Re: [ARSCLIST] need audio cassette deck suggestions

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Richard:

Again, I do not argue with the merits of the famed Dragon for critical
content like music, but mono voice recordings (probably made on a portable
live in a rally room if they are political speeches or on a meeting room
table if they are meetings) are, um, not of great audio quality. So I see no
need to blow a big wad of cash on an elephant gun for that ant of a transfer
project. I figured a political-action group like the origin of the original
question would want to save budget for political action vs. setting up a
state-of-the-art transfer chain for mono spoken-word recordings.
Particularly if the project is a finite pile of stuff needing transfer. I
hate to sound like a certain tin-eared desert-rat member of another list we
both participate in but, as you said, different approaches ...

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard L. Hess" <ArcLists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005 11:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] need audio cassette deck suggestions


> I have to disagree with my good friend Tom. Actually, as I was
> starting out in 2002 or so, it took Don Ososke a while to convince me
> to get a Dragon - he was persuasive, but the price tag was high. My
> only eBay negative was over a Dragon and I was the buyer.
>
> Unless the tape is going to damage the Dragon, I am using Dragons
> for >95% of my transfers. The clean highs and the low noise provide
> an excellent platform for horrid tapes to attempt to clean them up.
> I'm considering modding at least one Dragon to have manual azimuth
> adjustment. It would just be a pot, I think.
>
> Different approaches...
>
> I have a Kenwood KX-W8030 which makes great tapes, but there is a
> huge difference between its reproduction and a Dragon. I also have a
> Nak MR-1 which is very good, but isn't the Dragon, and a Sony TC-D5M
> which is OK or better (it's a portable) but it isn't quite as clean
> as the Kenwood.
>
> I haven't seen great cassette machines today, and the results from
> the expensive-as-an-ePay-Dragon Tascam 122B have been
> mixed--especially the demo where it was used at the ARSC conference
> in Austin this year. I suspect that one was dirty or broken.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> At 08:58 PM 11/8/2005, you wrote:
> >Hi David:
> >
> > From what you're describing (mono WAV, etc), this is spoken-word
content? If
> >so, I can't see the need for heaping hundreds of dollars on a vintage Nak
> >Dragon. Tascam still makes very good cassette decks, for a few hundred
> >dollars at most. I believe Yamaha also makes cassette decks for the
consumer
> >market, and perhaps others, which probably cost less. Any of these will
be
> >just fine for spoken word transferred in mono. I'm guessing most of these
> >tapes were made with mono portable recorders anyway?
> >
> >If I were in your shoes -- assuming my guesses about the audio quality of
> >the content are correct -- I'd buy a moderately priced machine and keep
at
> >what you're doing and use the rest of your budget for the pizza and beer
> >party you well deserve for taking on that most tedious task!
> >
> >If, on the other hand, you were transferring soundboard tapes from a
great
> >jazz festival or nightclub, I'd say get a Dragon and shoot for the moon
with
> >quality. But I can't see it for mono spoken word tapes.
> >
> >-- Tom Fine
>
> Richard L. Hess                              richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada             http://www.richardhess.com/
> Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm