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Re: [ARSCLIST] Can 78s sound better than LPs?
Thanks Tom. My studio partner had one of those three-mic-input Naks,
and I loved using it as long as I didn't have to lug it around! Heavy
as a Nagra... and more quirky, as you say.
As for the junky part, it is interesting to watch SpectraFoo as I
transfer - slightly rising hiss to 16k and then a sharp cutoff, nothing
above. He is wisely choosing no noise reduction or processing at all,
and I am (equally wisely) capturing them in 24 bit... By the way, Foo
shows no azimuth problem I can see, the mono tapes among them are a
straight line...
Interestingly, the Dolby seems to track perfectly. MOST cassettes I get
in sound better with Dolby off and a bit of NR os one flavor or
another...
<L>
Lou Judson • Intuitive Audio
415-883-2689
On Aug 26, 2006, at 4:45 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
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!