OK, just saw you edited "4 track cassette vs reel to reel". The quick answer is that, generally speaking, BOTH will only differ in fidelity, resolution and S/N ratio, depending on the quality of the recorders with speed used, track width, noise reduction (if any), electronics etc ... Otherwise they all will be the exact same recording. To further illustrate, grab your LP or CD or DVD, with a clip of music, dub it to your low end cassette deck and observe that while the "essence" of the recording is there all the way through, the sound resolution, fidelity, frequency response and other factors mentioned here suffer. You will notice that that all frequencies have become duller and the recording will strike the listenner less so and its impact will be on a lesser scale. The resolution will be down while hiss will be up with perhaps more overload on the electronics. With higher end cassette recorders, especially ones with dbx, you may get a cleaner, no distortion signal but with the comperative slow speed and norrow track width, your resolution suffers. The higher end reel to reels, on the other hand, can sound "bigger than life" and cassette recorders can't really compete no matter what quality of tape is used. If you want specifics, a TASCAM 244/246/234, while being arguably the best sounding 4 track cassette recorder with impressive dynamic range and no hiss which can capture near CD quality detail (IMHO about 75%) can never duplicate the sound recorded on a TEAC 3440 or TASCAM 34 reel to reel. In fact those latter recorders can capture more resolution than the CD.
~Daniel
