Paul Stamler wrote:

well, that's something of a different issue, but yes, that's one good way of
setting bias, and it still works for a lot of modern tapes. Setting bias
using 10kHz, though, is a lot easier, because a small change in bias level
produced a large change in tape sensitivity.

For tapes where you just need to find the peak, the 1KC method works fine.
If you need to use overbias and drop a certain level beyond the peak, it
is nearly impossible to do so accurately with the 1KC method.

I am increasingly becoming convinced that biasing for lowest modulation
noise will give you best perceived sound quality, whatever that means.

that's not quite the same as the tape's distortion performance with level,
though it's related.

What is interesting about modern tapes is not only is the distortion onset
more abrupt, but a lot of effort has been taken in increasing high frequency
headroom, so the distortion of a broadband signal on overload will take on
a very different character than with old-style HOLN tapes.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."