[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[ARSCLIST] AM radio...Re: [ARSCLIST] NAB vs. DIN recordings
Most modern AM radios are horrible. They have way too much roll off and
cause listener fatigue (because of the phase anomalies, in my opinion).
Those classic tubed consoles from the 30's-50's are SO MUCH better. One
of these days I'm going to find a HH Scott to listen to sports and the
local R&B/soul station. I have some 45 rpm singles that were "mixed for
radio". Seems that they had as much to do with "classic" AM radio sound
as the format.
Tom Fine wrote:
Hi Richard:
If the low-freq fringeing effects are common, that's one thing, but
except for a classical music master made in a very quiet room with a
very quiet recording rig, I doubt 1.7dB s/n degradation is very audible.
The worst thing I've encountered with half-tracks were a bunch of
tapes where the guy made recordings on "side A" on his first machine
in the 1950's and then decided he'd record on "side B" with his new
machine in the late 60's. Neither was in "standard" azimuth per my MRL
tape and they weren't in azimuth to each other. Hence, twice the time
needed to do a proper transfer than the normal MO of ingesting both
tracks at once and reversing "side B" in the computer. These
recordings, BTW, were off AM radio and sounded amazingly good. I
couldn't believe that as late as the early 70's, AM radio had
reasonably good fidelity, at least through this guy's tuner and tape
recorder.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard L. Hess"
<arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] NAB vs. DIN recordings
At 05:30 PM 2007-03-25, Tom Fine wrote:
How much quality/fidelity do you use if you play back something
recorded with a 2.8mm head on a 1.9mm head? It would seem like you'd
be safest using the narrowest track width as it should play
everything at least OK and not pick up any outside-of-track garbage
from a tape, no?
Hi, Tom,
If you use a too-narrow track, you get low-frequency fringing
effects. The worst case of signal-to-noise degradation would be
10 log (1.9/2.8) or about - 1.7 dB.
I am interested in David Lennick's comments as to the wide
utilization of the DIN heads (2.8 mm tracks) throughout CBC).
I wonder if the EQ was NAB or IEC?
I just cleaned a couple of moldy CBC Toronto tapes and they are
indeed DIN track width. They sound like NAB EQ, however.
I tend to ignore the 1.9 vs 2.1 mm track width. I prefer to think in
mils (thousandths of an inch). So we have roughly 75 mils for the
Ampex original stereo heads (the original half-track mono heads were
always about 82 mils). Then the 82 mils became standardized for
half-track mono AND stereo in the NAB standard I think about 1965.
Then, of course, we have the 100 mil (102?) DIN standard.
I did come across one "half-track" recording that had 60 mil tracks
on it. Joy. I just used the 82 mil normal head (I don't have any
Ampexes so I don't have any 75 mil heads).
Anyway, I just dug out my butterfly head assembly and I'll put it on
my A810 and align it.
I'd love more discussion on the pervasiveness of this. I have some
machines from CBC-TV in Montreal and they were all NAB Timecode, no
DIN heads there.
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.