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Re: [ARSCLIST] audio cassettes
Don,
Your feelings years ago were correct, but what else did we have that filled the
same niche?
Cassettes are actually, for the most part, proving to be reasonably robust. I
just transferred some early-'70s cassettes and the biggest headache with the
non-major-brand ones were that the splices failed.
A bigger concern is how to play the tapes with the highest fidelity during the
transfer process.
Sadly, the Nakamichi Dragon has been discontinued for close to ten years, but
it was perhaps the only machine that had a working automatic PLAYBACK azimuth
adjustment. Nakamichi also made some with manual playback azimuth adjustment. I
think there is a DR1 that has the manual adjustment going on eBay right now.
I just bought my third Dragon--there were several on eBay for reasonable prices
this week and I just couldn't say no.
I continue to be amazed at the quality of the Dragon.
My favorite transfer workstation for cassettes is a Dragon and a pair of Sony
CDR-W33 CD recorders. One audio cable between the Dragon and the first CDR and
then a TOSLINK optical cable between the first and the second CDR. Monitor off
the analog output of the second CDR. Dirt simple. Two CD-R copies at the same
time (use one remote to trigger track marks simultaneously on both writers).
Cheers,
Richard
--
Richard L. Hess
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/
Quoting Donald Allan Mccatty <ao1286@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Iâ??m new to the list and Iâ??m quite sure Iâ??m revealing my
> ignorance, but whatâ??s the current status of audio cassettes?
> Are they still the preferred format for anything (esp. oral
> history)? How does the immediate and long(how long?)term
> future look for tape cassettes and recorders? How long can a
> cassette tape be reliably stored? Years ago I taped a lot of
> Bill Monroe live shows; I had real doubts about longevity
> even at that time.
> Any recommended sources of info would be appreciated.
> -Don McCatty
> ao1286@xxxxxxxxx
>