TAPE GUIDE (Mar. 1987)

Vanishing Speciess

Q. Are there any companies left that produce a good, reliable 8-track record/playback deck?

-Tim Ehler, Early, Iowa

A. The 8-track cartridge deck seems to have gone the way of Elcaset, quadraphonic equipment, and the dodo bird. It is extinct, or nearly so.

The cassette deck has replaced it for reasons of performance, convenience, and reliability. The 8-track cartridge system was never considered a high fidelity medium, whereas the cassette for some years now has become increasingly so. However, a few 8-track cartridge players are still around. Radio Shack stores, for example, carry some.

Copying "Ancient" Discs

Q. I have inherited a pile of records of ancient vintage, including 78s, 45s, 33 1/2s and 16s, as well as a number of cassettes. I have a record player (Garrard Zero 100) that operates at 45 and 33 1/3 rpm, an open-reel deck that operates at 1 7/8, 3 3/4, and 7 1/2 ips, and a cassette deck that operates at 1 1/8 and 3 3/4 ips. Is there any way to use my record player in the making of tape copies of 78s or 16s? And is there any way for me to use the tape decks to copy the cassettes?

-John S. Carroll. Ventura, Cal.

A. To copy your 78s you will have to locate a turntable that operates at that speed. A few such are listed in Audio's 1986 Annual Equipment Directory (October issue). Considering the age of your present turntable, it might be advisable to get a new one that incorporates the 78-rpm speed.

To copy your 16-rpm (actually 16 2/3 rpm) records, play them at 33 1/3 rpm, which doubles all frequencies, and dub onto tape (cassette or open-reel) at 3 3/4 ips. Then you can play the tape back at 1 7/8 ips, which halves all frequencies, thus restoring the music to almost its original form. I say "almost" because equalization errors occur whenever a recording made at one speed is played back at a different speed. Because each frequency is doubled or halved by the change in playing speed, the playback equalization circuit applies the boost or cut that would normally be used for the frequency an octave higher or lower. In practice, however, the frequency deviations that result may not be bother some, especially since so much of the material on 16 2/3-rpm discs was not of spectacular fidelity to begin with.

To copy cassettes, play the cassette on your cassette deck at 1 7/8 ips and copy onto the open-reel deck at either 3 3/4 or 7 1/2 ips; 7 1/2 ips is best. Play the open-reel copy at the chosen speed and dub onto your cassette deck at 1 7/8 ips.

Dubbing-Deck Drawbacks

Q. I wonder if you can explain something that seems puzzling. I recently invested a considerable sum in a new stereo system which includes an excellent cassette deck. However, the deck does not have the facility to independently make copies of my friends' tapes, and I find this limits the usefulness of the system. I have noticed that many of the low-priced systems advertised by department stores these days offer dual cassette decks with high speed dubbing. One would expect the more expensive components, such as mine, to offer more facilities. But it seems that very few of the audiophile-quality decks contain the dubbing facility. Why is this? Auto-reverse is another feature offered by many of the department-store systems, but rarely by the audiophile-quality decks. It is rather galling to in vest a good deal of money in equipment such as mine and then have to do without the useful facilities offered by much cheaper systems.

-John Mason, Darien, Conn.

A. To make a cassette deck that works well in all respects-frequency response, distortion, noise, motion, essential features, etc.-requires much art and a substantial number of controls and annunciators which take a good deal of room. To get that performance with two decks in one frame-a dubbing deck-becomes a difficult, expensive, and nearly prohibitive task.

To my knowledge, no dubbing deck has yet been acclaimed as matching the performance and features of single-transport decks which merit the term high fidelity.

Dubbing decks are forced to take any number of shortcuts for reasons of cost and/or space. One of these is omission of noise reduction, either altogether or in part; if a dubbing deck does provide NR, it may offer only Dolby B NR, and not the more advantageous Dolby C or dbx NR. Such decks may not provide appropriate bias and equalization for all tape types.

They frequently use automatic level control instead of the more desirable manually operated record-level controls; correspondingly, they may omit record-level indicators. They do not offer separate record and playback heads, which permit superior performance and the ability to monitor the tape as it is being recorded. And so forth.

To preserve high-frequency response requires very accurate azimuth alignment of the tape heads (i.e., keeping their gaps exactly at right angles to the long dimension of the tape). To do so in both directions of operation, in the case of an auto-reverse deck, be comes difficult and expensive. In the case of a "department-store deck" with auto-reverse, it is quite likely that its high-frequency response suffers.

If possible, I suggest that you compare the results of a department-store dubbing deck with the results obtained when you use your deck together with another high-quality deck to copy a tape.

At Home with Digital

Q. When will it be possible for the consumer to record digitally? Would cassettes be used, or some other medium? What might the cost be in the first year or two?

-Ron Brinton; Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

A. Consumer digital recording systems have been available for several years in the form of PCM adaptors, which convert analog audio signals to digital and format them for recording on a VCR. Some 8-mm VCRs can also record digital soundtracks (or, in some cases, digital sound alone), but with a lower S/N and more limited frequency response (15 kHz) than CD players or PCM adaptors can achieve.

Digital audio tape (DAT) formats using cassettes smaller than today's analog cassettes have been developed for consumer use and may well become available in 1987. There are two pro posed standards, involving stationary versus revolving heads, but it appears that the revolving-head (R-DAT) version will be the first, and perhaps only, one to reach the market. My best guess is that R-DAT machines will initially cost upwards of $1,000.

Recorders for digital audio disc exist, though in limited numbers and not in forms compatible with CD. One such recorder, for broadcasting, uses computer-type floppy disks and records for only a few minutes per side; another uses two-sided optical discs larger than the single-sided CD.

(Source: Audio magazine, Mar. 1987, HERMAN BURSTEIN)

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