Members RockPianoman Posted August 30, 2014 Members Share Posted August 30, 2014 The bad thing about old items that use rubber parts (belts & rollers) is rubber doesn't stand the test of time.....any items that use rubber parts may be working now but they will eventually need to be repaired.....on tape decks, when the belts start to go, it's very subtle at first and then you get more & more wow & flutter and eventually they quit working (I keep working tape decks as I still have a lot of tapes).....if you still have a lot of tapes, a direct drive deck might last longer as there are no belts....direct drive decks might be expensive, even used.... A good low cost deck that will let you listen to your tapes again is a Sony TC-WE435 for about $40 - $60 used on Ebay......it's a dual cassette with music search and auto-reverse.....it can search forward or backwards up to 30 tracks away for songs......you need a couple seconds of blank tape between songs for the search to detect the split point......the remote for this deck is a Sony RM-J910.....I have tapes I made (on good blanks) from the early 80's that still play & run like new....that deck can also copy tape to tape at either normal or double speed.....you can also adjust the playback speed on the left deck to be in tune with a guitar (on a keyboard I would tune the keyboard).....the playback speed on that left deck varies quite a bit.....playback speed isn't adjustable when copying tape to tape....this tape deck also has much bigger and thicker belts than many which makes them last way longer....each deck has it's own motor and transmission which lets you rewind a tape without affecting the playback quality of the other deck.....this wasn't an audiophile deck but it records and plays well and I can't hear any difference from one side to the other using the auto-reverse....it has Dolby B & C and HX Pro....it also has much better pulling power than decks I've seen that were much more expensive (maybe due to the larger belts)..... On the subject of tape decks, you get much less wow and flutter recording tapes laying down....when tapes stand on edge they wobble back and forth which adds wow & flutter....you notice a bigger difference with some tape housings than others......I made a box to hold my main cassette recorder so the front faces up now and I have a piece of plexi-glass on hinges that covers it.....I still try to improve my cassettes when I buy albums on CD because many were recorded from vinyl I had bought or from cassettes I had bought.....I know "purists" think vinyl is better but I enjoy listening to cassettes recorded from CD much more....to my ears, vinyl adds a ton of noise.....noise that wasn't on the original master tapes for the album....(turntable rumble, pops and misc. noise) even if the album was brand new and was played with a new needle.....turntable rumble is the biggest, most universal problem.....you can really hear it clearly especially when you turn it up loud..... I used CR02 tapes as much as possible (normal has too much hiss and doesn't sound as good)....I have Maxell, Sony, TDK and other CR02 tapes that I used a lot but without a doubt, the Fuji DR-II was the best value in a CR02 tape back in the day.....I used to be able to get 10 Fuji DR-II 90's for $10 at Target......good luck finding a good deal on any blank tape now....a while back I saw a Maxell Metal 60 minute tape, new and in the wrapper for $30 for 1 on Ebay (and a 20 cent CD would sound better)....gone are good deals on blank tape but I don't buy it anymore anyway....the Fuji DR-II's had a good mechanism too..... they ran great and lasted forever....extremely low noise too.... Normal bias tape is OK for recording but it is noisy compared to CR02 and the sound doesn't sparkle like the sound on a CR02 tape.....Maxell UR tapes and Sony HF tapes are about the only ones you can even find anymore new in department stores (they are both normal bias) and they do OK and run good but CR02 tape will spoil you I guess....like I said, I don't buy blank tape anymore....I just try to improve the ones I have.....I do think tapes are easier to change while driving than CD's..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted August 30, 2014 Members Share Posted August 30, 2014 I do think tapes are easier to change while driving than CD's..... Not in pretty much any car made after 1999... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockPianoman Posted August 30, 2014 Author Members Share Posted August 30, 2014 Most newer cars don't have cassette but our Honda does and it's a 2001 but it also has a 6 CD changer.... My main reason that I keep working tape decks is because of how many cassettes I have.....Cassettes were what I usually bought from 1977 on (until I started buying CD's) because I could play them in the car or at home.....the only way to play vinyl in the car was to record it so I'd end up with a cassette of my vinyl too.... CD's are way better than cassettes but I'm surprised at how many car CD players skip when you hit bumps.....ours in our Honda doesn't skip though but the CD player in our Toyota that we used to have skipped when you hit bumps.... I remember a Sony CD discman they sold in the 90's with electronic shock protection and you could bounce it off the floor and it wouldn't skip.....My Sony discmans I have now don't skip (but I don't test them by bouncing them off the floor)...the one that was bounced off the floor was how they demonstrated that particular one at the mall (the floor at the mall had carpet)..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted August 30, 2014 Members Share Posted August 30, 2014 I drove a 1999 Chevy Blazer for years. Had both a CD and cassette player. You had to bump the HELL out of the car to get the CD player to skip. The cassette player barely worked though. Only one direction played properly and it sounded like crap. I drive 2013 Toyota RAV4 now. I have no idea how well the CD player holds up to bumping because I've only used it a couple of times. So much easier to just plug my iPod, which has pretty much my entire CD collection on it (as well as a bunch of needledropped LPs), into the USB port. That thing never skips. . I did the same thing as you regarding my vinyl and cassettes back in the day. But once CDs came around, I pretty much tossed all my cassettes. No point. I still have a couple of old decks around just in case, but they don't get used too much. Plus, 30 year cassettes don't really hold up all that well. Eventually the oxide wears off. And, besides, you'll have to get a new car eventually.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockPianoman Posted August 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted August 31, 2014 I still play my tapes and they still sound good mainly because when I buy them I copy them on to a CR02 blank and I always keep my tapes rewound, but I usually listen to CD's now.....I put my CD's on DVD as 320 bitrate mp3's and I play them on my DVD player through my stereo....you can get sometimes 50 or more albums on a DVD at 320....it depends how long the songs are....people always put mp3's down but at 320 I think they sound really good.....not much different than the CD It's always a question of how long flash drives and DVD's will last but so far so good I have a Memorex DVD player that plays USB & SD Cards and can read ALL the songs off any format including double layer DVD.....if you get one, get the one where the remote takes 2 AAA batteries as the earlier model had a remote that took watch batteries.....I run that player into my stereo Tapes that I can't find for sale on CD I transfer to CD....I use a Sony CD recorder and Nero wave editor to split songs.....if you split and burn on Nero split points are undetectable even on live albums with no blank.....the finished CD is amazing....it sounds better than the tape (it doesn't sound possible)....Nero wave editor has some cool features and can do some cool tricks....I start by transferring the CD to a wave file and I stay with that format until I'm done....don't normalize recordings from tape as it increases the amount of tape hiss.....I adjust the Sony CD recorder to make as loud of a recording as possible with no clipping (I watch the meter extremely close).... Some albums aren't available on CD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockPianoman Posted August 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted August 31, 2014 I found out how to get a tape deck adjusted to perfect speed......get an adapter that turns two headphone jacks to one.....take the top panel off the cassette deck.....newer decks have adjustable pots where all you need is a screwdriver......buy two copies of an album NEW, one on CD, one on cassette.....play them both at the same time through headphones and using the adjustable pot it's not too hard to get them both playing at the same speed..... Once you do, record a note on A below middle C on an electronic keyboard (A 440) with a sound that sustains when you hold a note.....record it for at least a couple minutes....you have just made a speed reference cassette that can make every other deck the right speed just using that tape and a guitar tuner....make sure the keyboard is in tune with a guitar tuner before recording it Before I would use any deck to make the tape I would throw on new belts to insure it's working right....bad belts is the main problem with tape decks.....they last over 5 years when you get new ones.....tape decks are under-rated......uncompressed audio is really nice....you'd be surprised how many CD's have clipping and compression and MP3's are extremely compressed....MP3's use just a fraction of the full data of the CD I would absolutely not use any older technology than cassette ever.....I've always hated 8 tracks and reel to reels are a pain....cassettes caught on so well that the blank tapes were outstanding.....I can't believe how good my tapes still sound and some are as old as the early 80's (high quality blanks) I don't use cassettes with headphones (digital only with headphones) but through the home stereo and car stereo they still rock.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted August 31, 2014 Members Share Posted August 31, 2014 I dunno.....sounds like a lot of trouble to make sure those old cassettes keep on rockin' Especially since it's been a good 15 years since any cars came equipped with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockPianoman Posted August 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted August 31, 2014 Yeah .....it is......what's easier is to just buy one of those tape decks I listed above and use it until it dies and get another.....I don' t know what in the world I would do with all my tapes otherwise.....they sound too good and cost too much to just throw them away Those decks all play pretty close to the right speed....I don't need any tape decks now....mine all work fine.....my problem is the blanks I bought were expensive and not typical blanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted August 31, 2014 Members Share Posted August 31, 2014 Maxell Metal and CR02 tapes were my favorite back in the day. I also used TDKs quite a bit. Most seem to have held up pretty well considering the age but all seem to have some dropouts in places. I threw out the last of my LP dubbed cassettes a few years ago. My MO back in the day was to buy an LP, dub it to cassette, and then play the cassette. Most of my LPs have very few plays and have been well cared for. Any older album I want to hear that isn't available on CD, or that I don't wish to purchase. I can needledrop from the LP. I have a good program for that. There's a program called Click Repair that is very good at removing the ticks and pops from your LPs when converting to your computer. The few cassettes I have remaining in my collection are of original music and live gigs recorded with bands I played with years ago. I've since converted all of this to computer, but I keep the cassettes as the "original masters", such as they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockPianoman Posted August 31, 2014 Author Members Share Posted August 31, 2014 Those Maxell Metal tapes were expensive.....both CR02 and Metal have super low noise / tape hiss.....I can barely even hear it at all unless it's turned up......normal bias works ok if you don't turn the tapes up loud but I didn't really use it....normal still doesn't sound as clear The better stereo you have, the worse cassettes sound.....my stereo sounds good but my tapes sound good on it......it's not a super expensive stereo.....they sound good in the car too I have a Sony home theater stereo with all the surround speakers.....it has a lot of inputs on the back and I use them all.....I no longer have any vinyl or a turntable......I might buy a direct drive turntable (no belts) just so I can record vinyl that isn't available on CD to CD This is an old post I did under my other name on here: http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/...97216-36446453 I have never had a single DVD that was burnt correctly ever go bad and i have never had a single audio CD ever go bad either and some are as old as 1998.....I have had many data CD's go bad and my conclusion is small data on CD's goes bad.....audio CD's are made of huge files comparable to wave files in size.....some people have disputed this with me, but I'm basing this all on my own experience....every disc I ever burned has the date it was burned burnt on it.... It's very important to use a burning program (like Nero) that verifies the burnt data against the source after burning or you could have errors from the start....any disc I have ever burnt that doesn't verify is discarded and I re-burn the disc.....I find that when burning slower is always better....it's crucial to keep your laser lens clean or you could have a bad burn that verifies correctly (in other words it can be read on the computer burner but maybe not on every player......tricky tricky....) The exception to what I have found would be in the case when you are using a burner that is dying and doesn't burn well and the discs once again might read and verify on the computer but maybe not on every player.....test your discs on as many players as possible to let you know if this is happening....(I have a burner like this in one of my laptops).... It's best to always buy new burners and not used ones on Ebay as they may not last and may be half dead when you get them.....in some cases you may not be able to find a new one and may have to buy a used one..... Naturally whenever a burner damages any disc I have in any way, I immediately throw it away and replace it (I had a burner a couple years ago that scratched a disc severely)..... Nero wave editor also removes pops from recordings.....it works good too but sometimes it's nearly impossible to remove the pop without removing part of the recording that is vital.... Nero wave editor has undo if you don't like something you've done.....to use Nero wave editor, select "Audio CD" and add your track.....once it is added, right click on it on the left side and choose "Audio Editor".......to add track marks, first left click on the gray area to the left and then click "Edit" at the top and click "Insert Track Split" (this is an easy track split to forget but you need one before the music starts).....you can zoom in to an incredible degree and put your track marks wherever you want and you play each one and when they are in the right spot you once again select "Insert Track Split".....if you miss one, you can go back and add it any time and the track numbers change to make them correct.....you can also click and drag to highlight any area and select "Cut" to erase sections or bad spots or pops......when you are completely done, select "Save Tracks As Files" and select "PCM" which are wave files and select the folder you want to save them to.....they will need to be named as they arrive as numbered tracks.... I still use Nero 6 as it works so well for me and I have no problems with it....these are the exact steps I use when converting tapes to CD.....I convert the CD I make from the tape with my Sony CD recorder to a wave file and add it..... Like I said, if you use Nero to split and burn, track marks are invisible to your ear.....just make sure to right click on each song when added and one by one select "Properties" and song 1 should have 2 seconds and all the others should have zero....these determine how much blank before the song begins....song 1 must have 2 seconds but this doesn't matter as this is before the album starts....if you click the firey X at the top of Nero 6, you enter Nero Express (select CD instead of DVD before opening Nero Express) and in Audio CD mode you can check a box before you add your tracks to not have any pause between tracks.....this puts all zeros where the default 2 seconds was (except for the first track).... Record streaming audio for free - http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/Keyboards/acapella-18/31247567-record-streaming-audio-online-for-free Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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