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The Simmer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, June 3 to 6, always the banner event of the audio industry, as usual broke its attendance re cords and also had a record number of exhibitors, but the exhilaration and upbeat mood of other years was noticeably diminished, with the pervading atmosphere one of apprehension.
This was, of course, a direct consequence of the "slow, soft" market and "disappointing" audio sales of the previous six months or so. One must re member that with the exception of the relatively mild downturn in business during the 1974/75 recession, the hi-fi industry had enjoyed unparalleled growth and prosperity for over 20 years. There were many manufacturers and audio retailers alike who were un prepared for and apparently bewildered by this current business slump, and for some, the pressure was just too much, with business failures showing a marked increase. Well, if the audio industry approached the SCES with understandable trepidation, with all sorts of horror stories circulating about product "dumps" and drastic company realignments, by the end of the Show things were actually looking up a bit. Nobody was whistling in the dark, but there wasn't the sales black out that had been anticipated. There were product commitments being made, and dealers were buying ...
albeit cautiously and conservatively.
Since the Show, the gasoline and fuel situation has worsened considerably, and inflation continues to debilitate the economy. This is already being equated with a further erosion of the hi-fi business. The doomsayers feel that with $5.00-per-pound steaks and $1.00-per-gallon gasoline, what is left for audio equipment?
... And Rumors of War
That is where my "enclave" theory comes into play. I think people are going to be forced to stay closer to home, and there are plenty of people who are going to try and make their bastion against the world as self-sufficient as possible. That very likely means acquiring certain amenities they have been putting off purchasing, which should certainly include audio systems. If I'm right, it won't mean the absolute salvation of the hi-fi business, but it certainly will be a significant help.
Under the circumstances, it was no surprise that most manufacturers were putting extra effort into the introduction of new products and more aggressive marketing programs. However, in conversations with many industry people and in the various summations I have read about the Show, there was a general opinion that there were no real technological breakthroughs and relatively few exciting new products to truly stimulate sales. I think this assessment was only partially correct, as there certainly was plenty of interesting new equipment to gladden the hearts of audiophiles. As for the sharp consumers who know about all those digital "goodies" waiting in the wings, it is up to the smart retailer to convince his customers that it is likely to be some time before these glamorous products go "on stage" and begin to supplant analog audio equipment.
Very frankly, covering a show of the size and complexity of .the SCES and offering a report on new products that can be considered even moderately comprehensive is a wearisome task and, in my opinion, patently impossible. An encyclopedic approach can also get pretty boring. Thus, at the risk of enduring the slings and arrows of outraged manufacturers whose shiny, new products aren't mentioned, my reportage will be highly selective. I freely admit I will indulge some of my prejudices, and some may find my choices arbitrary and capricious if not downright irrational and even puzzling. So be it ...
Cassette News As you would expect, metal-particle tape and cassette machines capable of recording on this new tape were among the hottest items at the SCES.
What had been a mere trickle of metal-tape-capable cassette recorders at the WCES in Las Vegas became a veritable deluge at the SCES. Most of the major manufacturers were showing metal-compatible decks, and more than a few were offering multiple models in various price ranges. Speaking of prices, the metal-capable decks ranged from a remarkably low $189.95 for the Sanyo RD-5035, which offers Sendust erase and record/play heads as well as Dolby B at that price, to the innovative Lux 5K50 which sells for just under $2000.00. The low price of the Sanyo deck, as well as those of several other decks only slightly higher, have raised some cynical eyebrows within the industry. These people con tend that the low-priced metal-capable decks have been given the ability to record metal tape at the expense of more basic parameters. They also point out that it seems unlikely that the audio consumer who buys one of these units will be willing to pay almost $10 for a blank metal-particle cassette.
They may well have a point. Since this is such an early stage in the development of metal-tape technology, this might be a good time to note that in spite of the fact that just six months ago at the WCES the least expensive metal-capable decks were about $700, the ongoing miracle of audio industry technology has made it possible to produce a $189 metal-capable deck.
That is quite an accomplishment, and it is best left to the reviewers to deter mine if these decks have any function al or performance inadequacies.
Sanyo, which incidentally made the "biggest splash" at the SCES by introducing 67 new products, obviously launching a massive program to establish themselves as a major factor in the hi-fi business, showed its muscle by introducing six other metal-capable cassette decks in addition to their $189 special. They have several three-head models with features including micro--processor control, auto reverse, etc.
Aiwa also put in a strong bid for higher company visibility by introducing 10 new cassette decks, which include three metal-capable decks. Their interesting new top-of-the-line model is the AD-6900 Mark Two, which in addition to metal capability, has their Flat Response Tuning System for auto ad just of bias, EQ and sensitivity, and a unique wireless function control, handling record, play, rewind, fast for ward, stop and pause. JVC, whose KD A8 was one of the first metal-capable decks on the market (and on which I reported briefly in the July, 1979, Audio), showed five additional metal-capable decks, all of which use a manual biasing system rather than the automatic BEST system of the KD-A8.
Their KA-7 is a two-head deck with the JVC spectral peak indicators at $499.95, and their KD-A77 is a three-head deck at $549. In the more exotic configurations . . . with the prices to match . . .
were metal-capable models from Eumig (FL-1000, three heads, dual Dolby, micro-processor control, bias test sys tem at just under $1600), Teac (Model C2, two motors, three heads, unusual choice of Dolby or dbx noise reduction, plug-in bias and EQ cards, $1000), and Technics (RS-M95, designated their "Professional" metal deck at $1300).
BIC/Avnet, which shook up the cassette world last year with their two-speed (1 7/8 & 3 3/4 ips) cassette decks, has now added their Model T-4M met al-capable deck with such amenities as microprocessor control, two-motor solenoid operation, LED bar-graph level indicator. Their T-3 model, with Memorex Hi-Bias, TDK-SA, and Maxell UDXL, traced exceptionally flat curves on my UREI 200 Waveform Response Plotter at both speeds, so I am curious to see how well metal tape performs at both speeds on this new unit. While BIC's 3 3/4 ips speed was dismissed as a "gimmick" in certain quarters, others evidently thought otherwise, since Marantz now has six two-speed decks, with four units also offering metal capability, and Fisher also offers two models with metal-capable, dual-speed features. Nakamichi, always in the forefront of new cassette developments, was showing their very sophisticated 581 and 582 metal-capable decks. Their transport is unique in that it uses three motors, in an unusual configuration ... one to drive the capstan, another to drive the reel hubs, and the third to drive a special multi purpose cam. With their special "crystal permalloy" heads (with a 0.9-mi cron gap in the playback head), frequency response is rated at ±3 dB from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. The most interesting new Nakamichi deck was their Model 680. This is also a two-speed deck, however Nakamichi opted for a second speed in the opposite direction of the BIC unit . . . to wit, 15/16 ips . . .
half of the normal VA ips! In other words, a C-90 cassette will afford a total of three hours recording time! Your first question will be, of course, what is the frequency response? With special heads, including a playback head with a rather astonishing 0.6 micron gap, and special double negative-feedback electronics, the response is rated as ±3 dB from 20 Hz to 15 kHz! The unit has many other goodies such as user-adjustable record head azimuth, fluorescent level indicators, Dolby N/R, 400-
Hz test tone, etc. I listened to the unit at the 15/16 ips speed with a metal-tape recording, and the sound was quite wide range, with nice clean, low distortion sound and a respectably quiet S/N ratio. I don't know how much headroom there is at this slow speed and the dynamics of the music were not very demanding, so I'll have to wait and give one of these units a whirl at home to form any concrete opinions in this area. There were scads of other metal-capable decks in a broad price spectrum, and the once lowly cassette continues to amaze with its new heights of fidelity and versatility.
If all the foregoing seems to paint a rosy picture for metal-particle tape technology . . . alas, there are techno logical thorns to prick the unwary. As I pointed out earlier, some engineers have a very cynical viewpoint in respect to low-priced, metal-capable cassette decks. Many feel that these decks, and even many higher-priced units, just do not have the performance capabilities to fully exploit the potential of metal-particle tape.
Indeed, more than a few feel that the present shortage of metal tape is a reflection of the difficulty in making this kind of tape. They cite inconsistency of coercivity values and instability of the tape, including "shedding" in some samples. The Tandberg company, which introduced the industry's first metal-particle tape deck last year, sounds a particularly discordant note concerning problems with metal tape.
They state that in spite of recent industry standardization, which set met al particle tape coercivity at 1050 oersteds, retentivity at 3000 gauss, with a playback time constant of 70 micro-seconds, batch-to-batch tape variations have resulted in marked changes in frequency response. This was most evident in the mid-range frequencies, which is very critical because bias adjustment cannot compensate for this.
They further claim that if a cassette deck is adjusted for a particular metal tape, subsequent variations in other tape batches may necessitate a considerable readjustment (a bench procedure) of the record equalization.
Tandberg states bluntly that their re search indicates that no two-head (combined record/playback) cassette deck is acceptable for use with metal-particle tape. They say the bias field required for the tape exceeds the saturation point of any head material they have sampled, including Sendust.
They further claim that any two-head machine using metal-particle tape will be in an under-biased condition, in creasing distortion and decreasing S/N ratio.
Obviously, Tandberg has made some pretty strong statements, which are certain to raise the hackles of many engineers and manufacturers. Yet there have been similar charges in other quarters, so that one cannot summarily dismiss the Tandberg claims as company propaganda in favor of their new TCD 440A metal-capable cassette deck. To cope with some of the problems of metal-particle tape (and conventional tape, for that matter), especially in the area of high frequency saturation, Tandberg has introduced what they call their "DYNEQ" system. In essence, it is a dynamic equalization system which varies the amount of treble boost in the record equalization. As the signal level rises to the point where full record EQ would cause high frequency saturation, the EQ is automatically reduced, to the point where at 0 dB (250 nWb/m) record level, there is no record treble boost at all. Tandberg claims this circuit drastically reduces IM distortion. As for the problems Tandberg raises with metal-particle tape, we await with interest for the outraged cries of manufacturers who most certainly will rebut this firm's contentions! By sheer coincidence, a new development from Dolby Laboratories specifically addresses some of the problems posed by Tandberg. At a special conference at the SCES for the audio press corps, Dolby demonstrated their new HX Headroom Extension System.
As the name implies, the Dolby HX system is designed to cope with the problems of high-frequency tape saturation, with the consequence of reduced dynamic range. The Dolby HX system, which works in conjunction with Dolby B noise-reduction system, automatically and continuously varies a recorder's bias level and record equalization to optimize them in response to the changing level and high frequency content of the music being recorded. The result is a significant reduction in the effects of tape saturation. The Dolby HX system thus permits recording high frequency information at 10 kHz and above, at a level 10 or more dB higher than is currently possible, while at low and middle frequencies performance is optimized for minimal distortion, modulation noise, and drop-out effects. The variable circuitry operates by means of a control signal based on the level and high frequency content of the music derived from the Dolby B noise-reduction sys tem. The system works with any kind of cassette tape. Now, if we attribute a conservative five dB improvement in high-frequency headroom through the use of metal-particle tape, and then add a further 10-dB improvement by utilization of the Dolby HX system, we wind up with a rather incredible 15-dB increase in dynamic range. Best of all, the headroom improvement is inherent in the recording process, and no special circuitry is required to playback HX tapes other than regular Dolby B noise reduction. At the demonstration, both open-reel master tapes and re cords were recorded on three-head cassette decks to permit instantaneous source/tape comparisons, with and without the HX system. There was no question whatever of the superiority of high frequency response on the HX encoded tapes. Cymbals and high level, high-frequency synthesizer effects were audibly cleaner and clearly delineated.
Dolby intends to make the HX Head Extension System available to all Dolby noise-reduction licensees, without further royalty and licensing charges.
Dolby estimates that parts for the inclusion of the HX system in regular Dolby noise-reduction circuitry will add about a third more to the overall cost. The HX system is a very import ant development, because it will make pre-recorded cassettes truly competitive with discs. Yes, friends, with appropriate changes in the bias and EQ circuitry of the duplication equipment, we can have wide-dynamic range HX cassettes! A trip to Dolby Labs in San Francisco is forthcoming, and I'll learn more about the HX system, as well as new developments in Dolby stereo sound for motion pictures.
Next month I'll wrap up the SCES report with a look at some new amplifiers, loudspeakers, etc.
(adapted from: Audio magazine, Oct. 1979; Bert Whyte)
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