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Any cassette users still enjoying the format?

Not a TD20A then? Famed for its lack of mechanical noises 'cos it was all done with motors not solenoids..

There's the convenience and cost aspect yes and cassette was ideal for the car but the only machine where I've been unaware of wow and flutter, HF compression and distortion, bass woodles etc is the Nak CR7E. It was in a class of its own IMHO. Cassette is simply not a hi fi medium IMO. I was glad to see the back of it when it faded into obscurity!

Alas, I'd not have been able to afford anything better than the 4000 series back in the 1970s. And the real snags were the cost of R2R tape *and* finding somewhere to store more than a few dozen 7 inch reels! I did previously have an old mono 'Defiant' (Co-Op brand name) mono recorder. That was a bit more 'economic' ad it was limited to the smaller reels and slower speed. Not great - but allowed me to record the Joni Mitchell "Sounds of the 70s" concert, which I have often been very grateful for ever since because it hasn't ever appeared on a commercial LP or CD. Only on a BBC Transcriptions LP which is rare and probably ultra-expensive. Just a shame I had to wipe many other recordings due to lack of money for more tape.

And so far as I'm concerned, many of the cassette recordings I made still sound good to me. Sadly, I can't say the same for the commercial ones I bought. With only a few exceptions these sounded truly awful from the first playing onwards!

FWIW I *did* lust after the Revox A77 that was bought as a data recorder for the "Concorde Eclipse" project and had it in mind to drift that homewards once the data was digitised. But my supervisor got in first. :) That was another era. Now I can do my own digital transfers. Back then I had to go to the old Appleton Labs to access an ADC and convert the recordings into computer-processable data! An ADC that took up slots on an old 19" rack unit!
 
FWIW I *did* lust after the Revox A77 that was bought as a data recorder for the "Concorde Eclipse" project

(OT)
Were you involved with that? Last November we visited Concorde F-WTSS/001 at Le Bourget.

When I was 16 I used 2 A77s (past their prime by then) for sound effects in a large theatric performance for school. It was actually
totally unsuited, because of its solenoids preceding each little sound with a loud 'clack' to be heard by all of the 4x800 audience.
 
(OT)
Were you involved with that? Last November we visited Concorde F-WTSS/001 at Le Bourget

Yes. :) See the set of three '1973' pages link from this.

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html

FWIW I still have the tape we recorded during the eclipse flight and got someone to do a 192k/24 transfer a while ago. So in principle it could be re-analysed now and more results extracted!

The "Mach 2" web magazine carried an article I wrote on the experiment and flight.

Back then data recorders were expensive. So I got the A77 and a small box that acted as a 'mark-space ratio' modulator/demodulator to get a recording that went down to d.c. so we could record interferograms. I still have a Los Alamos sticker on my old briefcase - swapped that for one of our decals. In later years it was interesting to arrive at meetings and sometimes see someone recognise a 'LASL' decal. :)
 
One of the pleasures of cassettes is classical music, often I’ve found sealed examples in charity shops, the vinyl equivalent harder to find and often much more expensive.
Record labels such as Deutschland Gramophone and Decca for example, made their tapes on chrome and the sound (in the right deck) is appreciably better.

The record industry cynically exploited cassettes, most being recorded on generic run of the mill blanks that under certain conditions were issue prone and liable to failure.

Contrast that with a great blank such as the BASF Reference Maxima TP II where the shell and tape is first class, has the ability for exceptional recording - within format boundaries naturally - even skeptics would concede that it isn’t half bad.
 
I've never seen any cassettes in the local charity shops that weren't essentially 'easy listening' on cheap tapes, etc!

I only bought a few pre-recorded cassettes. The results were what I'd have predicted from LPs to some extent. i.e. EMI were cr4p. Poor tape, carelessly transferred. The few DGG / Decca / CSB ones are much better. However given the results paralled my experiences with LP pressing quality this wasn't a way I could bypass the lousy EMI LP pressings, so I went on buying LPs until CD arrived.
 
Contrast that with a great blank such as the BASF Reference Maxima TP II where the shell and tape is first class, has the ability for exceptional recording - within format boundaries naturally - even skeptics would concede that it isn’t half bad.

Indeed. A lovely tape. If only I could find more (affordably)!

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My favourite go to tape was the Maxell XLiiS, in this particular guise.
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Whether there was any actual difference I really don't know but I convinced myself that the other guise was less good :confused: Maybe the case?

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I always wanted a Nak505 and eventually found a good one. I then later picked up a 1.5 which was noticeably superior so the 505 was sold on.
When recording albums I would record the longer LP side first and then cut n splice the tape to that length before recording the other side. Crikey, quite a nerdy admission :oops:
 
My favourite go to tape was the Maxell XLiiS, in this particular guise.
images


Whether there was any actual difference I really don't know but I convinced myself that the other guise was less good :confused: Maybe the case?

images


I always wanted a Nak505 and eventually found a good one. I then later picked up a 1.5 which was noticeably superior so the 505 was sold on.
When recording albums I would record the longer LP side first and then cut n splice the tape to that length before recording the other side. Crikey, quite a nerdy admission :oops:
My 1.5 is particularly fond of plain TDK-D.
 
Ironically the BASF Reference Maxima TPII formula originated from ... Maxell XLII-S. This have BASF an inroad to ferro-cobalts. Later iterations were their own design, though.
 
In terms of blank tapes I agree the mid-late 80s was the peak of the format - after that cost cutting started to impact shells, j-cards and so on. I agree the older XL-IIS's weren't as good as those '88-'89 ones. However I have read that some chrome tapes deteriorate with age and take reduced recording levels so may not re-record as well as others.
 
Found a Yamaha K-340 in the garage. Will fire it up and see if it will be a reasonable stand in while I prevaricate over getting the nakked Nak fixed up.
 
However I have read that some chrome tapes deteriorate with age and take reduced recording levels so may not re-record as well as others.

Yes, generally the pure chrome types can suffer in this way, all (storage) things being equal. Think older BASF. The ferro-chromes don't seem to have this problem, by comparison. But this is not absolute, of course.
 
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I agree the older XL-IIS's weren't as good as those '88-'89 ones.

Mmm. In my opinion the 1994 version was the best. Or perhaps the 1991 one (which transformed into BASF TPII), but I have no good sample of these.

However I have read that some chrome tapes deteriorate with age and take reduced recording levels so may not re-record as well as others.

Here is my write-up on this matter https://audiochrome.blogspot.com/2019/02/cassette-tape-comparative-measurements.html
 
This here cheap and cheerful Yamaha is making a damn decent go of playing some TDK MAs full of Blue Note titles originally recorded on the Nak. Huzzah.
 
A couple of weeks I had these arrive, from Germany via ebay and were a bargain due to an ambiguous listing (about £40 delivered), there are 103 in total:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RowDbwWqDgZzprJpm27nK_XsWyBF6US0

they are all 90 minute Chrome Super's of the same shell type and test fine - sensitivity and bias are very similar to TDK SA of a similar era. Around 5 years ago Tapeline were selling off Maxell XLII-S (bought from BASF) in C68 lengths for about 40p per tape - stunning results when I use those.
 
This here cheap and cheerful Yamaha is making a damn decent go of playing some TDK MAs full of Blue Note titles originally recorded on the Nak. Huzzah.
Good stuff - somehow Yamaha decks of that era are some of the few decks who's belts seem to last longer than normal - they neither go hard or turn to sticky goo and remain semi-usable. Same for many Denon decks (though there are very few Denon decks I like sound-quality wise). My Arcam Delta 100 uses a Denon transport and sounds fantastic.
 


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