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Re: [ARSCLIST] Some advice on cassette decks?
If money is no object, Richard and Parker are advocating as close to perfect systems as you can get
for cassettes. I'm talking more real-world where money is tight, the pile of cassettes is high and
we make choices based on the original material. I'll stick to my guns on one point -- a little
azimuth drift vs. the original recorder will make zero to very little audible difference in a
near-untelligable poor recording of, for instance, an interview. You're going to have to employ many
tools to get usable audio, most of them EQ and dynamics filtering. So you might want to make sure
there's budget for an excellent chain beyond the cassette player (and, in my experience, it's
usually somewhat costly analog tools that solve the problem better than digi-plugins which tend to
leave audio-degrading artifacts). But, as I said, bottom-dweller cassette machines and beat-to-hell
junkers found on ebay are a wrong choice, too. As usual, I advocate a cost-effective middle road.
I don't recommend Nak decks now because you can't buy a new one. If you find an absolutely
trustworthy reseller of restored/calibrated/aligned decks, well OK but you still takes your chances
vs. an iron-clad manufacturer's warranty. One argument for that costly but very full-featured deck
that Parker recommended is that the company seems to have a profitable niche. I could see Tascam,
for instance, abandoning cassettes (although Teac keeps parts around for a very long time -- I just
bought a new belt for an original 122 and two years ago was still able to buy a record head for a
circa 1975 4-track reel to reel deck, both from Teac Parts in California). Cassettes are a
submerging medium, sinking fast. So all that will be left for a for-profit company soon will be the
transfer/restoration niche.
But, bottom line, we still don't know what the content in question is, the original thread question.
If it's high-quality music recordings, perhaps musical performances from a music school or visiting
professional musicians, I'd lean more toward the no-expense-too-much quality level because you're
going to need to squeeze out every ounce of good that landed on those little tapes to end up with
something that stands up in the high-rez digi-world. But if it's something like lectures, public
speakers, interviews, etc, I'd weigh budgetary concerns and consider just how much the Tiffany
solution is liable to improve usability and audibility. Keeping a conservative budget usually means
more content can be made more widely available or preserved, which is the end goal after all.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 7:58 PM
Subject: 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.