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Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc.

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Old 29th Oct 2022, 10:26 am   #41
peter_scott
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

What happened after the compact cassette?

https://youtu.be/AbZ_8aPniFE

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Old 29th Oct 2022, 12:15 pm   #42
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

Well, there were at least two formats that tried to emulate the convenience and familiarity of the cassette - i.e familiar shape and the two sides people were used to. I'm talking about domestic formats, so I'm deliberately leaving DAT out.

One was the Elcaset which was developed by Sony. No compatibility as it was twice the size, twice the speed and better quality. It didn't succeed.
Then there was the Philips DCC. Same size cassette with digital recording but also backward capability - i.e. you could play your analogue cassettes on it. However I don't think you could record in analogue, and obviously a digitally recorded tape was useless on a normal machine. That too failed.

Then there came the MiniDisc, again developed by Sony. Totally different in shape, size and technol;ogy. That still has many adherents, myself included. 74 minutes playing /recording time, a decent, though controversial ATRAC compression system, excellent portability and huge flexibility in terms of track labelling, searching and so on.

Three problems. One - it wasn't readily adopted, and in car entertainment makers were reluctant to make units that catered for it when CD was dominant and cassette wasn't yet dead. Two - pre recorded discs were few and far between and used an optical rather than magnetic (I simplify) system, so the head unit was quite complicated. Three - the MDLP system was welcome but started to limit compatibility and then the MD-Pro and MD-DATA came along and were completely on their own.

I have a Tascam 744 porta-studio that used MD-data discs. Great improvement over the cassette based unit, but the discs became impossible to source.

So MD didn't quite die, but was just too late in the day, and people had started to lose interest in recording and computers had started to become ubiquitous.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 12:53 pm   #43
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

Tape recording offers a certain blend of saturation and compression, quite gentle on the ear if set up carefully. Then there's all that great analogue warmth. Plus nostalgia!

As with other old technologies, like valve compressors and amplifiers, tape's special qualities are sought after by professional recording studio clients. Of course, computers have invaded that sector, so modern tech now re-creates the old! Reel beauty. Cassettes live on.

When I was in the Midlands, a friend at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire travelled up to record a feature on Birmingham's 'Balti Triangle'. I was surprised to see him carrying a Sony cassette recorder, not a Uher reel to reel one. It looked like an outsized, first generation Walkman, with extra features and a socket for connecting a professional broadcast mic. When used with the best quality metal tapes, this cassette recorder gave BBC broadcast-standard results. That shows just how good the format became.

The balti feature was a success. We were welcomed at many establishments and fed handsomely, for free of course! And the programme was broadcast.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 1:31 pm   #44
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

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Originally Posted by Pfraser View Post

When I was in the Midlands, a friend at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire travelled up to record a feature on Birmingham's 'Balti Triangle'. I was surprised to see him carrying a Sony cassette recorder, not a Uher reel to reel one. It looked like an outsized, first generation Walkman, with extra features and a socket for connecting a professional broadcast mic. When used with the best quality metal tapes, this cassette recorder gave BBC broadcast-standard results. That shows just how good the format became.
It was most probably the Sony Pro Walkman WM-D6C, I have one.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 1:42 pm   #45
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

A colleague who has been clearing the house of a deceased relative, gave me last week some copies of "Electronic Engineering" from the early 1950's. One of the adverts from June 1953 is for 3M's "Scotch Boy" tape, as used by the BBC, which had a response "from 50 c/s to 10 kc/s" at 7.5 ips. No doubt perfectly adequate for the BBC's contemporary AM broadcasting.

Incidentally it transpires from a whole page January 1952 advert that the brand name "Scotch Boy" for the company's products only started to be used from 14th June 1951, the date when the company had changed its name to the "Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company Limited", "3M" for short.

The company's previous name had been "Durex Abrasives Ltd", and its tapes had been sold under the "Durex" brand name. I guess that might explain why the product commonly known in the UK as "Sellotape" and in the US as "Scotch Tape", seems to be known in Australia as "Durex", according to an Australian comedian who recounted the problem he had had when first coming to the UK and was directed to a pharmacy when he asked for some Durex in a stationers.
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File Type: pdf EE 195201.pdf (402.3 KB, 32 views)

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Old 29th Oct 2022, 2:25 pm   #46
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

I've only skim-read the previous posts, so apologies if I'm repeating.
Without the cassette the only recording device was the reel to reel machine, and many people didn't take to it. The machines were big, barely portable and needed a mains supply. Then there was the faff of big reels of tape and the threading which, for a lot of people was a faff too far. They appealed more to 'enthusiasts' who actually quite liked the process.
By contrast, the cassette was quick and easy. Small, battery powered and easily portable, and the media was compact and was a doddle to load. For casual listening it was ideal, and only if you were an audio freak would you pick holes in the quality. Joe public was quite content with recordings made from the radio with the awful supplied microphone! A direct connection could sound good as long as the recorder was a good 'un like the Philips range.
And without the cassette, our land-based naughty stations of the 70's and 80's wouldn't have existed!
As for tape in general, it was a superb medium when used properly on a decent machine. Most of the vinyl albums in existence today were mastered from reel to reel machines and the quality was second to none, especially after Dolby A came along.

Thanks for the Peter Doodson video Peter, I enjoyed it very much.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 2:35 pm   #47
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

Another fan of cassette tape here, especially on the road. I have the original Huntsville Electronics (Chrysler) radio cassette in my truck. It's a quality unit & I like the freedom to make mix tapes as others have said. I have used an ipod with an FM modulator but to be honest it's a bit of a faff & it's not much more effort to record onto a tape rather than the ipod. I also have a couple of high end radiocassettes for use in the house. They're ones I wanted but couldn't afford when I was a kid but I found & restored much later
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 3:05 pm   #48
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

Cassette could be improved... I knew some people who experimented with sliding a rubber sleeve over the capstan spindle to get the tape to go faster. Sacrifice recording time for improved quality. Of course unless everyone used the same thickness of sleeves it meant that you couldn't share recordings.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 3:23 pm   #49
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

The biggest problem with cassette was that you never got two machines with the same head alignment.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 3:39 pm   #50
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Originally Posted by m0cemdave View Post
The biggest problem with cassette was that you never got two machines with the same head alignment.
It was always a bit of a quandary when a cassette machine came in for repair. I'd fix the fault (usually a belt or a dirty R/P switch) and then stick in the workshop azimuth test tape or a musicassette. Straight away a misaligned head would reveal itself with slushy treble. What to do? Set the head up properly and risk the customer bringing it back complaining that his library of Pick if the Pops tapes were sounding bad or leave it alone and hope all was well?
I usually rang the punter and explained the situation. Then any comeback was up to him...
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 4:07 pm   #51
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

I still use a Roberts C9950 Voice activated Cassette recorder I bought over 20 years ago, I set the timer on one of the radios and the tape deck starts recording when it detects a signal, Perfect! I also have a digital Sangean Dar101 SD card recorder, which records straight to mp3, but I have to et the timer on the radio AND the recorder to achieve the same effect.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 5:23 pm   #52
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emeritus View Post
The company's previous name had been "Durex Abrasives Ltd", and its tapes had been sold under the "Durex" brand name. I guess that might explain why the product commonly known in the UK as "Sellotape" and in the US as "Scotch Tape", seems to be known in Australia as "Durex"
It was also known as Durex in the UK. Attached is a page from a 1950 Hobbies Weekly magazine. How did the other Durex avoid trade mark infringement? At least the tape had no tears so I suppose with a bit of ingenuity you could use it for both purposes.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 7:35 pm   #53
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
Those cassette mailers, yes I remember there was a thing in the 70s, 'tapesponding' which was a bit like an audio version of penpals. There were clubs for such stuff,
I wonder if any stills continue

Also, In the pre-internet days and when international phone calls were expensive, making a cassette to send to your family in Australia was a good way to keep in touch. I
I have a 3 inch tape spool which went to and from between my family in England and my aunt in the USA, about 1960. It ran into some incompatibility between 2- and 4- track or possible 2- and 1-track.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 8:30 pm   #54
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

Thanks PFraser and Steve [posts 43 and 44]. You have confirmed my belief that the BBC used modified Sony Walkmans as I'd mentioned at post 35*.

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Old 29th Oct 2022, 8:36 pm   #55
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In the early 1970's a friend, who was working for an oil exploration company, had an extended posting on a drilling rig in the Niger delta. Every few months I used to fill a C120 with music from "Top of The Pops" and post it to him. Apparently it was also much appreciated by his colleagues.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 9:26 pm   #56
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

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…I remember there was a thing in the 70s, 'tapesponding' which was a bit like an audio version of penpals…
I started ‘tapesponding’ on 3” reels with a school friend in 1964. We both owned ‘toy’ rim-drive tape recorders, but they ran at different speeds. My tapes sounded like the chipmunks when played back on his machine, whereas his voice sounded like Paul Robeson when played back on mine… I resolved the problem by lining up my tape recorder alongside my 78rpm wind-up gramophone, placing the take-up spool on the turntable with a suitable weight on top, threading the tape through the heads (no capstan!) and adjusting the turntable’s speed to match that of his recording. It worked perfectly.

Nowadays I could have simply used Audacity’s speed change function! Which I have incidentally used successfully when transcribing recordings from rim-drive formats such as the Grundig Stenorette, the speed of which is variable as the take-up spool fills up, slightly faster than 1.875 ips but far slower than 3.75 ips.
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Old 29th Oct 2022, 11:12 pm   #57
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Default Re: What's good about tape?

As i understand it, innovative but marginal quality German audio tape technology was scavenged by the US after WWII and the quality and definition of recordings made from developments of said technology were very high quality. (They certainly sounded very good to me.)

Then, as always, we sought to miniaturise things- with predictable results.

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Old 30th Oct 2022, 12:28 am   #58
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As i understand it, innovative but marginal quality German audio tape technology was scavenged by the US after WWII and the quality and definition of recordings made from developments of said technology were very high quality. (They certainly sounded very good to me.)

Then, as always, we sought to miniaturise things- with predictable results.

Dave
Every important aspect of magnetic tape recording was in place by 1942, the last piece of the jigsaw being the re-discovery and application of HF bias by von Braunmuehl and Weber. Even stacked head stereo recording was accomplished by 1944. Just about everything after that was steady development and refinement.
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Old 31st Oct 2022, 2:59 am   #59
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Yes, before the application of HF bias, magnetic tape couldnt be taken seriously for high fidelity recording.
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Old 31st Oct 2022, 1:48 pm   #60
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As i understand it, innovative but marginal quality German audio tape technology was scavenged by the US after WWII and the quality and definition of recordings made from developments of said technology were very high quality. (They certainly sounded very good to me.)
I thought it was the other way around - the Germans got HF bias sorted by accident, and were able to make broadcasts that fooled the Allies into thinking there were live radio transmissions going on when they were pre-recorded. The deception was only discovered when they recovered the unexpectedly high quality tape equipment after the War, and then it was Ampex and Bing Crosby all the way.
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