From the Mouths of Babes

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Beck

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My wife, that is. :D

So, today I fired up the old TASCAM 246 to make practice tapes for our church choir, which my wife is directing. I started by recording stereo CD accompaniment to tracks 1 & 2. After that step we listened back to see if she thought the levels were right before proceeding.

During listening she stopped and said, “I have a question. Why does the music sound better on the cassette you just made than it does on the CD?” :)

A little background… she has a Bachelors and Masters in music, majored in vocal performance, but has no technical knowledge of recording and no real interest or understanding of the analog vs. digital issue.

She’s an accomplished coloratura soprano that also plays piano, teaches voice and piano, toured the USA and parts of Europe with an award winning collegiate choir in the 80's... eh, I’ll skip the full resume. :p Our backgrounds are quite different, so I really value her musical opinion.

I thought you guys would get a kick out of her innocent comments and that she preferred the sound of cassette @ 3-3/4 ips w/dbx type II to the original commercial CD. By the way, the tape I used was Maxell XLII 60 minute. ;)
 
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I think that her comment stands alone to point out that there is something going on worth looking into.

On one hand one could say that the cassette acted as a low pass filter and thus removed any number of the artifacts of digital in the high freq ranges.

Then again one could say that the cassette added its own coloration that she found more pleasing.

And then again we could talk about the mystical analog warmth correcting a bad digital mix.

And if we were on a different contenent and thus at a safe distance we could say that it was too bad that the exacting truth and reality of digital was wasted on her untrained ears.

And yet again....Bigger fleas have lesser fleas upon thier backs to bite them. And lesser fleas have lesser fleas and so on infinitium.
 
Oh yeah, and my answer for her was brilliant. I said, "I don't know." :) I also told her she had a good ear (well, two of them) and that many people share her perception.

But her being a sensitive female (and an artist), you know, I had to frame the compliment so as not to appear that I was saying, "Anyone can hear it." So the general message was that she had a musical ear, was not alone, but was still unique. :D

I didn't want to find myself in the doghouse and have to deal with those pests you mentioned. :)
 

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I listen to demos made on my Teac 3340 almost 20 years ago,and there is a warmth and "invite-ability" that my digital recorders don't have.
Of course,I'm not using any tube outboard gear.
 
I think that the sound image is a lot better on analog, be it cassette or open reel, than on any digital format. Forget frequency response and such ... IMHO, sheet specs don't mean anything nor do they tell the whole story.
 
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I have a story that will fit nicely with this thread.

Back in the early 80's I had a really nice vinyl record collection, mostly rock. I bought a lot of imports and half-speed masters and virgin vinyl and specialty disks like that. I sought out high-fidelity. They were expensive, too, usually $20 to $30 bucks.

I had a real nice turntable, and a hot cassette recorder, a Nakamichi, I think. So I'd buy the records, take 'em out, clean 'em and record them nice and hot on to Maxell or TDK chrome tape. Then, I'd put the record away to keep it pristine, and listen to my high-quality copy.

Well, about a year ago, I found a cassette in my car (I don't have a clue how it got there), that I had made in 1985. It had two Fleetwood Mac LPs on it. Side A was the 1975 "White Album" and side B was "Rhiannon" from '76.

So I popped it in to my car cassette player. What I heard astonished my ears within nano-seconds. It sounded in-freakin-credible! Better than the CDs I usually play in my car. Punchy! Big! Wide! Way better!

I realized that, for the first time in decades, I was listening to an all-analog signal-path: analog multitrack, mixed to analog two-track, cut to vinyl, recorded (by a much younger, thinner Drewcifer) to cassette, and now played back off that cassette.

My ears were starved for analog!!!

In general, I find that I prefer a good cassette copy of a CD than the CD itself. :)
 
Drewcifer666,
I can relate. As a student in the mid 70's I was financially challenged and also from a low SES area. So all my mates would share recordings. Someone would buy the LP and then we'd all bring our TDK chromies & record it on a pretty good unit. That way we all shared the music, cost etc. That was normal - most of us bought the LPs when we finally cashed up with a job etc. One instance was the incredible 1st LP by Radio Birdman. Hot recordings were made (we knew our tape tech) & eventually I bought the LP. I still have both & haven't yet played the LP - still in shrink wrap from '79. The tape was excellent & the value of the unplayed LP inestimable. I did buy the CD - non remastered & remastered but neither match the tape for sound enjoyment. I heard the LP, a friend's, recently & it does sound better than the tape naturally but an A B with the tape, interestingly in the same model tape machine it'd been made with nicely maintained & loved, showed the differences were both interesting & very pleasing to the ear despite being blistering hard rock.
On another EAR related direction I made a 4 track cassette recording of piano for a friend who is a superb player, teacher etc - works at the Con. & so forth. She loved the recording, actually suggested I'd added magic wuffle dust or something, but it was just the player, the piano, the room, the mics, the tape machine & the tape. To me it was normal. What the ear is used to makes a huge difference.
Oh, I love the spin you applied to your response to the Mrs Beck. It is yet another amazing story of discovery.
 
evm1024 said:
On one hand one could say that the cassette acted as a low pass filter and thus removed any number of the artifacts of digital in the high freq ranges.

QUOTE]

Or as a high pass filter, right? Interesting thread. Putting aside tape effect/compression, what are some of the EQ characteristics of tape vis vis digital/CD? Just curious.
Click to expand...
 
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