Reel to reel

orpheus10

We have been discussing an aspect of R2R that only those who have had considerable experience are aware of ... Without a doubt, this takes you beyond the most expensive cartridge, TT, tone arm, phono pre combination. While you need all of that to record to the reel; after it's recorded, the reel takes you a step further.

If you really want to know what reel-to-reel can do, record your own music live. If all you do is dub from LP, you  have no idea what tape can offer: You're limited by the quality of the LP, and the small amount of noise and distortion that tape will inherently add to it.

orpheus10

Just a little while ago, I recorded "Trance Mission" ... During recording, the music sounded louder in the left channel; that's normal for my room, not good, but normal.

On playback, all was straightened out; the holographic sound stage was spread evenly across the rear wall.

Let me explain this; the louder left channel is because of the room acoustics, it has nothing to do with electronics; the very strong signal from the reel, straightened all that out, it overcame the bad room acoustics ...

It sounds like your tape deck is somehow misaligned or not properly calibrated. It works out well in your installation because of its unusual room acoustics, but those tapes aren't likely to sound good using headphones, or when played back in a more neutral acoustic environment.

benjie

I go to your studio and record my music in your studio and I want it on analog tape ... I want to use that master tape that we just recorded to produce CD’s and vinyl albums because of the perceived richness this distortion produces. Since we are using the master tape with the distortion, would’n that distortion also transfer to the other media ...

Of course. And if you then use analog tape to record an LP or CD made from that analog master, you’ll be adding more of the distortion inherent to analog tape, however slight that may be.

On top of that, many consumer tape decks are not properly aligned and calibrated. If that’s the case, even more distortion may result, and some of that may be quite euphonic.

Remember, I’m not trashing tape here - I’m a tape and vinyl guy. But it is what it is.

benjie

Why does this distortion not exist in digital or analog LP recordings? What is unique about a R2R’s recording circuit that causes this to happen?

It’s not really the recording circuit that causes this distortion. I know that you may not want to hear this, but the distortion common to analog tape recording is a function of the nonlinearity of the tape itself. The use of bias increases linearity and - as you may know - is only applied during recording, not playback.

Magnetic tape is also challenged with high level (approaching 0 dB) HF. The use of EQ is a technique to improve that performance.

One way that I think there is great similarity between LP and analog tape is that both systems seem to have profound, although different, limitations ... on paper. In practice, they both can result in extraordinary performance. The experiences of tape users in this thread is an indicator of that.

atmasphere

When in record mode the primary distortion component of reel to reel (at 0 VU) is the 3rd harmonic, which the ear treats very much the same way as the 2nd; it adds 'richness'.

Yes, that's the euphonic distortion that I referred to, and which often explains some people's preference for analog tape.

benjie

I have restored both of my R2R decks, Techincs RS-1500 2 track and Revox PR99 MkII. And I can say without a doubt that there is no "euphoric distortion" generating circuit in either deck.

I’m sure there’s no circuit in either deck designed to generate distortion, be it euphonic or "euphoric." The distortion - however slight or pleasant - is just a consequence of imperfect electronics.

I don’t think the term existed 35 or 40 years ago ... Sorry I am going to have to call BS on that one.

You might want to do some research on this matter, which dates back to at least the 1940s. For example, see Brockbank, Weiss (if I recall correctly) from the IEEE journal. This is a very well-studied field.

benjie

How does introducing distortion into a recording enhance or increase the overall musicality of the music? I would think an increased in distortion would have a negative effect not a positive one.

There is such a thing as "euphonic distortion" and some people may prefer the result to a more accurate signal. There use to be freeware called AddDistortion - I’m not sure if it’s still available. It worked only in mono, but was useful in understanding the audibility and qualities of different kinds and amounts of distortion. There have also been AES papers on this subject.

orpheus10

LP and CD both came from the "Master tape"; I think the only difference is obvious; one is digital, and the other is analog.

You may well be correct - but not necessarily. After all, the LP wasn’t made directly from the master tape, right? It would have to go through an RIAA EQ network, and almost certainly some amount of limiting or compression, if only to protect the cutter head.

Abraxas is a great album btw, and one of my favorites. Great art, too.

benjie

When I record these files, the information is there, it’s just not very audible. It is more in the background. Recording the file to tape seems to bring out more detail of the recording than is present through a digital player for the file.

Understood. But if what you hear from an analog tape dub differs from what you hear from the source itself, that difference is distortion. And it’s fine you find the tape preferable. I get it. I’m a tape guy, too.

orpheus10

... I recall being at a high end emporium and requesting them to play my CD of Santana’s "Abraxas". This was my CD; I bought the LP Abraxas when it came out; to say that I was familiar with the album would be an understatement; the background music that had been barely audible on all the rigs I had, was cleanly audible here. There were certain sounds that I have not heard clearly audible before nor since, and that was from a CD

That’s not at all hard to believe. An LP and its CD counterpart are often mastered differently.

orpheus10

Here again Cleeds you are referring to my statement and my statement alone; no one else stated any thing that would incite you to make the statement ... I did not say that there was information which was not on the LP.

I’m not sure to what statement you refer or why you would think it was in response to you. When I respond to someone here, I usually quote them to make it clear. I wish you would do the same. Regardless, there’s at least one user here who seems to claim that an analog tape dub contains information not on the original:

benjie

First we listen to the streamed version off the internet and then compare it to the tape I have made from the same digital stream. In every case the tape sounds better, much better. The recording has more depth and richness with an increase in dynamic range ... tape has 80 million magnetic particles per recorded inch available during the recording process we are able to saturate the tape with every detail that is present in a recording. The R2R tape player is then able to reproduce all of that detail that is available in stunning clarity which seems to be not present through a digital player.

benjie

If analog tape is so flawed then why do recording studios and engineers keep going back to it to produce new remastered versions of albums ?

That some here have noted some of the inherent limitations of tape doesn’t mean we think it’s "so flawed." As you stated, there is no  perfect recording method.

When creating a newly remastered LP, it makes sense to start with the original analog master. No copy made from that master can be higher quality than the original. That’s not to say that you might not prefer a copy of the original, but it can’t contain musical information not present on the master.

Analog Tape is King ! Prove me wrong.

No one can prove that a preference is "wrong." You prefer analog tape, and that’s fine. I like it, too.

benjie

Do you also feel that there is signal loss when recording from a digital source to tape?

Do you think analog tape is a perfect, distortion-free recording medium? 

benjie

Why do you think there is information lost between the LP and the phono preamp?

Using a test record and distortion analyzer, it can easily be shown that different phono preamps have varying degrees of success in retrieving what’s on an LP. And of course, no phono preamp is perfect - even the best of them add some noise and some distortion, as shown on even manufacturer’s specs.

No phono cartridge is perfect, either.

orpheus10

In regard to the playback being better than the LP from the TT; that does seem impossible; the funny thing is, I just enjoyed it without ever thinking about it, but now that this fact is being questioned, I'm forced to think about it.

That's fine. And it's fine if you prefer an LP tape dub to the LP itself. That's a legitimate preference. It's only an issue when someone states that the dub is technically superior to the LP itself.

On playback, the magnetic signal on the tape is the same as the signal from the cartridge that goes to the phono-preamp

No it isn't. The tape is made from the output of the phono preamp. It cannot recreate information lost between the LP and the phono preamp output. But again, that doesn't mean that you can't prefer the dub to the LP.

uberwaltz

Last time I checked my bank account did not run to hiring Avenged Sevenfold to perform in my garage unfortunately ...

Understood, me neither! For that, we have CD, LP, streaming. (In any event you probably wouldn't want to record them in your garage, unless your car space has a lot better acoustics than mine.)

Of course, if Avenged Sevenfold is selling real-time tape dubs of their releases, good for them!

orpheus10

When I was listening to playback of a brand new record, just a few minutes ago, I heard record noise, that constant low level noise during silence ...

Hmmm, sounds like a noisy phono preamp perhaps, or phono setup issues. I wouldn't accept "constant low level noise" from my turntable system.

inna

This whole vinyl thing is a money making industry BS. All the big ticket tables, arms, cartridges, phono stages etc. All we need is good tape decks and good pre-recorded tapes ...

That’s part of the problem - it’s extremely expensive to manufacture high quality pre-recorded tape, because to do that they have to be duplicated in real-time. It’s simply not a practical medium for commercial music.

What amuses me is that the tape advocates here seem to be content with simply using their decks to dub LPs. If you really want high quality recordings, why not use your deck to make your own, using real musicians? That’s where you’ll find the real magic of tape.

orpheus10

At 15 IPS the tape picks up the tiniest details; some that the cartridge glosses over ...

If the phono cartridge cannot retrieve these details, then what makes you think the tape can reconstruct them? The answer, of course, is that it can’t, even if the result "sounds better."

And remember that even at 15 IPS, tape is compromised reproducing HF as you near 0 dB.

orpheus10

At 15 IPS, my tape deck defies logic; yes, the copy is better than the source ...

That doesn’t defy logic at all if you define "better" as a preference, and not a statement of technical superiority.

If we define high fidelity as truthfulness to the original, then we know that a dub of an LP made to tape can’t be superior to the original. At best, it can only be the equal of the source, because tape can only add distortion, no matter how little it might be. It can’t possibly retrieve resolution or dynamics that were not present in the original. (I’m assuming we’re not using any signal processing here, such as EQ or dynamic range expansion.)

It is not at all far fetched to think that the subtle distortion added by tape might make the result preferable to the original.

To be clear, I’m into tape, and have a half-track Crown 822 and a quarter-track Tandberg TD-20A. But tape has a dirty little secret that some of its advocates overlook, and that’s the difficulty of recording HF at high levels, which is mostly a consequence of tape’s bias current. If you look at tape deck specs or test results, you’ll see that FR is typically spec’d at -10dB for reel and -20dB for cassette. The closer you get to 0 VU, the harder it is to preserve HF. And that may explain why tape dubs remove some nasties, whether from LP or digital.

benjie

Hard to believe some people think that tape is the absolute worst recording media.

I don't think anyone here has said that.