70s equipment sounds better?

heiney9

We can agree to disagree. I had a Pioneer CTF-750 and it wasn't even on the same planet as the Dragon. The Dragon's dynamic range bettered many of the popular cartridges of the day so to say it had poor dynamics shows that you never owned one or messed around with recordings on one.

Again I'm not saying in every case cassette is superior, but when done right, it certainly is the equal and can be beyond.

If you had a KILLER vinyl rig with a KILLER phono pre-amp I'd agree more with you. But you are making a blanket statement without stating specifics of your experiences and rarely do blanket statements apply at all.

Anyway I'm not going to continue to argue. I spent a LOT of time and money making cassettes from virgin vinyl and they sounded as good or better than the actual LP. Dragon to TDK MA-XG metal cassettes using dolby C were simply superb.

H9

heiney9

Nak was the only company (maybe Tandberg, IIRC) that achieved a true (+/- 3dB) 20Hz-20Khz frequency response from all cassette types. Some other decks were almost able to achieve it but only with pure Metal Oxide tapes and even then they didn't get as flat a response.

H9

BlueFox

This thread seems related to Devo and devolution, so obviously 60s equipment sounds better than 70s equipment.

nooshinjohn

here here H9:cheesygrin:

sda2mike

vinyl to cassette, like h9 stated, produced some great results..enough, that folks would record the lp then put em away..cd to cassette, in my exp, didn't transfer as well..tape overload on the high end?? i have some 70s..i like it so well, i'm taking it with me:) that's my marantz 2270;)

Syndil

I have an open mind, and I would actually like to hear what you are claiming. Needless to say I am extremely skeptical. No, I didn't invest in a Nak or anything of that nature, because as I said, to me cassettes were for portability and convenience. I'd rather listen to the vinyl or the CD, so what would have been the point in copying something to a cassette?

I did invest slightly in Minidisc for convenience, fully aware of the compromise in sound quality I would be making, but that was strictly so that I could listen to my CDs in my car without actually taking my CDs into my car. This was before MP3 players caught on, and ATRAC encoding sound quality is far superior to MP3 encoding at any given bitrate anyway. My CDs never leave the house, except when moving. I protect them the same as I do my vinyl.

heiney9

It was hard to get a Nak deck to saturate. I could record cd's using metal cassettes and typically record +5 to +7 dB above reference of 0 dB w/o saturation. Early cd to cassette sounded better because many of the early cdp's were pretty harsh. Recording to cassette smoothed out the highs and made some cd's more tolerable. The tapes made couldn't match the dynamic range of cd's, but early cd's were mostly transfered from studio tape anyway so while the compact disc format had more dynamic range it was rarely utlized in the early days unless it was a digital recording.

H9

mhardy6647

BlueFox wrote: »

This thread seems related to Devo and devolution, so obviously 60s equipment sounds better than 70s equipment.

Much of it did - this guy, for example, from the mid to late 1960s...
There haven't been many better sounding medium power push-pull power amps than this one, ever, IME and IMO.

Syndil

F1nut wrote: »

Top of the page, http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?22-2-Channel-Audio

I'll check into it. I have sold and used high-end cables in the past. That is why I say I use Monoprice cables almost exclusively--I still have a few of the older ones around. That is also why I keep saying you make incorrect assumptions about me. But admittedly I have never used anything in that price range. Would you say I should be able to hear a difference on my two-channel rig? That would be my Denon DCM-460 direct into an Adcom GFA-545, powering the RT-12s. If I do this, I will invite a few of my orchestra-mates over, and we will do it properly: Blind.

heiney9

Syndil wrote: »

so what would have been the point in copying something to a cassette?

Speaking only for me

1) I always recorded an LP the first time I played it and then put it away for two reasons. To preserve the vinyl and now I could get both sides of one LP on one side of a cassette and play both sides of the LP uniterupted.

2) to take in the car or to friends house or at the time my walkman.

Keep in mind this is before cdr's, etc.

I sold my last Nak deck a few years ago and sold the Dragon about 10 years ago. Absolutely no use to me anymore.

As far as hearing what I claim, you have to find a properly maintained Nak deck and find some virgin cassettes of which are now very hard and expensive to find.

H9

P.s. I also borrowed a lot of friends LP's and copied them. Honestly, I probably did that more than record my own stuff thinking back about the 300+ homemade cassettes I had.

P.s.s. In the 80's I was a huge bootleg tape trader too. I just recently dumped my 350+ cassette bootleg Led Zeppelin collection because I have everything digitally now. That was hard to do even thought I hadn't played any of the cassettes for probably 5 years. Lots of trading memories there however.

FTGV

Dang so now we have cassettes surpassing the top flight vinyl rigs that were used to make copy from.:surprised::eek:

sda2mike

90 minute cassettes were the ipod of their day:)

Syndil

Doubtful that will ever happen then. The biggest problem I have with the claim is the Dolby. In my experience, Dolby NR was just... horrible. The compressed dynamic range sounded like crap--easily noticeable. And if there was no Dolby NR, there was that high S/N ratio. You say you liked how the sound of the tape smoothed out the highs, so perhaps that is a personal preference thing.

sda2mike

i think with the naks and other high end decks, there was actual dolby circuitry involved...most others, may have used simple attenuation

heiney9

FTGV wrote: »

Dang so now we have cassettes surpassing the top flight vinyl rigs that were used to make copy from.:surprised::eek:

Certain situations, yes, atleast that was my experience. I won't say it would trumph a truely world class vinyl rig. A Dragon, a high end Metal tape and solid TT and cartridge of the day and yes, it would sound as good or better (better = subjectively). Tape decks and phono pre-amps had their own equalization curves.

The kicker is when tapes on the Dragon sounded better than cd's.............this was of course because of the analog nature of cassette tape and the early harshness that was fairly prevelent on early cd's and cd playback. With todays progression of digital recordings and digital playback I wouldn't make the same claim.

H9

heiney9

Take my claims in the context of the late 70's thru the 80's. Not from today's POV.

H9

steveinaz

I preferred Teac because I much preferred dbx II pro noise reduction. I had a "Z" series Teac cassette, and the Teac X2000R reel-to-reel, both stellar machines.

cnh

heiney9 wrote: »

Very doubtful. Have you ever owned a top of the line cassette deck? Made high quality recordings on top of the line blank cassettes? I did extensively and the Dragon made stunning recordings. In fact every Nak deck I owned was a superb performer. I am not saying every deck you encounter will do this, I am saying it is/was possible more times than not.

I find it humerous you can't hear differences in cables, but then state you can hear differences between a cassette and an LP. That is one of the more comical things I've read. The cables changes are for more noticeable than cassettes vs. LP.

H9

Never heard a Dragon, but even on lower echelon decks recordings of LPs on good heads, Dolby C, HX-pro on a TOTL metal tape, etc. were pretty damn good. I still have some of those, they even hold up, to an extent!

So I can definitely believe what Brock is saying about the Dragon!

cnh

sheathensemble

cr-1a a good unit? I got one with a setup I bought a while ago... I don't listen to cassettes though, so I haven't even plugged it in.

mhardy6647

As I recall the CR-1A is fairly decent. It is hard to go wrong with a Nakamichi deck, especially from the 1970s into very early 1980s. The aforementioned Pioneer CT-F750 is of no comparison to the better Nakamichi decks. Even the best "classic" Pioneers (e.g., CT-F1000, CT-F900/950, CT-F1250) aren't in the league of a Dragon, or even the 1000ZXL.


(CT-F1000)

The Pioneer/Phase Linear deck (7000) might be; I don't remember ever having heard one.



So far, unfortunately, my favorite local emporium has only turned up cheapie Nak decks...

sheathensemble

Thanks Hardy, good to know. I forgot all about the thing until I saw nakamichi mentioned in this thread... I think it's still in my cars trunk hahaah. I guess I gotta hook her up and give her a test run now . :cheesygrin:

FTGV

heiney9 wrote: »

Take my claims in the context of the late 70's thru the 80's. Not from today's POV.

H9

When I worked retail back in the 80's while the best decks we had on hand (IIRC the BX300 and a NAD with adjustable azimuth) made very good recordings, they were certainly not to my ears the equal of the Linn and Oracle or even the Rega planar vinyl spinners we peddled.