Cassette's Not Dead, Apparently!

[Beechwoods]

Funnily enough I just bought 5 UX-Pro 90's today... I'm looking forward to trying them out versus the other tapes I've got so I can only go by what I've read, and that is that UX-Pro is up there with early 90's TDK SA-X. Of course different tapes perform differently in different decks. You should try your own tests. On the question of 'Metal Position' versus 'Metal Tape', unless used in reference to pre-recorded tapes where metal tape would be used but eq'd for normal bias playback, I think the terms are used interchangeably.

[Dave Cawley]

Well, you can make metal tape and it's made of metal.

Or you can take a non-metal formula and make it bias compatible with metal, but it isn't metal at all, just a marketing trick. 40 years ago I designed early tape heads for a living, but have forgotten all of it.

The question is, is real metal better, and why?

Regards



Dave

[Giant Haystacks]

maybe some of art of sound users interested should take a look on e bay
thats mrx pro 90 minutes metals 10 of 30 pounds at moment and finishing at 12.25 am today short notice unfortunately

[Alex Nikitin]

maybe some of art of sound users interested should take a look on e bay
thats mrx pro 90 minutes metals 10 of 30 pounds at moment and finishing at 12.25 am today short notice unfortunately

Thank you!

Alex

[DSJR]

As I remember, "Metal" type IV formulations needed lots of energy to get the signal imprinted on them, but conversely, it took a lot of abuse to shave the signal off, thereby hopefully retaining high frequencies longer. The headroom could be phenominal too.

There were downsides though. Head wear could be an issue with cheaper "permalloy" head types and there was slightly more hiss as well, losing some of the headroom advantage.

[RobHolt]

As I remember, "Metal" type IV formulations needed lots of energy to get the signal imprinted on them, but conversely, it took a lot of abuse to shave the signal off, thereby hopefully retaining high frequencies longer. The headroom could be phenominal too.

There were downsides though. Head wear could be an issue with cheaper "permalloy" head types and there was slightly more hiss as well, losing some of the headroom advantage.

The problem with many Metal capable machines was head and electronics saturation. The additional bias current required would saturate the head, as would the tendency to push the recording levels up in order to exploit the theoretical additional dynamic range of metal tape.
Most budget and mid priced decks were only nominally 'metal capable' - they could give you a flat frequency response from metal tape but couldn't exploit the full potential because they couldn't get enough level onto the tape. A handful of machines worked very well with metal. The Naks of course, plus the big Revox and Teac machines, and JVC made some very good high end machines in the early days.

I still have a JVC DD9, a massively built three motor, direct drive machine that auto calibrates it's internal circuits for individual tape samples.

Rob.

[Alex Nikitin]

I've bought more than 40 different cassette decks and a couple of Walkmans over the last year, however I consider my recent purchase a real "score". There is a story behind it. In the autumn of 1986 my father visited Japan for one of his books presentation. He was invited by Masaru Ibuka himself - one of the SONY founders. He had a great time there, brought back lots of photos (I still have somewhere a photo of him together with Mr. Ibuka) and quite a few gadgets, including a solar-powered wrist watches for me and my brother (I still have it on my wrist now) and a "Super-Walkman" - recording WM-R202. I've used this amazing machine for a number of years however at a moment of need I had to sell it and thought that I would never see this model again. I was wrong. A chance ebay auction and this morning I've receved a small package in the post. It looks almost new, it works fine, it sounds great - just as I remember it. It has auto-reverse for both playback and recording, microphone input, Dolby B for playback... . And all of this in the size just a bit larger than a cassette case.

Here is a small album of photos. And I am again a happy owner of WM-R202 !



Alex

P.S. - and if you think it is just a toy, download this file (zipped WAV, 96 kHz 24 bit, 41 Mb) - 1 min of a jazz from a prerecorded tape played on this little thing. It needs some service after 22 years, however even "as is" it is quite impressive, IMHO.

[Beechwoods]

A lovely looking machine Alex. I'll check out your sample later when I get the chance...

[Giant Haystacks]

that is so interesting alex the piece of hifi history ,
and your portable is also facanating to me also,
i hope you got the thats metals i saw that they were going very cheap and i did not want to hoard any more ,
on the history scene iin my place of work i sometimes speak to the grandson of marconi,it is so interesting to hear facts we were speaking about the westinghouse factory in canada which was marconi and also there close links with the rca victor factory in canada which they sourced a lot of valves off ,
i have an old nakamichi 250 cassette -pre amp which is 12 volt it was ment as the first high quality car audio and would have been mounted on the tunnel of the older style cars ,there was a more famous news reporter machine called a 550

[Alex Nikitin]

i hope you got the thats metals i saw that they were going very cheap and i did not want to hoard any more ,
on the history scene iin my place of work i sometimes speak to the grandson of marconi,it is so interesting to hear facts we were speaking about the westinghouse factory in canada which was marconi and also there close links with the rca victor factory in canada which they sourced a lot of valves off ,
i have an old nakamichi 250 cassette -pre amp which is 12 volt it was ment as the first high quality car audio and would have been mounted on the tunnel of the older style cars ,there was a more famous news reporter machine called a 550

Thank you for the metal tapes - I've got these for a very good price.

About old Naks - 550 was a portable version of 500 and I have Nak 500 in my collection, also Goodmans CD100 which is a clone of Nak 500. It is a very nice machine!

Alex