MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
Yes but that was at 3% total harmonic distortion!
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Otari MX-5050 Review (Reel to Reel Tape Deck)
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
I’m sorry but my iPad is not showing those smileys. its not your fault but not mine either. I apologise nevertheless.
respice finem
Major Contributor
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Accepted, and thanks for correction reg. dbx.
Now we both can sue Apple xD.
Now we both can sue Apple xD.
That’s why I said maybe someone can calculate the SINAD so that we can compare to the measurements of this Onkyo.
Smiley
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
The actual record/playback noise level re reference level is going to be roughly minus 60 dB unweighted. The typical distortion is 0.6%. perhaps SINAD can be calculated from that.
I know it can. I’m on mobile device and can’t calculate. That’s why I asked for help.
Nice looking deck. My last reel to reel was a Tascam 80-8 with DBX.
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
They were Sony TC-800B. Apparently they ran at a very slow speed to increase running time, further reducing the quality. <https://infogalactic.com/info/Nixon_White_House_tapes>
We may actually need some of that "quantum time travel backmaster" to hear many masters that have been lost before they could be backed up. Enjoy this article from NYT 2019:Haha brings some ScFi thinkig in me up.
It was thought to be inpossible to bring the original sound of the beatles mastertapes up again. Endless remastering destroyed them. But with our new concept of quantum time travell backmaster plugin, we give you the original sound of the original 24 track tapes. Master how you like, or go deeper let play Paul a stratocaster. We make it possible.
The Day the Music Burned (Published 2019)
It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business — and almost nobody knew. This is the story of the 2008 Universal fire.
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
Fireproof vaults? Who needs fireproof vaults?????We may actually need some of that "quantum time travel backmaster" to hear many masters that have been lost before they could be backed up. Enjoy this article from NYT 2019:
The Day the Music Burned (Published 2019)
It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business — and almost nobody knew. This is the story of the 2008 Universal fire.www.nytimes.com
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
dbx (not dBX), achieved 92dB S/N, a 30dB reduction in noise and a dynamic range of 110dB on cassette decks in the early 1980s.
It was well known, plastered all over quality cassette decks at the time and competed directly with Dolby C. Many cassette decks had Dolby B/C and dbx fitted. Plenty of dbx encoded LPs were produced and the cassette decks often had a "disc" button which enabled you to play your records with dbx decoding in real time.
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
Yeah, it looks like the machine which was used to erase the tape with the 18 minute gap was a UHER.
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
I used a Sony Beta Hi-Fi VCR to record from the radio for a while. Cassettes on a Denon DR-M44HX sounded good enough but the time limit per side was a pain, plus the VCR could easily be set to record automatically on the timer. I just had to remember to leave the FM tuner on, and on the right station.
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
I used mostly Maxell, particularly the XLII and XLIIS. The Sony ones were also good. I tried metal but didn't think it worth the extra cost.
Can you share some sources to those figures? I’m intrigued as even amplifiers then had less S/N ratio than 100dB.
When I was at Abbey Road during 70s we heard about Decca using Dolby with good effect. We were sceptical though. We had tried dbx earlier and was not impressed. Dolby brought two A301s (type A) for us to test.
We then measured the Dolby A on a Studer A80 with EMI tape. We measured 83dB S/N ratio at reference level. We had measured dbx earlier. At 86dB it was quieter.
As a test we chained two device groups without a recorder in between. We couldn’t hear the Dolby unit working but the effect of dbx was easy to hear. We standardised the machine room on Dolby units.
We, above were the engineers and some of the managers of the studio.
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
I made this thread a while back:
Show us your vintage cassettes!
There's few things apart from fishing lures, fragrance bottles and anodized LEDs torches that just press my buttons like the wonderful packaging of cassettes (particularly TDK) back in the 1980s. Not only were their tapes phenomenally good, they just looked awesome. Here's just a tiny selection...
www.audiosciencereview.com
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
Depends on the bit-rate. CD/AIFF/WAV uses 10 MB/min, FLAC/ALAC about 6, and AAC/MP3 1 MB at 128k or 2 MB at 256k. Of course you can use (waste) a lot more space by using hi-res.
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
Were the machines using 200 mil wide tracks or the American 70 mil?
Ralf Stocker
Active Member
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Here you can see how analog tapes are cut professionally in a radio station on a Telefunken studio machine.
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