On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:57:01 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Serge Auckland
wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
I have a cheapo TEAC R-400X deck on which I play my old cassettes. I
was wondering if a low end Nakamichi (CR-1A/2A, BX-*, 480 etc) will
make a serious difference in playback quality. My tapes are old and
half of them are in mono. I am looking for good playback only, not
going to make any tapes. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.


The limiting factor will be the quality of the tapes, rather than the
playback machine, unless the tapes were made on something particularly
good, like a Nakamichi.

I bought a second hand "Cassette Deck Two" a while ago and this did improve
the results when I played old tapes. The main reasons being that the Nak
had lower noise on replay, and that my old deck had slowly increased its
level of wow/flutter and speed variations with tape drag. So if your old
deck is a poor one, or deteriorating with age, then it is well worth
getting something better.

However as you warned [details snipped] the results will also depend on how
well the setup of the deck used for recording matches the one used for
replay. Fortunately, in my case the azimuth seemed fine and I'd adjusted
the old deck's dolby level ages ago so the decks matched reasonably well.
(Only ever used Dolby B).

Slainte,

Jim

Of course if the azimuth of the original machine was wrongly set up,
it doesn't really matter. Just adjust the head on the playback machine
so it matches, and all is well. In fact it is probably a good idea to
give the screw a tweak in each direction just to see if some top does
reappear.

Of course you don't want to do this if you are going to be doing new
recordings - but he isn't.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com