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Tape Trail Reel to reel, cassette and other analogue tape formats. |
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Tape Trail Reel to reel, cassette and other analogue tape formats. |
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In Reply to: RE: Cassette Walkman posted by mraudio on June 18, 2024 at 07:57:45:
I used to be very involved with analog tape; although, not quite as involved as many of you are today.
My first open reel tape recorder was a Revox A77, and I knew that machine inside and out. I learned how to align its tape heads by colloring them with a marker and observing the wear pattern after playing a short length of tape. Then I would align the heads so both sides of the wear pattern were parallel and the tape gap was centered. After getting the visual alignment perfect, I would align azimuth electrically by playing a test tape. After that, I would complete all the other electrical adjustments involving bias and equalization. I was a PMEL technician in the Air Force, so I had access to some very good electronic test equipment. When I was finished making all the adjustments, I would conduct a listening test to make sure there was virtually no audible difference between "source" and "tape monitor" when recording a vinyl record. I actually owned two Revox A77 tape decks and I kept them both in optimal alignment.
Later, when Nakamichi introduced their Dragon cassette recorder, I bought two of them along with the service manual so I could keep them in perfect alignment, too. Although open reel tape was definitely superior to cassette, the performance of the Nakamichi Dragon was so good that I switched from open reel to cassette tape for its convenience and lower operating cost. Furthermore, nearly every audio enthusiast I knew owned a cassette tape recorder, so I could easily trade tapes with all my audio buddies.
The Nakamichi Dragon provided an additional advantage in its ability to automatically align its playback head azimuth to the specific tape being played. It was simply the finest cassette tape recorder available for extracting all the musical information from each tape being played. I really enjoyed that tape recorder.
Nowadays, I've traded in all my analog components for digital, and I have no regrets. However, I definitely have fond memories for analog tape. It was my format of choice during those early years of high-end audio.
Happy listening!
John Elison
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Follow Ups
- RE: Cassette Walkman - John Elison 03:09:52 06/19/24 (4)
- Could be good time to go back to it - Victor Khomenko 03:40:47 06/19/24 (3)
- RE: Could be good time to go back to it - John Elison 05:20:55 06/19/24 (2)
- Nothing's wrong with good digital - Victor Khomenko 06:45:29 06/19/24 (1)
- RE: Nothing's wrong with good digital - mraudio 13:03:25 06/20/24 (0)
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