Re: [ARSCLIST] Baking tapes and high frequencies

[Tommy Sjöberg <tommy.sjoberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter,
I have seen a report in IASA's Technical Journal of a few years ago
(sorry, don't have them at hand), where Kevin Bradley of the National
Library of Australia had tested frequency response of tapes before
and after baking. If I remember correctly the degradation was small,
in the region of 0.5 dB at 10 kHz, per baking session.
I'm not sure if the recommended baking temperatures (c. 50 deg C) are
high enough to cause any distortion of the tapes, but my experience
is limited to a maximum of 1/2" width. This experience tells me,
though, that about 6-8 hours is needed to remove stickiness.

Greetings,
Tommy Sjoeberg



> Is there any data out there that supports the claim that it degrades the
> signal reproduction on analog audio tape?  I have been on the AES, ANSI,
> SMPTE and ISO technical commissions for tape preservation and, to date, have
> never seen any supporting data for the claim.
>
> There are other methods to treat binder hydrolysis.  They are much more
> time-consuming and a pain-in-the-#&$.  If there is evidence that "baking"
> damages part of the recording, it would be helpful if someone could produce
> some data.
>
> Any comments or data to share?
>
>
> Peter Brothers