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Re: [ARSCLIST] Some advice on cassette decks?
At 02:55 PM 8/31/2006, Tom Fine wrote:
I think these questions will decide your cassette deck. I will argue
that you do not need an audiophile/azimuth-adjusting deck like a Nak
Dragon if you have a bunch of recorded spoken-word tapes that were
made on decent equipment. A little azimuth drift will not have
nearly the bearing audibility as the original recording technique
(ie a built-in mic on a boomy table just won't yield a very good
recording, whereas a feed off a decent lecturn mic will be audible
whether or not there's a little azimuth misalignment).
Except...the closer the tape is to unintelligible, the less you want
to risk adding any additional distortions during the transfer project.
Finally, what are your input parameters? Do you have a balanced
pro-level system? If so, you'll probably want a balanced-output/+4
nominal level cassette machine.
Aphex 124 and other Balance Boxes are available fairly inexpensively.
I'd select cassette deck independent of this parameter (he says with
four Aphex 124s wired to his jackfield, along with four Dragons.
I think Parker's reference for Dragons is a good one - I bought most
of mine via ePay and one via the Nak lists. My only negative on eBay
was a retaliatory one over my giving the seller a neutral on the
second Dragon. Dragon 3 was via eBay and Dragon 4 came from the same
seller. One of those needed the pressure roller arms relubricated
(goo, arms didn't move). Dragon 5 came as a swap (via eBay but
refurb'd) for a Studer A807, Dragon 6 came from the Nak list as I was
planning on driving right by the guy's house.
Dragons #1 & #2 (and #5) were refurb'd by TAP electronics in So.
Calif - #1 before it was put on eBay, #2 at my expense (making an
$800 machine cost $1350), #5 at the buyer's expense -- before the
swap. I had #4 done here at a service depot that has some great
people. #6 had been refurb'd before the sale by someone else. #3
worked fine out of the box (as did #1, #5, and #6 when I got it) Only
#2 and #4 needed work when I got it. While I was fussing with #2 --
which actually received a whole new mechanism -- I found that TAP had
another all new mechanism which I purchased at that time, to be safe,
so I have 6.5 Dragons, really.
I also have an MR-1 which is good, but you can tell the loss of the
azimuth control.
Cheers,
Richard
Richard L. Hess email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.