On 16/09/2013 20:47, tony sayer wrote:
In article , Phil Allison
scribeth thus

"Bill"

Look at it this way Tony, someone cares enough to comment with feeling and
due consideration on your postings. :-)


** He mentioned the N word in a fawning manner.

I cannot let bull**** like that simply go by.

To paraphrase Hermann Goring:

" Whenever I hear the word Nakamichi, I remove the safety from my Browning
":



LOL!,, you just couldn't make that one up could you;!!..

OK .. promise not to mention kakered-a-michi again...

Cassettes were the end of hi-fi for the masses,
and the Nakamichi 600 was just the thin end of the wedge.

--
Eiron.

In article o.uk, Dave
Liquorice scribeth thus
On Mon, 16 Sep 2013 20:49:59 +0100, tony sayer wrote:

especially the finer points of polishing coprolite droppings./...

Er, coprolites don't have droppings.


**!! I din't say they did you ignorant pommy botty nutting scum they are
droppings now go ** and err,, how's it go?, ** FOADAO or similar;?..


--
Tony Sayer

"Eiron"
Phil Allison

"Bill"

Look at it this way Tony, someone cares enough to comment with feeling
and
due consideration on your postings. :-)


** He mentioned the N word in a fawning manner.

I cannot let bull**** like that simply go by.

To paraphrase Hermann Goring:

" Whenever I hear the word Nakamichi, I remove the safety from my
Browning
":


LOL!,, you just couldn't make that one up could you;!!..

OK .. promise not to mention kakered-a-michi again...

Cassettes were the end of hi-fi for the masses,
and the Nakamichi 600 was just the thin end of the wedge.


** LOL.

For the non cognescenti - the Nakamichi 600 ( from 1976) was wedge shaped.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/4243426...7627635786590/




..... Phil

On 16/09/2013 18:01, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , RJH
wrote:


That's as I saw it, but I always preferred the sound recording without
Dolby B, C or S. Sounded variously muffled, compressed or treble-light.

That's certainly the case for many of the (few) commercial pre-recorded
cassettes I have. But I suspect they'd have sounded lousy without dolby
anyway - because the people duplicating them couldn't be bothered to take
due care.


Obviously a product of my naivety, but the poor quality of pre-recorded
cassettes was a surprise to me, especially considering the price.

For the cassettes I recorded myself, I found dolby 'B' generally worked
fine. Still sounds fine for tapes I recorded on a Pioneer deck in the 1980s
and playback now on the CD2.


Even with my my own tapes I preferred recording without Dolby. And I did
use quite well reviewed, if nothing near top-end, cassette decks and
tapes. Perhasps as Tony says - alignment issue.

Still, quite enjoying putting on the old Festive 50s and 1990s GLR shows
from time to time.

Cheers, Rob

In article , RJH
wrote:
On 16/09/2013 18:01, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , RJH
wrote:


That's as I saw it, but I always preferred the sound recording
without Dolby B, C or S. Sounded variously muffled, compressed or
treble-light.

That's certainly the case for many of the (few) commercial
pre-recorded cassettes I have. But I suspect they'd have sounded lousy
without dolby anyway - because the people duplicating them couldn't be
bothered to take due care.


Obviously a product of my naivety, but the poor quality of pre-recorded
cassettes was a surprise to me, especially considering the price.

I only bought a small number of commercial pre-recorded audiocassettes for
reasons which will be obvious from this discussion. However I found with
these much the same as I'd have predicted from LPs.

EMI were crap. Almost always the wrong level, often saturated. No treble.
High distortion. Often high flutter, etc. Copied by machines and people who
couldn't be bothered and were driven by bean-counters.

Other labels like Decca / DGG / etc were more variable. A few were good,
clearly made with more care. But often sounded poorer than LP except for
the absence of pops and crackles.


For the cassettes I recorded myself, I found dolby 'B' generally
worked fine. Still sounds fine for tapes I recorded on a Pioneer deck
in the 1980s and playback now on the CD2.


Even with my my own tapes I preferred recording without Dolby. And I did
use quite well reviewed, if nothing near top-end, cassette decks and
tapes. Perhasps as Tony says - alignment issue.

I found recording without Dolby B simply meant I could hear too much
background noise on a lot of 'classical' material. Whereas for 'pop' the
dynamic range of the music covered the noise, so Dolby B wasn't needed.

However I also found that with the recorder well aligned, etc, the Dolby B
was fine. So came to use it routinely.

But then I did check my old cassette recorder with test tones to adjust the
tracking levels, etc. I can't recall, but I think it was quite close to OK.

Again, this would, of course, also depended to some extent on the tape
brand. Since the replay tracking will depend on the levels remaining on
tape, not the record head field.

I experimented with various tapes and ended up standardising on Maxell XLII
at the time. I did record on some TDKs as well. But I found later on these
were actually more prone to develop 'mechanical' problems, despite having a
good reputation back then.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html

"RJH"


Obviously a product of my naivety, but the poor quality of pre-recorded
cassettes was a surprise to me, especially considering the price.


** Most were high speed dubbed in batches of a dozen or more from a long
loop of 1/4 inch tape containing a fifth or later generation copy of the 2T
master.

Amazing they sounded any good at all.




.... Phil

In article , Jim Lesurf
writes
Other labels like Decca / DGG / etc were more variable. A few were good,
clearly made with more care. But often sounded poorer than LP except for
the absence of pops and crackles.

I have the (in)famous CBS Glenn Gould Goldbergs on vinyl.

It's wonderful, irrespective of what you think of Mr. G's vocalizations,
BUT it was recorded for TV. You can hear cameras crashing into each
other, shuffling and a variety of noises off, and even PTB (I think) in
a few places.

I'm not sure, but misaligned Dobly B might have been preferable...
--
SimonM

On 17/09/2013 17:59, SpamTrapSeeSig wrote:
In article , Jim Lesurf
writes
Other labels like Decca / DGG / etc were more variable. A few were good,
clearly made with more care. But often sounded poorer than LP except for
the absence of pops and crackles.

I have the (in)famous CBS Glenn Gould Goldbergs on vinyl.

It's wonderful, irrespective of what you think of Mr. G's vocalizations,
BUT it was recorded for TV. You can hear cameras crashing into each
other, shuffling and a variety of noises off, and even PTB (I think) in
a few places.

PTB? What's that?

You can get the 1955 performance without all the grunting:
http://www.zenph.com/glenn-gould-bac...erg-variations

Pity there are no recorded duets with Glenn Gould and Lionel Hampton.

--
Eiron.

In article , Eiron
writes
On 17/09/2013 17:59, SpamTrapSeeSig wrote:
In article , Jim Lesurf
writes
Other labels like Decca / DGG / etc were more variable. A few were good,
clearly made with more care. But often sounded poorer than LP except for
the absence of pops and crackles.

I have the (in)famous CBS Glenn Gould Goldbergs on vinyl.

It's wonderful, irrespective of what you think of Mr. G's vocalizations,
BUT it was recorded for TV. You can hear cameras crashing into each
other, shuffling and a variety of noises off, and even PTB (I think) in
a few places.

PTB? What's that?

Sorry - it was inadvertently cross-posted to the audio group.

PTB - production talkback (main TV studio/OB talkback).

You can get the 1955 performance without all the grunting:
http://www.zenph.com/glenn-gould-bac...erg-variations

I love the performance, as I said. He makes every note count, IYSWIM.

Pity there are no recorded duets with Glenn Gould and Lionel Hampton.

Indeed.
--
SimonM

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Dave Plowman (News)
wrote:


His major achievement to me was Dolby digital for optical film
soundtracks. Turned lo-fi into hi-fi at a stroke. Without making the
prints more expensive.

Indeed. In terms of sound quality I suspect his work on the 'pro' side did
more good than on the consumer side. Although Dolby-B for audiocassette
was
a big help when employed correctly so of use to many people.

There was a rather strange tribute to him on R4 earlier today where they
spoke to his name-alike popstar. He did a good job of demonstrating how
Dolby-B could help cut down intrusive tape noise of audiocassette.

Then rather spoiled his expert status by saying something rather odd to
the
effect that later on people like him abandoned Dolby-B because it limited
how much HF they could get onto cassette and the trend was to shove more
on.

Erm... Maybe he doesn't know the system is adaptive. Wasn't very clear.

Over the life of Dolby B, cassette tape changed from regular brown stuff to
Chrome to Metal. Dolby B worked wonders with the brown stuff and was a help
with chrome, but metal tapes could be made that lacked both Dolby B and
audible hiss.

Cassette always had massive high frequency compression and Dolby B made it
even worse with bright musical selections.