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12-04-2003, 07:10 AM
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#1 of 11 
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Recommendations for Cassette Deck
Hello All,
I am planning to buy a Dual Cassette Tape Deck. I still have lot of Cassettes and hopefully one day I will convert them to CDs. But there is always a untill then...... right?
So here is the deal.. I am planning to spend between 150-250(max) on a Dual Cassette Deck.
What are the good ones in that range?
What should I look for?
Should I buy into Dolby S ? Because few of the cassettes I have are not so good recordings and causes hisses and distortion when playedback. Would Dolby S help or is it enough with B and C and HXPro.....
Thanks
Kumar
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12-04-2003, 07:43 AM
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#2 of 11
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Go to onecall.com and search on cassette decks. They have decent prices (probably can get lower price when calling) and a pretty good selection. The Onkyo and Yamaha kind of jumped out at me.
You may be able to find an older machine at a pawn shop for a great deal. I'd try that first.
Charles
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12-04-2003, 09:42 AM
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#3 of 11
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Does Dolby S and HXPRO that great a deal? Should I buy into that?
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12-04-2003, 02:49 PM
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#4 of 11
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Please, someone correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think the Dolby S will help at all if the original cassettes were not recorded with Dolby S.
Ron
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12-04-2003, 02:51 PM
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#5 of 11
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So Dolby B, C, and S are not for playback from "any" cassettes?
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12-04-2003, 03:39 PM
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#6 of 11
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I've quit making cassettes but I used the bleeding things for a long time. I think HXPro works well preserving the highs, the tapes have to be recorded with it. It's subtle but I thoght it an improvement. Commercial tapes were done with Dolby 'B' only by the majors as far as I know. Dolby 'S' would only benefit on new records. I never had 'S' and thusly have no opinion. Dolby 'B' & 'C' are the must haves. Most tapes you'd archieve would surely use them. I think Sony pushed Dolby 'S' right as intrest in the format really waned.
I would advise to look beyond double decks. I'd look for a single well with a better tape mechanism. Dual Capstans usually mean lower wow and flutter. 3 heads is usually better than 2. Having seperate record, playback, and erase heads is better. You can monitor while recording or even add outboard echo chambers if you have a 3-head deck.
Good luck finding a quality deck. I'm not sure who makes 'em now??? Sony, Teac,...?
Rachael, the big disc cat! I used to be looking for Hi-Vision Laserdiscs & D-Theater tapes, now I'm looking for HD-DVD's and Blu-rays.
I survived the AFI top 100 Film Challenge! I've seen them all.
favourite saying: hard feelings are for park benches... sit on that!
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12-04-2003, 09:59 PM
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#7 of 11
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I've had a Denon DRW-585 for about 4 years and I have to admit I don't use it very much at all I have been pretty pleased with it when I have. It's got dolby B,C and HX Pro, music search and a bias adjustment. I think I've seen them recently for about $200.00. I'd recomend it unless of course you can find a used Nakamichi Dragon somewhere.
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12-05-2003, 01:04 AM
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#8 of 11
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Quote:
| So Dolby B, C, and S are not for playback from "any" cassettes? |
The older B/C are just HF rolloffs, if it's not recorded with the inverse boost, you'll be wiping out a lot of highs along with the hiss, instead of just wiping out the hiss and restoring the highs to their original level. This is very much similar to RIAA EQ for records(except only affects highs if i recall?)
Regardless, comes on pretty much everything, just get a quality deck if you do a lot of listening to it.
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12-05-2003, 07:06 AM
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#9 of 11
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Dolby "S" is fantastic, but it's only worth getting if you are going to be recording a lot of new cassettes. If you're only playing back existing tapes it won't do anything for you.
Philip Hamm
Moderator Emeritus
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12-05-2003, 12:58 PM
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#10 of 11
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I agree with Rachel, double decks were almost all crap. Even the best of them couldn’t compare to a good single-well 2-head deck, and any 3-head deck would simply blow them out of the water. Back when I did a lot of tape duping I had two 3-head decks, and the loss between duplications was only barely audible.
Dusting off my “old tech” hat for the following – hopefully it’s reasonably accurate.
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I think HXPro works well preserving the highs, the tapes have to be recorded with it. It's subtle but I thoght it an improvement.
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Correct, Unlike Dolby’s other treatments, HX –Pro is a recording-only process that needs no decoding on playback. It helps to keep the highs from distorting when the signal threshold is reached, if I recall, therefore allowing for hotter signals to be recorded and improving S/N ratio.
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Dolby 'S' would only benefit on new records. I never had 'S' and thusly have no opinion. Dolby 'B' & 'C' are the must haves.
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Dolby C never took off in a big way because tapes recorded with it often had playback problems from one deck to another. Also, it was not very compatible with tape decks with no Dolby processing, and it did not “downgrade” to Dolby B playback (if that was all that was available) as well as Dolby B stepped down to no Dolby.
Dolby S was a much-improved NR scheme that addressed all the problems with Dolby C, meaning playback without it or with only Dolby B was much more forgiving than Dolby C had been. Dolby S utilized to its fullest (i.e., employed on both recording and playback) was reportedly capable of producing near CD-quality S/N characteristics. Unfortunately, it was too late in the game to make any significant inroads, as CDs had pretty much sealed the cassette’s obsolesce by that time.
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The older B/C are just HF rolloffs, if it's not recorded with the inverse boost, you'll be wiping out a lot of highs along with the hiss, instead of just wiping out the hiss and restoring the highs to their original level.
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Absolutely. If the material wasn’t recorded with Dolby, you certainly don’t want to use it on playback.
Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
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