David Rice Archivist Democracy Now! 87 Lafayette St. New York, NY 10013 Phone: (212) 431-9090 Fax: (212) 431-8858 Email: dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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
content? IfI 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
consumerso, 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
bemarket, and perhaps others, which probably cost less. Any of these will
atjust 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
greatwhat 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
withjazz festival or nightclub, I'd say get a Dragon and shoot for the moon
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