Thinking about adding a cassette deck to my set-up

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by malagacoolers, Aug 7, 2020.

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  1. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario

    Since 1980 I have been knee deep in cassette decks:

    1980 - Nak 3 head 581 ($1000)
    20 - 20 000 hz +-3db with Type 4 tape.
    Father got it for $25. What?!? Chapter 11 - Bankruptcy discharge. Back in 1980 my Dad was
    The National Credit Manager for K & N.

    1985 - Hitachi 2 head deck ($180)
    30 - 14 000 hz +-3db with Type 1 tape.
    30 - 16 000 hz +-3db with Type 2 tape.
    30 - 17 000 hz +-3db with Type 4 tape.

    1991 - Kenwood 2 head mid priced deck ($315)
    30 - 19 000 hz +-3db with Type 4 tape.

    2003 - Denon 2 head mid priced deck. First deck since the 581 that had a bias trim on it. Nice analog preamps. ($375)

    2008 - Sony 2 head dubbing deck. ($350)
    For a dubbing deck it rocked.
    Type 1......... 30 - 16 000 hz +-3db
    Type 2......... 30 - 17 000 hz +-3db
    Type 4......... 30 - 18 000 hz +-3db

    Sony had a 3 head dubbing deck model as well .)) It was two 3 head decks in one housing! You could set the bias and recorder level for both decks. Nice! This blows the myth that all dubbing decks are crap. Most are but not all. I know an audiophile dubbing deck sounds like an oxymoron but miracles can come true, they can happen to you if you're young at heart.

    2017 - Denon DR3. 3 head deck. (From 1983)
    25 - 21 000 hz +-3db with Type 4 tape.

    Down to your issue. Go for a good 3 head machine. Naks are good but if they break down you will be paying a lot of money. Ebay has some nice used 3 head Sony Dolby S ** models for the mid 1990's. There was a super 3 head Nad deck from 1986 that had a play trim. This was a manual adjustment for azimuth-height for the playback head. You turned it either clock or anti-clockwise until your heard max treble. But unlike Nackamachi's auto-alignment, this is just a knob your turn so it will not break down. The auto-azimith on Nak decks usually broke down first before anything else. And getting that fixed will be a pain in your butt.

    If you need to fix or refurbish your Nackamachi deck send it to the Willy Herman.


    Dolby labs made sure that a deck had to be up to a very high standard to use Dolby S. So if you see Dolby S on any deck, you know it is very good. Dolby Labs wouldn't even allow Dolby S to be on the same circuit as B or C. Any Dolby S deck will be great. Look to spending between $500 - 700.




    ** Dolby S is NOT the consumer version of SR. There was NO consumer version of SR. Dolby S was a turbo charged version of Dolby C with some stuff/junk/ideas from Dolby SR. But Dolby S is the best of all the consumer NR systems. And if anybody disagrees with me on this issue....I will cry and wet my pants. So go ahead.....Make my day!
     
  2. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    I found this on my garage. As far as I remember, I bought this back march. I tried plugging it today. On channel is creating a motorboat sound. Whats up with that?
     
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  3. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario

    A bad motor? I would say a leaky resistor but they don't make that sound. Pretty sure of that. This is from the the late 1970's. I would leave it. It is 43 years old at least. Let it die. Leave it in peace.
     
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  4. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    Okay man. Ill just put it back to the garage.
    So going back to the akai reel, you said just leave it alone?
     
  5. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    I don't miss rewinding, fast forwarding, tape drop outs, Dolby mistracking and the collapse of the stereo image. When you are using a Walkman these issues are worse. My Sony Pro Walkman sounded great (20 -19 000 hz +-3db) but it had it's limits. There was a nice Sony model that I picked up after this. It came with Mega bass ported headphones for $180. Not as good as my Pro walkman but great sound on
    the go. Sort of a semi-pro walkman. Funny thing with these models is that they kept going. For example a mini disk or CD walkman wouldn't play if there is not enough battery power. They just stop. The cassette walkmans I had kept going. Running slower and slower until they stopped. Tbey should have had a bright green light that indicated, CHANGE BATTERIES.
     
  6. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Ahhhhhh!!! Check if the Akai had those horrible glass and crystal heads. Yep, they put 'em on the reel to reel models too.
     
  7. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    There is 2 more unit that I need to get and I'm all set.
    reel to reel
    100 watt solid state mosfet power amp (hifi).
    what reel should be good?

    damn its raining hard here....:yikes:
     
  8. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    Probably a dirty record/playback switch. A quick fix: put in a blank tape and press Record, then Stop, then Record, then Stop, etc., a bunch of times to scrape the oxidation off of the switch contacts. But you may need to spray some Deoxit into it.
     
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  9. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    Does you Walkman has a seek? Just curios. I never use that though.. on my regular deck.
     
  10. nosticker

    nosticker Forum Guy

    Location:
    Ringwood, NJ
    I have having to deal with improperly-stored tapes. I swear that more than a few were stored above the showers at the YMCA. DigiBeta was a dog when it first came out, just trash. I think that Sony was really churning them out, and they had issues including premature head failure. I saw a brand-new one out of the box have carriage issues. They seem to have improved after the late 90s. D5 can be temperamental, but to my eye looked better than HDSR. I never worked personally with MII but it was a notorious head-clogger. D2 was one of my favorites. In search, a DVR-20 could rewind with the speed of DAT, and I used this advantage to turn around half-hour shows.

    Sorry, no familiarity with any shows you mentioned as far as what they used for their film-to-tape transfers. An educated guess about a show from '96 to 2003? Could have been D2 or even 1", with probably a migration to DigiBeta after that. Also, around that time, some shows were transferred first in HD, with the SD being a downconversion from that.


    Dan
     
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  11. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    How many pro video formats were there?
     
  12. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Nope. This was 1988. Just a fast forward and rewind button. I found those seek features unreliable. Many songs had pauses in them or very quiet passages that would trigger the Seek to stop and play. Would have been nice to have the feature though.
     
  13. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Too all members. Let's all be friends ok.
    We are audiophiles. Look I am been wrong loads of times. And I have admitted when I have been wrong. We debate things here to find the truth. To get offend because I pick apart your post or because I am have been over critical of a post a member wrote is understandable but silly.

    Mostly I click the ignore button because I don't want a negative vibe on a thread. I admit a thread was locked recently because of me. But it takes two to dance.....Usually. again, my fault.

    Let's be kind and respectful. O.k.
    None of my posts are personal shots at a member. I have a lot to learn. So I listen and read. I have a learning problem so I may misunderstand your post.

    Please be clear in your posts. Very often a member is taking an unkind shot at another member. Thing is it is not always clear who he/she is referring to. If you object to some post I made then post to me directly about it. Please do not back end me or anyone else with rude hurtful comments to another member. If you have a problem with my posts please don't write things like,"This guy posts too much....."
    None of my posts are personal attacks against any member.

    I hate having to write this. But because i disagree with a member about said issue doesn't mean I think badly about the member. Debate is ahhh....fun. or it should be. Some of you need to relax. I am really a nice guy.

    I freely admit that many a times I have overreacted on here. Sorry.
     
  14. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Digi Beta? Was that a digital video on a Beta cam tape?
     
  15. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Tascam, Sony, Revox (consumer division of Studer, Pioneer, JVC, Otari. I have a well set up friend who has just purchased a new RTR. not used. Payed $4000 for it. He got it so he could test out new digital converters. ?????? I am confused.
     
  16. nosticker

    nosticker Forum Guy

    Location:
    Ringwood, NJ
    Completely different format. Some decks were partially backwards-compatible. There was the Sony DVW-500. If it was a A500, it could playback Beta SP. And Beta SP was metal-particle tape. Betacam was known as oxide tape.

    Pro video formats? There are people better than I for that, but in my years, I've seen 2" Quad, 1"C, U-Matic, U-MaticSP, MII, Betacam, BetaSP, Digital Betacam, D2. D3, D5, DVCProHD, BetaSX, MPEG IMX, HDCAM and HDSR. JVC's Digital-S(D9) was a niche format that got a lot of use at Fox News and a few other places. The prosumer formats would be S-VHS, Hi8, DVCPro, Mini-DV, etc. I look at the format wars as the ways that Sony/Panasonic/Ampex could sell parts if their machine got a foothold in the industry. So much of those formats were BS, especially in an NTSC analog composite world.


    Dan
     
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  17. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    Yes:

    Betacam: 1982, professional version of Betamax, same cassette design as consumer Betamax but incompatible recording format.
    Betacam SP: 1986, improved resolution
    Digital Betacam: 1993, digital version of Betacam
    Betacam SX: 1996, digital, less expensive, more compressed than Digital Betacam
     
  18. rfs

    rfs Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lansing, MI USA
    My Walkman Pro WM-D6 has a little switch that changes the level LEDs into a battery status indicator using the bottom LED. It has closed loop speed control and the only time it has wow and flutter is when the battery has run down enough to turn off this LED.
     
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  19. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    isn't that Walkman that cost around 475.00 back in the 80's?
    I was also psyched with one of my friends having this Walkman with 2 tapes (one on each side). I wanted to buy one but I couldn't afford it at that time. I bought the medium grade Walkman and I installed it in my car to drive my head unit. That was a blast!
     
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  20. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Ahhh damn. Well Sony bent me over on that one. LOL
     
  21. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    you know what so funny back in the 80' era.... The car hi fidelity with speaker boxes weren't really that popular yet besides in Tokyo and some Asian countries. I practically saw some of my neighbors putting their home speakers in the car,,, LoL. I thought that was trip!
    Hope you didn't catch the fever...?
    :biglaugh:
     
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  22. formbypc

    formbypc Forum Resident

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  23. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Thanks for depressing me. Ahhhh!
    Yea, I have read that. And thanks....I read it again.
    The price will go down. Give it 200 000 years.

    Seriously, it is no different then what was done on the inferior TNG. They just have to upgrade the effects to HD. What is 20 million now might only cost 5 million 10 years from now.

    An NTSC Deep Space Nine DVD upconverted on a nice HD/4K tv looks pretty good. Not HD but pretty good. Now, where are my HD releases of North and South?
     
  24. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario

    Read it all. Wow! Losts of info. Good post dude.

    But...What costs 40 million now might cost 10 million 15 years from now.. Back in 1990, 48 tracks of 16/48 PCM would run you $250 000 USD. Today it will run you less than $2000 including lap top.

    Hard disk sales make up 2/3 of the TV and movie industry profits. That was 2 years ago. But the idea the streaming makes up all the money is a myth. Every movie still comes out on DVD, BLU-RAY and 4k.

    And I just bought my new 8k player and TV. Came with a free 8k movie - Gone With The Wind. The new 8k media is a 6 layered Blu-ray disk is totally rad. My new 55 inch 8 k TV looks too real.





    O.k.......I.made up the last paragraph. But dream fellow Star Trek fans.....Dream......
     
  25. formbypc

    formbypc Forum Resident

    I don't miss any of that either.

    But if the only copy that exists of a fine live performance is on a cassette, then even with all those faults, I want a cassette deck. Even if only to get that sucker copied to digital.
     
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