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Re: arsclist Duplicating casette tapes
At 01:00 PM 8/1/2002 -0500, Melinda Curley wrote:
We are beginning an oral history project and plan to purchase equipment to
make reference copies of the original cassette tapes. Is it best to
purchase a dual cassette deck such as a Sony or RCA, etc. or are there
decks that are best for duplicating tapes that are not manufactured to be
part of a stereo system? I would appreciate any advice on this subject.
Unless you have a compelling need to copy onto cassette, I strongly
recommend avoiding cassette for archiving. An inexpensive standalone CD
recorder (not associated with a computer) will give you a digital copy from
which analogue or digital transfers can be made without detectable loss and
without compromising your originals.
It is legitimate to argue that the life of CD is limited, but it is
substantially longer than cassette and the ability to replicate the copy
without loss is extremely valuable in practice. If you can go beyond the
minimum configuration to a semipro recorder or even better to one working
within a computer, then you would be even farther ahead, but mastering to
cassette is costly and unwise.
Again, if you have some special circumstance dictating cassette archives,
then the above does not apply. Quality dual-well cassette decks have all
but disappeared from the market; inexpensive units are available, but I
would not recommend any in particular for your job. The bulk duplicators
have the advantages of running at high speed and making multiple copies at
once but the disadvantage of producing copies with poor audio.
Mike
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/
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