From: jeff@dirac.physics.sunysb.edu (Jeff Althoff)
Subject: tapes and dolby..
Organization: Institute for Theoretical Physics, SUNY at Stony Brook
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 20:40:30 GMT


In article <BtI5q3.7w4@news.cso.uiuc.edu> pjpg1258@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Paul J. Pearah) writes:
>
>As for tape type, it is well-known that nearly everyone uses maxells.  I
>can hardly fathom why this is, since Audio magazine tested 36 types of
>type II tapes, and TDK's were found to be better.  
>
  Is this comparison for the "new" (aka Black Magnetite ?) Maxells? I 
  thought some other magazine said the new Maxells were better. I've also
  read that there's some Sony type II tape that supposed to be the best.

  The reason I use Maxells dates back to when I first started collecting
  and trading tapes. Back when Maxells had the blue J-cards and there 
  were only UDXL I & II, no "S"'s. TDKs still had the "compact
  cassette" logo on them (this was circa 1977).
  I had TDKs munched by car decks and
  generally go bad in various ways. This never happened to me with a 
  Maxell. After losing some hard-to-replace tapes this way, I vowed
  never again to use TDK's. I still don't. Several friends use TDK's
  now and the new ones seem pretty good, but old habits die hard. I
  like Maxell, especially XLIIS and MXS. The new XLII looks like an S
  (the shells at least) but my understanding is that the tape is different.
  (I thought the old XLII shells were clunky, the S shells more solid.)
  I think the S's have more headroom and take a +3dB peak real nicely
  without distorting. Plus they look cool :-). And MaxPoints.

>Now on the dolby question: 

  Dolby is an evil conspiracy by the record industry to drastically increase
  generational loss in cassette recording. :-) I used to use dolby when I
  first started trading. I soon started noticing the difference and then
  had it demonstrated to me quite dramatically by some very well-equipped
  tapers on some killer boards. A 5th or 6th gen board that's never had
  Dolby still sounds pretty good. A 5th or 6th gen board that been Dolby
  encoded down the line sounds horrible. I have some 2nd and 3rd gen boards
  from 1991 that don't sound as good as some 5th or 6th gen boards (all
  made on "quality" tape decks) simply because of Dolby. I think it destroys
  the high end. My theory is that it was invented back when tape quality
  was so bad that Dolby was actually an improvement. I think that the
  science of making tape has advanced far beyond Dolby, to the point where
  Dolby is an outdated standard that is the leading cause of generational
  degradation of tapes. That and lousy dubbing decks. My guess is that 
  perhaps the theory behind Dolby is sound (i.e a mirror-image) but like
  real life, the realization of the system in various brands of decks is 
  both imperfect and not strictly standardized. The result being that when
  a tape gets dolby-ized through several different decks, much is lost.

  I have a dolby switch on my decks and I'll only flip it to "on" if
  I'm taping an encoded tape or if someone I'm taping for wants it.
  I never use it for my own tapes.

  This is my subjective opinion based on about 15 years of listening
  with my ears. I respect the opinion of those who like TDK tapes and
  dolby.

  No Dolby,
  Jeff A.
-- 
--------------------------------------------
Jeff Althoff    jeff@max.physics.sunysb.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead