[ARSCLIST] And--was: [ARSCLIST] cassette crackle

["Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Pretty well covered by recent posters. Incidentally, we had a similar 
> problem with tapes made on our ancient Utah tape recorder (full track, 
> bought in 1950). When we began copying the tapes made on that machine over 
> to the Wollensak in 1959, anything recorded prior to 1955 had to be copied 
> from another Wollensak because repeated repairs to the Utah had resulted 
> in its running fast (about 8 IPS) and the tapes were noisy and cruddy 
> sounding after a certain point, probably because of head wear. We didn't 
> have a quarter-track machine yet so we were too dumb to know that we'd get 
> better results from the right channel or down the middle of the tape 
> track.
> dl
Which reminded me of another problem which is/was fairly common on "home-
use grade" cassettes...! While these machines usually run close enough to 
the
standard 1-7/8 speed that cassettes don't sound noticeably "off-speed"..
nevertheless, they DON'T all run at exactly the same speed! I found this out
when usingt a different "dubbing" deck to copy a cassette originally 
recorded
on a different tape deck; the reason I notice the "accumulated" speed 
difference
(tape recorded on deck A, then dub-copied on deck B, and that tape played
back on deck A again...!), is because I tried playing harmonica along with 
the
resulting tape, and found it was no longer in the key of E (A harmonica, 2nd
position) as the LP I had originally taped had been...?!

Steven C. Barr