to repair that cassette deck is in practice". Law 2, "The more cute features the cassette deck has, the higher the likelihood of said deck being unreliable". Simple truisms of analog tape. The wider the tracks are, the higher the tape speed is, the better the recording and reproduction are. All other things being equal. Also do remember that all cassette deck specifications on frequency response are quoted at -20 db levels referenced to 185 nanowebers/meter fluxivity. Hardly normal working operating levels.

 

I wasn't suggesting Dolby S was poor, nothing I've said to date days that. Implementation and availability were the only shortcomings.

Dolby C was fine for me initially but a few tapes is made on one machine using it sounded dreadful on another. Ditched it.

And nowhere did I talk about w and f on specific decks, but that using digital, it is a non issue, for obvious reasons.

 

I've currently got 6 "High Performance cassette decks" & none of them are finicky or prone to repair. I did have one simply die out after about 12 years of regular use. I have heard the Dragon can be a handful to own, but that's the only one I've heard of being finicky or prone to repair.

As far as cassette deck specifications on frequency response being quoted at -20 db levels, I'm not sure why you would even bother to mention that?

Back when decks would be tested in a magazine they would always run frequency plots at full 0 db level.

My Pioneer CT 93 with metal tape and Dolby S in use had a frequency response plot at 0 DB level of 20-20,000 +/- 3db.

 

I'd never used Dolby S until I bought a secondhand (but well maintained) Sony 3-head machine. Even with type 1 cassettes I was impressed with S. Same thing when I tried different type II cassettes; very impressed, especially with speech material. It's not a very expensive 3-head machine, but I'm very impressed with what Dolby S does.

 

Little known factoid: Several quartz controlled cassette decks have significantly better W/F specs than many belt-drive TTs and, in particular, cut the W/F spec of certain recent manufacture quartz direct drive TTs (ahem, PLX-1000)... in half. I own some of these decks. Just sayin'

 

I'm jealous of those who have workig tape decks. Most of my attempts at working with older decks have proved frustrating. But I did have a lot of fun with Nakamichi DR-3 and Cassette Deck 2. I have a Nakamichi 480z that badly needs calibrating, but cannot afford the exhorbitant costs of repair from the handful of places that still work on these things (the sole hi-fi repairman in Mpls won't touch tapes anymore). And it's not worth spending hundreds of dollars for me.

For Xmas, I got a Sonny Walkman, one of the latter S2 Sports models. The sound quality is very good, especially with nice headpohones. Unfortunately...wait for it...the thing tends to chew up tapes now and then. Probably needs new belts. Which is never gonna happen. D'oh.

Tapes do have a certain nostalgic charm every now and then, but I do remember why CDs replaced them. But I'm glad to have my old tape collection from 20 years ago. Good memories in those little plastic cases.

 

Maybe try making Guild an offer for one of his six pristine decks then?

If you did cut a deal you'd at least know it's been well looked after and minimise the risk of buying off EBay or the like.