I have been restoring reel to reel and cassette tape machines since 1980 when plenty where new. I run a service / restoration shop in Brooklyn NY for tape machines. I’ve never been busier with high end, home & pro recording studio folks.
Right now there is a trend of selling broken reel machines for outta-sight prices, then needing repairs after fact.
Heads do wear, but reconditioning / lapping gives many years of life.
Just a little Reel vs Cassette comparison:
There are 3 companies that manufacture new reel to reel tape. On the cassettes front I’m pretty sure no one is making CrO2 tape anymore. and that is the only tape that has the low noise floor and HF response the sounds good with music.
Going back to the beginning of this thread. cassettes no matter how well the calibration on the machine is will never surpass the quality of Reel to reel for so many reasons.
If you would like to discuss further feel free to contact me .
....after looking at this thread, a lot of this was discussed
-Andrew
Funktionaltech.com
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Great to hear from you Andrew. I agree. Cassettes unfortunately have serious quality control and this is related to azimuth as well. I love rtr decks because of how easy they are to calibrate. Even the best tape decks (the Nak ZX-9, CR-7, the Tandberg 3014, the Revox B215), all aligned and calibrated as per factory spec, will be only average or mediocre when playing back a set of pre-recorded cassettes obtained from different publishers. Each of these decks will accidentally have their playback azimuth alignment very closely aligned with some of your cassettes, but will have poor alignment with other cassettes, and there will be nothing you can do about it. The manufacturers of pre-recorded cassettes, especially in India, on the whole, did not follow close tolerances when manufacturing their cassettes. They even followed mass manufacture processes which make such close tolerances impossible to obtain consistently. Therefore, even the world’s best decks are going to be only average when retrieving the last bit of HF information from a bunch of pre-recorded cassettes. The only exception is a correctly working Dragon with a correctly aligned NAAC sub-system. |
benklesc"Tape played the first time will not have the same azimuth as the tape played the 200th time."
This is clearly, absolutely, demonstrably false and so is a lot of the other stuff you wrote you do not know what you are talking about and by the way VHS tape wears like crazy there is a lot of friction in there! |
A common myth is that azimuth is related to head alignment and that is not really the case. Only true when recording. It’s tape and no one tape has the same alignment and it will change overtime. There is no such thing as correct azimuth to clarify that point. Cassettes for this reason are my least favorite format. Reel to reel decks @ 7 1/2 and vinyl will blow even the best cassette decks out of the water for this reason imo.
A good trick to know if you are getting the best out of your tape is to listen to the mono bass or leads vocals in stereo, or you can even force to mono. Make a headphone cable with the ground removed, and listen when the bass and lead vocals fade out completely. When you null that is when you azimuth is aligned with the tape. Playing a 1kHz tone should sound like baking frying. An oscilloscope won’t tell you this.
Interesting part about VHS is that you had multiple azimuths on the same drum that read different parts of the tape. For that reason VHS tape had stricter quality control and surprisingly superior sound to all formats @ 1800 rpm. It’s too bad that format was never realized for audio but that is another rabbit hole topic all together. |
So, many of the consumer reel to reel decks sold on the market like
cassette decks were manufactured with heads that never wear down. For
that reason ferrite heads for example cannot be relapped. They never
develop a flat spot. This statement is false. I've seen them worn first-hand. Under normal circumstances VHS tape will never "wear out" or "fade". They can shed though, causing them to lose output. And mess of the tape path at the same time. A common myth is that azimuth is related to head alignment and that is not really the case. Seriously?? Head azimuth **is** part of head alignment! Along with head height (on reel to reels). On a cassette deck azimuth is the only adjustment you get when aligning the heads. So on cassettes, azimuth and head alignment are exactly the same thing. I started my career in 1974 working on consumer electronics- I've performed many complete calibrations on reel to reel and cassette machines. A good trick to know if you are getting the best out of your tape is to
listen to the mono bass or leads vocals in stereo, or you can even force
to mono. Make a headphone cable with the ground removed, and listen
when the bass and lead vocals fade out completely. When you null that is
when you azimuth is aligned with the tape. Playing a 1kHz tone should
sound like baking frying. An oscilloscope won’t tell you this.
Hm. Better if you simply play a calibration tape with a 10KHz reference tone. For that reason VHS tape had stricter quality control and surprisingly
superior sound to all formats @ 1800 rpm. It’s too bad that format was
never realized for audio but that is another rabbit hole topic all
together. There were audio machines for both Beta and VHS back in the 1980s. |
Seriously?? Head azimuth **is** part of head alignment! Along with head height (on reel to reels). On a cassette deck azimuth is the only adjustment you get when aligning the heads. So on cassettes, azimuth and head alignment are exactly the same thing. The reason I bring up cassette is that it’s a lot more annoying to make adjustments than on reel to reel, mostly you can’t trust cassettes to give you reliable results because the azimuth is always changing. Even if you adjust to a standard there will never be a correct azimuth when it comes to cassettes even on the best three heads decks. For that reason performance will always be lackluster unless you are making your own recordings. A good example are tapes recorded on Nak decks notoriously sound bad on non-Nak decks. On the other hand you would like to believe that reel to reel will give you more accurate results, but that too is not always the case. http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=70517
The best way I can describe it is this. The azimuth I refer to is what is printed on the tape in response to the record head. No one machine will have the same azimuth and no one tape will have the same azimuth. I bring this up to point out the performance of reel to reel will give you significantly better results than any cassette deck. Not because of the speed. Using the example of speed, 1⅞ ips can sound just as good at 15 ips except one will have more tape hiss. The difference is that reel to reel will always have greater frequency response because of the nature of its azimuth. The way the playback head is being used allows you to pull more information out of it. Anyhow that has given me the best results so far listening back and fourth. That is how I squeeze the most information out of every tape that comes into my possession. I do not calibrate the machines I use in my lineup. Personal preference. |
@clearthink by the way VHS tape wears like crazy there is a lot of friction in there!
VHS makes a good comparison showcasing the differences between a linear format and helical. What makes helical scan unique is the heads are recessed VERY SLIGHTLY into the head drum. You’ll notice when observing one that you can’t even see the head clearly at first glance when looking at a head drum. All you see at first is shadow of the recessed cavity. Since the head is an electromagnetic device no contact is needed for pickup. Now that VHS is offload from the drum when playback is paused it lasts much longer than other tape formats. There is virtually no tape shedding. We’re talking about audio here, but color and picture information cannot fade overtime from video tape either which is engrained in the signal. It’s not like film. That is one of the downsides to reel to reel is that they wear out much faster at higher speeds. Cassettes last much longer in that regard. There were audio machines for both Beta and VHS back in the 1980s. HiFi is a very underrated format for audio. Dynamic range and frequency response that matches CDs, and virtually zero tape hiss at speeds equivalent of 300 IPS with the moving heads (not a typo). It would have been real interesting to see helical technology being used in recording studios. A 16 track VHS deck would have been awesome to see. I would definitely prefer it to reel to reel. DAT format is not the same of course because that is a digital format. HiFi uses frequency modulation. They called it "poor man’s rtr". Funny enough I’ve considered making backup archives of my reel to reels to VHS. |
This statement is false. I’ve seen them worn first-hand. I should clarify this point. Ferrite heads can never really be relapped but they do fail. When I purchased my Teac 7030GSL with ferrite heads I brought them to John @ JRF Magnetics hoping to get them relapped. He informed me that he could not relap them because they were ferrite heads. We had to fit new metal heads on the Teac he found in his stock room that made a good fit. Often times when they fail overtime they become brittle and develop cracks until they shatter, but they don’t develop a flat spot because you can’t relap the glass that is encasing the ferrite without risking damage to the fragile glass. There are also two different kind of ferrite heads. I’m talking about the ones on consumer decks made by Akai and Teac. No one manufactures new ferrite heads anymore for this reason. Metal heads on the other hand as you know do wear down and develop flat spots very quickly but can be relapped very easily. They are also less noisy so it’s a trade off if you want longer lasting heads. |
The most nonsensical and incompetent thread forever
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The reason I bring up cassette is that it’s a lot more annoying to make adjustments than on reel to reel, mostly you can’t trust cassettes to give you reliable results because the azimuth is always changing. Cassette alignment is very reliable. The real reason prerecorded stuff wasn’t that great was due to high speed replication. The replicators simply didn’t have the bandwidth. I’ve used pre-recorded tapes, listening to the high end, to align azimuth when replacing worn heads. The setting you get is the same as if you use a 10KHz tone on a calibration tape. Ferrite heads can never really be relapped but they do fail. Ferrite heads aren’t relapped because its not worth it. Relapping a head only works out if you have a more expensive part and nearly all ferrite cassette heads are inexpensive. A 16 track VHS deck would have been awesome to see. Trust me on this? They weren’t that awesome. The typical ’studio’ machines had the transport built into the mixer. They were considered semi-pro; the recording industry didn’t take VHS and Beta all that seriously even though they were a compact multichannel format. Their main downfall is they simply weren’t reliable for day in and day out 24/7 service, and when Something Bad happened the tape was often locked inside the transport; requiring a complete disassembly just to rescue a tape that might never play again. Thank goodness those days are past!! |
Ferrite heads aren’t relapped because its not worth it. Relapping a head only works out if you have a more expensive part and nearly all ferrite cassette heads are inexpensive.
For that reason I have an admitted bias against ferrite heads, because their tendency to shatter which happens to no other head type. Once that happens they are junk. Plus an extra 10dB of noise. I stick with metal heads for my recordings and archiving machines. So while it is true ferrite heads did last significantly longer when they were used, once they get enough usage the glass will crack and more times then not you are forced to replace the head. This is the kind of wear I’ve seen on many decks that used ferrite over the years. Doesn’t happen as much with cassettes because of the lower speed. Trust me on this? They weren’t that awesome. The typical ’studio’ machines had the transport built into the mixer. They were considered semi-pro; the recording industry didn’t take VHS and Beta all that seriously even though they were a compact multichannel format. Their main downfall is they simply weren’t reliable for day in and day out 24/7 service, and when Something Bad happened the tape was often locked inside the transport; requiring a complete disassembly just to rescue a tape that might never play again. Thank goodness those days are past!!
You’re right it is a love hate relationship. The proof is in the pudding on the reliability of VHS. Good luck getting service on your VCR today. Good luck even attempting any repairs yourself. It is true they never manufactured a deck that was both high quality and reliable. Too bad they couldn’t make them as hardy as good old cassettes. Funny enough I just purchased a Sony SVO 5800 with an old Betacam 2800 I’m going to be using for this kind of project. I’m going to attempt syncing the output of the Sony with the Betacam as a TBC. I’m posting in other VHS forums and this is going off topic, but it’s become a huge obsession of mine to find out how far I can take the format. I even purchased an ozone generator I use to clean my tapes. :) |
Never read a thread with two cliches in the subject line.
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I feel like I discussed cassettes but not reel to reel. So I want to post that one of the main benefits of reel to reel is that it plays at higher speeds. At higher speeds it’s much harder to distort. So with a reel to reel deck you only need 20dB of dynamic range. Above -20VU cassettes fall on their face. Cassettes got away with less distortion with noise shaping technologies like Dolby and DBX, and the only reason why it required more headroom. Digital recordings of course are most easy to distort which is why you need 144dB of headroom. It’s pretty amazing what reel to reel is capable of and pretty understandable why it was the standard for so long. Cassettes can still sound incredible. It really is apples and oranges. You can't compare reel to reel to any other format. |
It would be amazing the quality of r2r tapes we could manufacture and release today if we wanted to. Listing to music without any translation to ‘other delivery medium’. Even digital sources would find more life on tape.
A good tape, beats most other available formats/mediums. For most of the music I love, it’s the medium in which those recording were made.
Yes digital in a sense can be closer the Master Tape, but you decimate time, frequency and loudness to another domain full of time and frequency characteristics and parameters that must ‘work together’. And then you have to do it all in reverse and get it right.
Vinyl you need to go through a completely different mastering process. You lose bass in stereo, and you lose bass energy the closer to the end of a record side you go. Plus there’s vinyl impurities. You have to add a special EQ and then remove it at phono preamp due to real physical limitations. You go from Master, to Lacquer, to multiple stampers. Stampers wear out. Scratches, heat, dust, static electricity are enemies of vinyl production and playback.
With reel to reel tape you go from Master Tape, to Dub Master Tapes, probably with some EQ, to Reel-to-Reel tape you play at home.
Which seems most likely to reproduce faithfully the analog event that is instruments and voices making sound? |
I have to second that. I would have preferred a cassette or reel to reel comeback instead of vinyl, but we might get lucky as I heard those are making a comeback as well. Better buy them while you still can. Lol! Vinyl is one of the most difficult and expensive consumer formats to get good results out of. You can spend stupid amounts of money on cartridges, needles, arms, pres, and still get average results.
I agree that tape has a different sound than digital, but most of the difference between the two formats comes through when recording and not as much when playing back. A digital recording of a tape recording will very much sound like tape and you won’t notice the difference, but a digital recording transferred to tape will add some colorization but will still have the characteristics of a digital recording. It’s like trying to colorize a black and white photo. The "magic" of analog is the way that tape saturates and distorts in the recording studio compared with digital which can’t handle any amount distortion.
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I agree that tape has a different sound than digital, but most of the
difference between the two formats comes through when recording and not
as much when playing back. A digital recording of a tape recording will
very much sound like tape and you won’t notice the difference, but a
digital recording transferred to tape will add some colorization but
will still have the characteristics of a digital recording. It’s like
trying to colorize a black and white photo. The "magic" of analog is the
way that tape saturates and distorts in the recording studio compared
with digital which can’t handle any amount distortion. This isn't quite correct. A properly operating recorder will generate a bit of 3rd harmonic (which is innocuous to the human ear). The 3rd is often in enough amplitude that it will mask higher ordered harmonics, which to the ear will make tape sound smoother- particularly at or near saturation. This will be true regardless of the source of the recording. This 3rd harmonic makes tape good for taming the highs in digital systems, which like it or not have distortion called 'aliasing' (since the digital world does not like to admit to distortion). Aliasing is a form of distortion that is best described as a form of IMD in that the tones generated are in relation to the Nyquist frequency. Any harmonics that might exceed the Nyquist frequency are 'wrapped around' back down into the audio band and get interpreted by the ear as brightness. |
This will be true regardless of the source of the recording. This 3rd harmonic makes tape good for taming the highs in digital systems, which like it or not have distortion called ’aliasing’ (since the digital world does not like to admit to distortion). That is a good point. I’m more referencing clipping distortion. Once a digital file has distorted or clipped, analog tape cannot fix a distorted digital recording. A lot of the harshness you hear from a digital recording and digital plugins is from clipping which may be very faint. Recording a digital recording on tape which suffers from the "loudness wars" for example won’t tame or fix the distortion in that instance. Now I want to bring up azimuth because I feel I only vaguely touched on it. Yes azimuth on tape can change overtime as it ages. As a reel to reel or cassette tape ages its azimuth changes from beginning to the end of the recording overtime, most likely due to loss of lubricant in the tape and slip sheets, and shell friction/variations each time it is played. This can happen and it can become noticeable. 1/60 degree azimuth error is enough to deaden the treble response of reel to reel or cassette. If you are adjusting azimuth with a test tape to enjoy prerecorded music you are doing it wrong. When you own a Dragon with NAAC correction, you can hear it making corrections multiple times on worn out old tapes that were played many times. Many make judgments on the format using worn out tape, worn out heads, machines that are improperly calibrated, and they wonder why their reel to reel doesn’t sound like a Studer at Abbey Road Studios. This is what Nakamichi actually said in a brochure. naks.com/products/nakamichi_dragon.html?fbclid=IwAR1FwROEUoCJBteINlT FZe8S5wMKxhLrdeQg8l42t2J_IoOaPCr_lC_x_nk"Proper azimuth alignment is one of the most important factors in achieving the best possible tape reproduction quality. Ideally, playback head azimuth should be adjustable so that even tapes recorded on other decks will be reproduced with the recorded frequency response and sound quality fully intact. Commercially available music tape, tapes borrowed from a friend, tapes in which the shell has warped slightly (a common occurrence) all actually require some degree of playback head azimuth alignment to provide the best possible reproduction quality. Further, inaccuracies in cassette shell symmetry result in completely different azimuth alignment requirements in forward and reverse on auto reverse decks, often causing a significant variation in sound quality with machines that don’t have azimuth adjustment." |
Now above is for playback, but azimuth adjustment was also useful and always changing when recording as well. If the tape’s path and track(s) is/are not precisely perpendicular to the recording head (or at its best angle to it) as we know, you will have reduced fidelity in the recording process. Many cassettes had ’variable’ QC when it comes to cassette shells and the mounting of tape within them (reel to reel shells wear as well). As a result, being able to vary the recording head azimuth for the tape in your deck when ready to record was a good thing. For that reason rec az adjustment was more popular and useful than variable play. Also with headwear it might be necessary to readjust the azimuth after some time. |
