On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:57:15 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Marky P
wrote:


I bought 2 or 3 Metal tapes in my lifetime. Must say, I did like the
results but I've heard people talk 'bad' about them and I don't know
why. Maybe excessive head wear? At least you didn't need Dolby with
Metal tapes. BTW, used TDK MA.

IIRC there were two concerns.

1) That they needed a higher applied field to record up to the max levels,
and to correctly bias the tape. So many of the decks that had a 'metal'
setting for them were unable to use them properly - e.g. because the record
head saturated before the tape! :-)

Must admit, the meters on my Yamaha cassette deck went way off the top
and the tape still took it.

2) That early examples of the tape were prone to degrading as the metal
oxidised or otherwise reacted with their environment.

Can't say how well founded the above ideas were. I just tried metal
cassette a few times and decided that - in my recorder - they didn't seem
worth the money at the time.

They were a bit pricey.

IIRC head wear was also said to be a worry with some early 'Crome' tapes.

...and I can say I miss cassette much. Useful before I had digital
recording, but...

Slainte,

Jim
I remember TDK briging out a Ferric tape that could be pushed to the
limits like a metal tape. Think it was AR-X or something. It did
perform very well but was still nearly the price of a metal tape.

What I did like about cassettes was that not everyone could make
decent recordings. You had to make an effort. I made recordings for
mates at school and they were envious of the excellent sound quality
:-)

Marky P.