Patent ID: 6922310
Filing Date: 2005-07-26
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
1. A rotary head apparatus, comprising: a rotary drum whose outer circumferential surface serves as a sliding surface relative to a recording medium; and at least one magnetic head lying on the sliding surface of the rotary drum, wherein the magnetic head comprises base members juxtaposed along a sliding direction relative to the recording medium; and a playback magnetic element disposed between the base members and slanted at a predetermined azimuth angle with respect to the sliding direction, wherein a recording-medium opposing surface of the magnetic head is wider in a longitudinal direction serving as the sliding direction than in a lateral direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction, wherein the opposing surface is curved in two convex shapes extending towards an outside of the rotary drum, one along a longitudinal cross section of the magnetic head extending across a center line of the magnetic head laterally dividing the magnetic head into two parts, and the other along a lateral cross section of the magnetic head orthogonal to the center line, and the opposing surface is formed such that an apex of the lateral cross section is gradually displaced in a first displacement from the center line with increasing distance from the center of the opposing surface in the longitudinal direction and is gradually displaced from the center line in the opposite direction to the first displacement in a second displacement with increasing distance from the center in a reverse longitudinal direction, and wherein the opposing surface is formed such that the first and second displacements of the apex laterally away from the center line in a sliding area of the opposing surface with the recording medium are respectively at most 2 μm.