Quote:
Originally Posted by sp10mk11
From what I remember Fuji took on Ferro-Chrome tape but I cannot think of any others.
I remember a lot of tape decks where being fitted for use with ferro-chrome tapes so it must have been thought a serious contender in the tape wars.
I have a fair selection of ferro-chrome ELcaset tapes which still sound excellent
Gary
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Ferrochrome tapes didn't really work, and always received terrible reviews in the hifi mags. Most manufacturers only made them for a year or so and they didn't sell well. However, their development coincided with the 'Type' standard for cassette formulations, which is why almost all decks have a 'FeCr' setting despite never having encountered a FeCr tape. It would have made more sense to have different 'types' for true chrome and pseudochrome, as they have significant differences and decks optimised for one won't work well with the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by emeritus
I have a Philips cassette deck with automatic chrome selection. While the pack of TDK chrome cassettes I bought did give good quality recordings, the print-through was awful, meaning that recordings of radio plays were almost unlistenable-to after only 10 years. I have never ever had print-through problems with conventional tapes, even C120's that I used almost exclusively and that have not been touched for more than a decade. Is print-though a problem with chrome tapes, or might I just have been unlucky with a duff batch? I mention it in case it might be another factor in its non-adoption for reel-to-reel tapes.
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TDK never made chrome tapes, just pseudochrome ferrics that used chrome bias and equalisation. They are no better or worse than any other formulation with regard to print-through. I think you were just unlucky in this case. I used mostly Japanese pseudochrome cassettes like TDK-SA in the 80s and never had any print-through issues, though all cassettes do suffer from it to some degree.