Re: [ARSCLIST] Can 78s sound better than LPs?

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Lou:

This has been discussed, I think on this list, but it was a while back. You are a good businessman! 
It is VERY smart to have a client bring in his deck if it's a Nak. Nak has some non-standard things 
with Dolby (non-standard = not compatible with other manufacturers). If you have, say, a Nak Dragon, 
you should be able to reproduce his tapes perfectly (and then some since the Dragon's transport is 
more stable), but if his portable got dropped a few times, it might have unique azimuth and speed 
issues all its own. I forgot the particulars, but I think some argue that Nak is the only one who 
followed the Dolby B standard to the letter while everyone else didn't, but whatever the reason, 
Dolby B tapes made on another deck can sound wrong played back on a Nak and vice-versa. Not all the 
time, but sometimes. I'm hoping Richard Hess pipes up with the technical particulars on this.

-- Tom Fine

PS -- Your client is not so crazy about using the original deck. The tapes I made on my late Teac 
deck, which made it through high school, college and beyond and probably played 2500+ 45-minute 
cycles, never sound as good on other decks, including the Naks in the studio. That Teac deck was 
definitely in standard azimuth per a STL cassette, as are the decks in the studio. It just sounded 
brighter and more alive with tapes it made.

PPS -- Given the advantage of age and the advances of science/technology, I'd classify cassettes as 
a junk medium. But, less junky than Minidisc to my ears. At least cassettes tried to capture the 
full audio spectrum instead of come up with some robo-"perceptual encoding" scheme to avoid it!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lou Judson" <loujudson@xxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 2:04 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Can 78s sound better than LPs?


All I can say it it is the client's machine and he thinks it is fine...
Were it mine I would check all the parameters. It's a Nakamichi
portable.

I resisted changing the subject to, can cassettes sound as good as 78s?

<L>

Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689

On Aug 25, 2006, at 2:34 PM, Michael Shoshani wrote:

> On Friday 25 August 2006 13.49, Tom Fine wrote:
>
> > Using the original tape machine, especially with cassettes, and a direct
> > signal path will beat any claims on any cable any day.
>
> Well...
>
> Assuming that the heads were demagnetized at the time of recording and are
> demagnetized now, assuming the azimuth is correct, AND assuming that the
> speed of the tape transport hasn't changed since the recording was
> made...yes :)
>
> Michael Shoshani
> Chicago
> Who inherently distrusts cassettes at all since working in a studio with three
> different cassette decks, NONE of which ran at the exact same speed as the
> other two...