Mallette Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Having a GREAT listening evening! Listeing to cassettes and reel to reel. Before dis'ing the cassette, listen to a good one. I just rec'd a Yamaha deck. 59.00 plus shipping. Auto reverse, Dolby B, C, and a min:sec counter all in near flawless condition. Seller claim it had been "professionally aligned and checked out." I didn't buy it with my music room in mind, but for digitizing a number of cassettes of my grandmother and other relatives that I've wound up with. Given the low prices great old decks are fetching, I figured I might as well go for a good one. However, I guess all this high end digital and vinyl had caused me to forget the lowly cassette as a worthy medium SHOCK, it performs extraordinarly well. First thing I put in was a metal tape, Dolby C copy of Alan Parson Project "Tales of Mystery and Imagination." I made it on a Sony Pro Walkman (now bring twice the original price in good working order) in Singapore about 1987 on the Luxman TT I had over there (vacuum hold down, very cool, and a Stanton 991 cartridge). Blew my mind. Dead silent (I'd DBX de-compressed the LP on the way in) and it even made me wonder if it it would sound any better on my VPI. I listened to a couple of high end pre-recorded's I bought back then and was glad I hadn't thrown them away. I'm thinking I'll digitize them...they are well worth keeping. So, since I'd finally wired the DBX400 route selector for it's original purpose of extending a single tape monitor loop for multiple processors and tape decks, I put the phono on "line," the Yammy on "Tape 1," and the Sony TC-765 on "Tape II" with the DBX 4BX on Sound Processor 1, and the DBX-NX40 on Sound Processor 2. The NX-40 will just be for the occasional DBX encoded LP...LoneLobo has a few. Anyway, the pre-recorded cassettes sound super with a bit of DBX decompression, and noiseless. That's quite a tribute to that tiny 1/8" tape divided into 4 tracks! Stable and extended. Very, very nice. SO glad I did not give the cassettes the boot with the VHS tapes! Just to enjoy only having to push a single button to switch the DBX to another source, the Sony, I put on the Salt Lake City Organ Loft Wurlitzer reel Travis sent me last year. Mien Gott! Total magic. Again the DBX made it noiseless, and there's real PUNCH in that 100" of water. As a tracker organ man I did not really appreciate these monsters until a decade or so ago. While the nuances of a fine tracker warm the heart, the POW of a high pressure instrument kicks the butt! I cry at a great set of Skinner strings, but the high pressure of this Wurlitzer actually makes a string stop sound like a bow striking and rubbing the string, and so many other textures Bach would have loved! I'm loving it... It's all about the source material. And I am blessed with some AWESOME source material in cassettes, shellac, vinyl, reels, SACD's, DVD-A's, CD's, hard drives...sheesh, I am certainly missing something. O...cylinders. Need to get something to play them. Bet there is some great music hidden in there! Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Very cool, Dave. An historian friend of mine worked for a while at the EdisonHistoric Site in East Orange, NJ. Thye have a vast collection of wax cylinders, recorded on equipment at his studios. Lots of interesting stuff. They have a recordingbyt the actual bugler ON THE Bugle that was used in the charge of the light brigade.He said it is erie to hear it. Anyway, when he left, one of the guys made a CD or two of various things they have. Awesome historical archive. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted March 13, 2009 Author Share Posted March 13, 2009 Yezzir, Bruce, ain't life grand? I'd love to stop and visit you sometime on one of our trips to the PAW's folks in Tampa. Hard to tell when that will be with her business now consuming 28/8, but it will happen. That Wurlitzer tape took me back to places and times I wasn't. Made me miss my mom as it certainly reminded me of what Galveston must have been like in the late '30's. Music beats HDTV hands down...fools me AND my cat. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 What is HDTV? Seriously, I only have a 13 1/2 inch analog TV. I am too busy with everything else to even watch TV. I meant to mention, our college is seeling off most of the LP music collection. A lot of them are things like the Time/Life series. Idid pick up a copy of Charles Ives string quartets, but I left it in my office for the weekend []. One of the research librarians grabbed a boxed set of E.Power Biggs and the London Symphony. I tried to talk him out of it, since he doesn't even have a turntable. He is talking about getting a "record player", and asked is he could just plug it itno his TV. They could be doomed, but I am going to try andget them back from him. A few sets on London Records that each weigh a ton. They want t dollar each or two dollars for each boxed set, no matter how many LPs are in the box. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators dtel Posted March 13, 2009 Moderators Share Posted March 13, 2009 Thinking back it's hard to compare the quality of cassettes, just think if they would have been on a tape as wide as a VCR the quality could have been as good as the reel to reel and portable. One thing good about not having cassettes is you don't see them on the side of the road anymore from people throwing them out car windows when they broke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 dtel, some of these cassettes are quite comparable to at least the pre-recorded reels, and quieter to boot. A lot of money and research went into them as they were quite an industry for a while. I really meant it when I said that recording of the Parson's LP made me wonder what it would sound like on my VPI. Remember, we are talking metal cassettes(we waited for those for a decade) Dolby C (significantly quieter than , and DBX decompression. The disk was virgin without so much as a pop. A CD freak would swear it couldn't be an LP. Bruce, why don't you offer to make the guy a CD of the set? Save him a lot of money and frustration trying to figure out how to plug it into his TV. Sheesh, his introduction to sex must have been interesting for all concerning... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWL Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Music beats HDTV hands downAmen, brother. [Y] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 WOW. Just found something I'd forgotten about. I remember finding a reel to reel copy of "Revolver" in the National University Library when I was in Singapore and making a dupe. Found it. Metal cassette, Dolby C. Beats any reissue I've ever heard and the original vinyl as well. BG silent as digital and the whole thing totally clean and crisp. So "in your face" it's a whole 'nother take. I'll be digitizing this one to DSF. Now, I'll return to it...[] Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I have like 300 cassettes,many custom mixes or live boots from friends. Still have a nice Denon single bay unit in my main rack but barely use it. If it wern't for fear of dust I'd take the whole lot out to the shop where I could enjoy em. Used to buy an LP, record to cass for the car, then shelve the LP. At the very least I've got a couple hundred minty LPs from the 70's due to my cassette usage. I remember buying Maxell UDXLII by the cartons back in the day. M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Sargent Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I did a similar thing recently. I have a Nakamichi R3? tape deck and until the other day I had approx. 100 tapes I had made on various grades of cassettes made by TDK, some metal, some not. All made from purchased LPs which I still have. Lots of hours tied up in making those in the late 70s and early 80s. Every single one of them has lost a little something. Freq. range not where it was, noise added, etc. I ended up tossing the works. Glad your experience has been better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 Never played mine much, so perhaps they held up better. Noise inaudible, nothing missing on most of them. Nice. Most of my "store boughts" where chrome dioxide premiums. Hard to believe you can get this quality sound from a 59.00 Ebay purchase. Machine looks nice, too. I'd never had an auto reverse deck, very convenient. Not that I'm like to start making a bunch of cassettes given their cost and fragility, but these are certainly worth digitizing. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I wonder why the LP's don't fit in the DVD slot? JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Sargent Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Playing time may have contributed to the decline in those cassettes certainly. Talk about revisiting the past: I tried to play a bunch of old 8 tracks a couple of years back. Wow, talk about degradation! Could't make out the music they were so bad. Threw that out too. I thought reviving my tape deck for audio books, but nah. Im sure you've thought of this but I would give that deck a good head cleaning too. It sounds like your well on your way to getting that $59 back in listening and having fun. LPS fit in the slot no problem. Simply fold them like a trifold wallet. [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nu2toobs Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Cassettes are currently the best buy at any thrift shop. The selection is amazing. You'll want to clean your heads more often with swabs and ethanol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seti Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I've been recording my friends radio show the Rural War Room which is on local community radio KABF 88.3 on to Reel To Reel. The only problem with RTR is finding good material on reels so I don't mind recording over some of the dribble I've been finding. Don't worry nothing with an actual label. I like the reel to reel its analog with less noise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 >I tried to play a bunch of old 8 tracks a couple of years back. Wow, talk about degradation! No sir, JL, it's your memory that's degraded. That's what they sounded like right out of the pack... [8-)] Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Sargent Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Let me put it this way: The Partridge Family sounded like a stoned Bob Dylan.[N] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I must confess, I did own the first Cowsills album. I had an 8 track player in my Volkswagen, and not near enough tapes. A couple of Firesign Theater, Emitt Rhodes and a few others. While the quality shouldn't have been any worse than a cassette, they were... less than stellar. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 Bruce, the track width was the same as cassette, tape twice as wide but twice the tracks. It could not work as the movable head was never right, and the mechanism of pulling the tape from the center made control of speed impossible. Then there were the built in idlers... Unworkable medium from a quality standpoint. The 4 track carts were far superior and persisted in radion until well into the 90's. Heck, there may be a few being used somewhere even now. Over course, like with Beta/VHS, it was quantity over quality and sense you got twice as much on an 8 track as a 4 (what a shock), the 8 won. Sort of... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 They could have made a single 8 track head, and electronically switched the tracks. The speed was double that of a cassette. It wasn't an insurmountable problem. They could have made it better, but they didn't. Lot's of cart machines probably got sent to the landfill. [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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