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. rfs

    rfs Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lansing, MI USA
    I paid $300 for it 2 years ago - if you look on eBay they go for a lot more than that now.
     
  2. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    Hey John,
    I hope you didn't miss the sale. When you buy a box, you get a free tdk carrier..:-popcorn:

    [​IMG]
     
    john morris likes this.
  3. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Ahhhhhh!
     
  4. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    I exaggerate often. But......These are issues. However, any refurbished mid priced 2 head deck from 1991 should give you at least 30 - 17 000 hz +-3db with even Type 1 tape.
     
  5. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    The 1980's had bad-ass 14 bit converters (bad. I owned one!) and pro cassette Walkmans and laser disk players and other cool stuff and DASH, PRO DIGI, cool hip DAT recorders and......
     
  6. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Mmmm.....No argument there.
     
  7. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    You will do as your told and max out your credit cards! There is a nice restored Nak Dragon on Ebay for $900. It has your name on it.

    :laugh: Just a little John humor. Seriously though. You should be prepared to spend at least $350 - $600 on a nice 3 head deck. DO NOT buy used. If you dare to buy a new deck I will sit in a corner naked and cry.
     
  8. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    There is a nice $300 Denon DRM-800 3 head deck on Ebay right now. Works great. Apparently it is a floor model or a return.. I would snatch this baby up now.
     
  9. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    I don't know about buying anything from there. Last time Ive seen a cassette for sale, the guy said its in perfect condition. Looks like it got wiped off with the same towel he cleaned a muddy car. The picture was taken next to a trash can with sand papers and wire brush all over..:faint:
     
  10. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    Hey John,
    Was this album digitally recorded? I believe this is 1982. I got this recorded on a maxell epitaxial II high position. It sounds very nice on that cassette. I have the later re-master CD version. The one that I recorded in 1985 sounds far better.
    How do you know if the recording was originally analog or digital?
    Another old school good sounding album was "Spirits having flown" bee gees the original press.

    DeBarge - All This Love
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2021
  11. tdvanb

    tdvanb Forum Resident

    Love playing cassettes, especially those I've recorded from good sources (even high res) onto premium tape. They are completely satisfying and do not take a back seat when compared with other sources. I use dbx NR on tapes I record, but also enjoy a rather large collection of prerecorded music which everybody knows is sold for pennies on the dollar at the usual places. Recently I've had a revolution in playing back cassettes. I was having problems with a large number of tapes losing high end when played. They start with nice bright highs then immediately loose their sparkle (even when played in various decks). I used to think it was the decks alignment, but have just recently diagnosed my problem. The pressure pad metal holders have lost tension and are not allowing complete contact of the tape to the tape head. I began replacing the metal tensioner pad with foam in dolby tapes (easy-quick). Dbx tapes must require more accurate contact because replacing the pad with foam hasn't worked. Unfortunately, I've had to take the dbx tapes apart then re- bend the metal piece in a slightly v shape. This is a real pain but has worked well. It is a relief to know this is not the decks problem or the result of a bad recording, especially since so many hours have gone into recording several hundred tapes.
     
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  12. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    You can't! You can have an analog recording that sounds like it was recorded on a 12 bit, 36 khz equipment. And you can have a digital recording that sounds super smooth and easy in the ears.
    You need to get the technical info.

    However....

    El DeBarge was on the Motown label. Motown was always right there when new recording technology came out. Back in 1964 when 99% of the studios were still using 4 tracks, Motown engineers built their own 1 inch 8 track. And in early 1969 they moved to 2 inch 16. By 1972 they went to 24 track. It is a good bet that Motown purchased a few Sony DASH 3324 machines in 1981. But....This is just a good guess. At $150 000 USD each they were not cheap. To put this into perspective the Ampex 2 inch 16 track (MM1000-16) was $30 000 USD back in 1968/1969. Back then $1500 would be like $10 000 today. Do the math!

    A 1968 quote from Norman Whitfield after being told that Motown was moving to 16 tracks:

    "....16 tracks?! What are we gonna do with 16 tracks? That is going to be hard to mix..."

    Back then 8 was the ideal multitrack. 16 was like warp drive.
     
  13. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    I think the early DeBarge original recording was analog but it was ran through a processor. In the early 90's I scored an eventide harmonizer /reverb that we use on live and studio when I was still in a band. I believe we paid $1,300.00 for that unit and it was still used. Brand new was almost 3K. You can use and arrange 8 different effects and it just sounds wonderful. I call it modern analog.
    Now were stuck with downloading music... aaah life goes on....:biglaugh:
     
  14. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    The early dbx box was really good. Talkin' about the mid 80's, The later ones, they're still good but not the dbx "black box". theyre good for recording.
     
  15. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario

    A harmonizer adds extra high frequency content. FM radio stations used it a lot. Did you insert the harmonizer into a channel or hook it up through an Aux/Return loop? If an engineer want to add sparkle to vocals he would just execute the DOLBY A TRICK. You record the vocals with Dolby A encode but on playback you leave the vocal track undecoded. Instant sparkle. You can do it with acoustic guitars as well. I suppose you could run your mix through a harmonizer before it goes to the stereo mixdown deck.

    Running an entire mix through a harmonizer sounds odd to me. But who knows.....

    Digital reverb/delay units completely took over pro studios by 1980. But were being heavily used by 1977. Thousands of dollars but completely quiet, more flexible and better sounding than their analog parents. You could not get a 30 second delay from an analog device. Digital reverb units offered reverse phase effects, stereo delay, and other models blowing effects.

    Many audiophiles think that analog effect units were on their favorite late 1970's records. Nope.

    ELO - A NEW WORLD RECORD
    ELO - OUT OF THE BLUE
    ELO - DISCOVERY
    THE CLASH - SANDINSITA
    FLEETWOOD MAC - TUSK
    ELO/ ONJ - XANADU
    MOODY BLUES - LONG DISTANCE VOYAGER
    RUSH - MOVING PICTURES
    RUSH - SIGNALS
    ABBA - SUPER TROOPER
    IRON MAIDEN - NUMBER OF THE BEAST.

    All these albums used digital reverb....
     
  16. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    It is the cassette deck you should concern yourself with and not his photo skills. That could be his work area. You can't judge the condition of the deck based on the backdrop of the picture.

    The condition is guaranteed. My Uncle has purchased cassette decks off of Ebay over the last 12 years. He has had no problems. Buying used vinyl off of Ebay is another matter.

    You write Ebay off my good friend and you will cut yourself off big time. Just stay clear of: I beats, Beatle CD Boxes and Sennheiser Headphones. Ebay is ripe with that fake stuff.
     
  17. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    That's how I did it on insert. I tried using the old Mackie but in my opinion the old allen and heath with british EQ has a better sound in recording. The Mackies are better on Live. Its not gonna spiced-up with out the processor. Phil Collins is another studio master, even the Ian Stanley the original producer of Tears for Fears was very clever in effects. I saw that band Live in the pacific amphitheater in 1985 and their sound was just like the record. I wont forget that concert because I was listening to Ian's Roland Jupiter 8 and that was like a voice of god tone.
    Years after when Ian left, they lost that studio magic sound they use to produce in the early days.
    The older digitech were pretty good for they came out with the 4 in 4 out so you can run the first 2 direct and dry the mix it with the 3rd and 4th out..
     
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  18. john morris

    john morris Everybody's Favorite Quadron

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Allen & Heath boards....Damn....They don't make 'em like they used to.
     
  19. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    I been listening to this on qobuz and totally blows my mind. I think I'm gonna get this on any format. It totally sounds 80's rich analog. I hardly hear anything like it.
    Analogue Circuit: Live At The Roundhouse by John Foxx And The Maths
    Artist:John Foxx And The Maths
    Media:Audio CD
    Label: Metamatic
    Released: 20 May 2013
    Barcode: 5060079262018

    Songs:
    Parallel Lives/Film One
    Plaza
    This City
    Burning Car
    He's A Liquid
    No-One Driving
    Underpass
    The Running Man
    Summerland
    Watching A Building On Fire
    Catwalk
    Dislocation
    The Quiet Men
    Slow Motion
    The Good Shadow
    The Man Who Dies Every Day
    Just For A Moment
    Parallel Lives/Film One
    Plaza
    This City
    Burning Car
    He's A Liquid
    No-One Driving
    Underpass
    The Running Man
    Summerland
    Watching A Building On Fire
    Catwalk
    Dislocation
    The Quiet Men
    Slow Motion
    The Good Shadow
    The Man Who Dies Every Day
    Just For A Moment

     
  20. luckybaer

    luckybaer Thinks The Devil actually beat Johnny

    Location:
    Missouri
    As a follow up, I found a good use for the DR-2. Apparently, at least for me, recording "hot" CDs to cassette takes some of the "edge" off. I've done this with "Rated R" from QotSA, and "St. Elsewhere" from Gnarls Barkley. Not horribly hot (DR7 for both, IIRC), but sound "nicer" on cassette (using Marantz CD5003 as the CDP). DR went up to DR8 and DR9 respectively for the CD to Cassette transfers. <--FWIW
     
  21. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    are you recording it straight from cd to cassette?
     
  22. luckybaer

    luckybaer Thinks The Devil actually beat Johnny

    Location:
    Missouri
    Yes. Not sure how else I could do it.
     
  23. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    Cool I know a lot of people that are doing it and the results were great. There is this guy that said, he set the recorder to HX pro and use a 120us tape or setting?? He said it sound incredible.
    Honestly I don't know what HX pro means.
    I haven't tried this method yet but its good to know you have great success with it. Always nice to know different ways especially now, I have a lot of CD and I hardly listen to that format since I transferred most of it on cassettes. But I doo it a bit different and I just learned this on my own. I rip the CD to flac for 2nd master and wav so I can edit the music file to make it more analog sound or in any way I like it. then record.
    Edited:
    follow-up on cd direct recording to cassette:
    okay... this is what he said...
    "Its simple: just record from a digital (hissfree) source ! That was the biggest advantage of digital bins. Then take a pure chrome, record with 120µ and HX-Pro and voila ! Your own digital bin copy is ready to listen...."
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2021
    luckybaer likes this.
  24. Classic Car Guy

    Classic Car Guy - Touch the Face of God -

    Location:
    Northwest, USA
    Okay so a recap, the way how you do it is using a normal bias cassette and dial your bias correctly?
    I think I'm gonna also try this method. I have an extra 75 pieces of 60 minute normal bias cassette in a "good to very good" category. I can probably transfer some of my brand new cd that I haven't open yet and transfer it. The method that I use take time. Maybe I can save here.
    Thanks....
     
  25. luckybaer

    luckybaer Thinks The Devil actually beat Johnny

    Location:
    Missouri
    That’s right. Dial in the bias on my deck after adjusting level and balance (never had any issues with balance).

    Hot CDs sound more listenable TO ME. Non-wall-of-noise CDs sound good, too. Yes, Type I cassettes.
     
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