The world of analog tape just gets better and better

[MikeRivers]

 

Its a fairly easy task to get pro grade replacement stuff because you could buy exact replacement parts. Replacement was simple too because it was designed to be replaced. Consumer grade was a pain in the ass dealing with a gazillion manufacturers and head types. Many would only offer the entire transport including the heads.

 

 

Well, sure, consumer gear in general, at least that made after about 1975, isn't built with repair in mind other than replacement of modules.. On the other hand you could buy three or four new consumer tape decks for the price of a replacement head for a professional, even broadcast grade recorder. But going a few years back, Nortronics made replacement heads for practically every consumer tape deck, and they still do. And you can get decent replacement heads for an Ampex AG-440 from them as well.

 

 

I can say I'd rather work on the pro stuff then consumer junk anyday.

 

 

Me, too, but I think I have a better chance of repairing a consumer tape deck than, say, a Pro Tools HD interface. Can't get documentation, can't get parts, and all of those itty bitty surface mounted parts are too small even to stamp a part number or value on. Talk about pro gear that isn't meant to be repaired! And troubleshooting computers??!!

 

 

Your better cassette decks had three heads so you could monitor the the recording as you recorded. This would allow you to monitor and adjust the tape saturation vs using meters to get the best fidelity onto the tape.

 

 

Well, that's something that you do on the bench when you adjust it, then you use it. With a three-head machine you can indeed adjust the bias for optimum performance rather than guess-and-by-gosh, and some cassette decks even had a bias adjustment control on the front panel. But generally it was for maximum sensitivity (peak level on the meters) at around 400 Hz, not adjusting tape saturation for the best fidelity.

 

 

In stereo stuff where you could flip a tape, the manufacturers used a standard alignment all the way through from consumer to pro grade. For multitrack where only one side of the tape is used, the alignment between manufacturers was often non standard.

 

 

Other than NAB vs. IEC reproduce EQ curves, both of which are standards, they sure were standard. The physical alignment (azimuth, zenith, and height) all have a correct adjustment that applies to all machines. Nobody intentionally misadjusts these. Sometimes you'll want to deviate from standard reference fluxivity but still, there are certain defined standard levels which a professional engineer should document, and should also include reference tones so that the playback machine can be adjusted to match the record level. The bias and record equalization are interactive and interact with the tape as well, so they're adjusted so that the playback frequency response is accurate. These are occasionally diddled to get certain preferred distortion characteristics, but that's recorded because the engineer wants to record it that way, not because the machine came out of the box that way.

 

 

The difference in individual track widths on different heads formats often made the playback of recordings done on mone manufacturers equipment incompatible with another.

 

 

Again, these are things for which there are multiple standards, but if you know what standard was used for the recording, you can play it back correctly or compensate for it. And they're fairly easy to determine. Obviously you can't play a quarter track tape recorded in both directions on a machine with full or half track playback heads, but you should be able to play it back on any machine with the proper heads. There are two standards for 2-track track width, one European and one American, but either head will play either tape satisfactorily, with the European "butterfly" head is generally the most universal. Again, standards, which work right as long as you have the correct one. And even consumer recorders conformed to these standards.

 

 

Again I was refuring to consumer grade stuff there. Pro grade went about as far as they could with the medium. Everything else was pretty much import stuff that cut corners to keep production costs low.

 

 

OK, but you're not criticizing the technology, you're criticizing the implementation in the consumer version of the product. I'll bet that if you look really hard, you can find a good reason to buy one of those fabled $700 toilet seat covers, and that most of the time, you'll make a better recording with a Neumann mic, or even an MXL mic, than with a Mr. Microphone, standards or not.

[BushmasterM4]

I actually have a few DuoDisc records. It was a home record making machine. Im not sure of the date of manufacture. Thinking 60's. The three records I have are from someones Christmas, when they got the thing. I transfered it to digital.