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! :-)

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.

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

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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.

I tape from CD to Cassette once in a while, though I have hundereds of
Cassettes from early CD to Tape recordings.

I don't use Dolby at all, as I don't like the resulting sound of the
Ride Cymbals when listening to Jazz.
Bg

Well these chaps are trying to help Reel-to-Reel stage a comeback, so
anything is possible:

http://www.tapeproject.com/

Personally I hope they do not get too many classic tape decks to
butch .. er I mean modify.

Incidentally I still do use cassettes - mainly to create copies of CDs
to listen to in my old car. I have a Denon DN 790R and use Dolby B
and ferric tape for compatibility.

Regards

Paul

On 7 Sep, 12:31, "The Legend Returns" trabant owners club@Nicks
place.comco wrote:
About a two years ago, I posted here about tapes. I messed about with my
tape deck for a couple of evenings, then stuck it back in the box and forgot
about it.

Three days ago, I set it up and once again, have just spent two thoughrougly
enjoyable nights putting some music back on tape and I'm now left scratching
my head, why the format has virtually died out?

Using the very cheap but extremely good TDK SA tapes purchased from Richer
Sounds last week and replacing the 99p RCA leads with some much better but
also inexpensive leadshttp://tinyurl.com/5zzmq5I fired up the old Pioneer
CT-740S.
Pushing the Super Auto BLE button and watching the machine work out the
chareristics of the tape was such fun. Wondering whether to use Dolby B, C
or S ...ah nostalgia

Selecting the tracks I wanted to record and then using the Peak Search on my
on my ancient Sony CDP-990 to set the recording levels... Marvellous. The
results, excellent!

Anyone care to discuss what type of Dolby setting (B, C or S) they used, the
brand/type of tape they used or indeed, still use when tape recording, or if
they think tape could ever make a comeback?

Cheers all
tox

wrote in message
...

Incidentally I still do use cassettes - mainly to create copies of CDs
to listen to in my old car. I have a Denon DN 790R and use Dolby B
and ferric tape for compatibility.


Fine, until you change your car and find that the new one has a CD player,
but no cassette player.

David.

In article
,
wrote:
Well these chaps are trying to help Reel-to-Reel stage a comeback, so
anything is possible:

http://www.tapeproject.com/

Plenty still like vinyl - and endow it with much of the qualities the
testimonials there do.

Personally I always liked 1/4" more than vinyl - my ears preferred the
distortions of that over LP.

Then along came digital...

--
*Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:34:56 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article
,
wrote:
Well these chaps are trying to help Reel-to-Reel stage a comeback, so
anything is possible:

http://www.tapeproject.com/

Plenty still like vinyl - and endow it with much of the qualities the
testimonials there do.

Personally I always liked 1/4" more than vinyl - my ears preferred the
distortions of that over LP.

Then along came digital...

Anyone remember 'That's' tapes? They had a triangular window instead
of the regular square one. I used to buy them in the 80's as they
looked cool :-)


Marky P.

Marky P wrote:
Anyone remember 'That's' tapes? They had a triangular window instead
of the regular square one. I used to buy them in the 80's as they
looked cool :-)

Yes I remember them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiyo_Yuden

But I was a stickler to TDK. TDK AD was my favorite - and took a nice
bit of abuse with the levels. The AD-X even moreso :-)

First D, then AD, then AD-X, then SA, then SA-X, then AR
http://www.btgallery.com/tdk/index.html


--
Adrian C

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:56:17 +0100, Adrian C
wrote:

Marky P wrote:
Anyone remember 'That's' tapes? They had a triangular window instead
of the regular square one. I used to buy them in the 80's as they
looked cool :-)

Yes I remember them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiyo_Yuden

But I was a stickler to TDK. TDK AD was my favorite - and took a nice
bit of abuse with the levels. The AD-X even moreso :-)

First D, then AD, then AD-X, then SA, then SA-X, then AR
http://www.btgallery.com/tdk/index.html

Reminds me of a song I wrote all about TDK tapes. All the tape types
were sang about from D right through to MA-XG :-)

Marky P.

"Marky P" wrote in message
...

Anyone remember 'That's' tapes? They had a triangular window instead
of the regular square one. I used to buy them in the 80's as they
looked cool :-)

I have a boxful of them, all still sealed, including...

EM-X60, CD/IVF90, CD/IIF, MG-X90, That's Suono 74 and MR-X90PRO

I also have loads of TDK metal tapes all sealed, including a few TDK
MA-XG90, which now make £20 each these days.

tox