In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
Brian Gaff wrote:
Its quite funny as most of the cassette machines on sale now in the
dying era of tape use DC or permanent magnets for erase/bias.
Funny old world.

Do they really? The results would be appalling. And given most things
these days are a handful of chips I can't see why - the cost of providing
AC bias would be tiny.

From my limited experience with tape recording, I'm sure that DC
biassing (of any kind) is absolutely terrible.

I remember in the days when you could buy a cheap mono recorder from
Woolworths for around £5, but recordings made on it left an infinite
amount to be desired. However, a guy at work organised the production of
a small quantity of printed boards and an oscillator coil so that we
could modify some of these recorders from DC to AC bias. The improvement
was amazing. That recorder served me well when used in conjunction with
a ZX81 and a Spectrum.
--
Ian