How Many People Are Using Cassettes Here?

[ecc83]

Ok sorry Dave, I get what you say and sorry if I have upset you in any way. Its a pointless discussion, I am not trying to make a point, you know more than me on the technical aspect I am a simple musician and prefer analogue to my ear. You are right what you say
Cheers ??

You have not upset me 'personally' just that I get hissed off with false concepts whyen audio matters are bandied about as fact. The 'staircase' chopped waveform idea of digital signals is a gross simplification and simply not true. I am an old electronics tech who will spend his remaining years battling against the frivolous claims in forums and especially the snake oil Russ Andrews charlatans.

And MOST of the time friend what you hear from TV, radio and vinyl is digital anyway! BBC microwave links distributing FM programme ran at I think 14.5 bits. Nobody EVER complained over decades! NICAM TV sound was both very robust AND very nice to listen to.

Dave.

 

[Smithers XKR]

You are quite wrong. I am not a 'digital expert' but I have read several times by such experts that a digital system DOES reconstruct PERFECTLY the signal, sine if you like up to just below the Nyquist frequency, i.e. 20kHz for a 44.1kHz sample rate.
If you don't believe me, go ask the question at soundonsound.com and the ex BBC engineers will soon put you right!

Dave.

I am sure that 20HZ would loosen you bowels and free your constipation issues ?

Sorry you meant 20kHZ apologies.

I dont wish to get into an argument or discussion Dave, you have made a good tech point and proved me wrong. Totally accepted. It is a matter of the ear, I like analogue

So let us move on please and have a laugh mate

Thanks ???

 

[Smithers XKR]

You have not upset me 'personally' just that I get hissed off with false concepts whyen audio matters are bandied about as fact. The 'staircase' chopped waveform idea of digital signals is a gross simplification and simply not true. I am an old electronics tech who will spend his remaining years battling against the frivolous claims in forums and especially the snake oil Russ Andrews charlatans.

And MOST of the time friend what you hear from TV, radio and vinyl is digital anyway! BBC microwave links distributing FM programme ran at I think 14.5 bits. Nobody EVER complained over decades! NICAM TV sound was both very robust AND very nice to listen to.

Dave.

I am not stupid Dave, I am a musician aged 57 with 40 years experience and spent 2 years at technical music college in the early 90's so I do have some idea. I am not saying you are wrong, I just give my own opinion and I do know about digital theory, I studied Micro electronics at college, it is just my opinion, please let us not fall out please ????

 

[ecc83]

I am not stupid Dave, I am a musician aged 57 with 40 years experience and spent 2 years at technical music college in the early 90's so I do have some idea. I am not saying you are wrong, I just give my own opinion and I do know about digital theory, I studied Micro electronics at college, it is just my opinion, please let us not fall out please ????

I did not say you were stupid (tho' you claimed to be so earlier!) just wrong about digital waveform reconstruction.

I have no intention of "falling out" with you. You are completely entitled to your opinions and sound preferences it is just not right IMO to promote inaccurate information in a well regarded forum such a HR.

I am old enough to remember similar discussions about Dolby processing. Many old diehards claimed it altered the sound. It did not. In a properly setup A/B test nobody could tell the difference better than chance.

Dave.

 

[Smithers XKR]

You have not upset me 'personally' just that I get hissed off with false concepts whyen audio matters are bandied about as fact. The 'staircase' chopped waveform idea of digital signals is a gross simplification and simply not true. I am an old electronics tech who will spend his remaining years battling against the frivolous claims in forums and especially the snake oil Russ Andrews charlatans.

And MOST of the time friend what you hear from TV, radio and vinyl is digital anyway! BBC microwave links distributing FM programme ran at I think 14.5 bits. Nobody EVER complained over decades! NICAM TV sound was both very robust AND very nice to listen to.

Dave.

I am not one of the retro people who think analogue is better than digital. I agree it can be a fashion issue. But what I would say is that all formats are valid and can live alongside one another.
I will give an example..
My music room..
Two turntables for vinyl
Twin deck analogue tape machine
A CD player
8 track analogue recorder
2 ADAT machines
DCC Digitalt tape deck
Atari ST vintage computer running old Cubase 3
Loads of hard outboard kbd modules and effects on my racks
DAW on my PC
So you see I try to use all media
End of Dave

 

[Smithers XKR]

I did not say you were stupid (tho' you claimed to be so earlier!) just wrong about digital waveform reconstruction.

I have no intention of "falling out" with you. You are completely entitled to your opinions and sound preferences it is just not right IMO to promote inaccurate information in a well regarded forum such a HR.

I am old enough to remember similar discussions about Dolby processing. Many old diehards claimed it altered the sound. It did not. In a properly setup A/B test nobody could tell the difference better than chance.

Dave.

You did not get the joke ?

 

[Smithers XKR]

I did not say you were stupid (tho' you claimed to be so earlier!) just wrong about digital waveform reconstruction.

I have no intention of "falling out" with you. You are completely entitled to your opinions and sound preferences it is just not right IMO to promote inaccurate information in a well regarded forum such a HR.

I am old enough to remember similar discussions about Dolby processing. Many old diehards claimed it altered the sound. It did not. In a properly setup A/B test nobody could tell the difference better than chance.

Dave.

Lighten up

 

[Smithers XKR]

I did not say you were stupid (tho' you claimed to be so earlier!) just wrong about digital waveform reconstruction.

I have no intention of "falling out" with you. You are completely entitled to your opinions and sound preferences it is just not right IMO to promote inaccurate information in a well regarded forum such a HR.

I am old enough to remember similar discussions about Dolby processing. Many old diehards claimed it altered the sound. It did not. In a properly setup A/B test nobody could tell the difference better than chance.

Dave.

I am not trying to promote inacurate information. I learned the basics of digital theory from a guy lecturer at college who worked for Zilog in the 70s

 

[Smithers XKR]

I did not say you were stupid (tho' you claimed to be so earlier!) just wrong about digital waveform reconstruction.

I have no intention of "falling out" with you. You are completely entitled to your opinions and sound preferences it is just not right IMO to promote inaccurate information in a well regarded forum such a HR.

I am old enough to remember similar discussions about Dolby processing. Many old diehards claimed it altered the sound. It did not. In a properly setup A/B test nobody could tell the difference better than chance.

Dave.

So you obviously know more than the whole of the Dolby Labatory engineers put together. Good grief, I give up

 

[Smithers XKR]

I did not say you were stupid (tho' you claimed to be so earlier!) just wrong about digital waveform reconstruction.

I have no intention of "falling out" with you. You are completely entitled to your opinions and sound preferences it is just not right IMO to promote inaccurate information in a well regarded forum such a HR.

I am old enough to remember similar discussions about Dolby processing. Many old diehards claimed it altered the sound. It did not. In a properly setup A/B test nobody could tell the difference better

But your very name ECC83 is a preamp valve. So is that not a contradiction of the digital theory you are promoting?
Its a very interesting discussion Dave and one that I like.
I would say though, maybe I am wrong. You used the example of the video using a scope to prove digital theory.
That really does not make sense in any way. You are trying to use an oscilliscope which uses analogue voltage modulation.
So basically what you say is you have to use an analogue machine to prove digital theory and join the little gaps up ? Sorry, but I stick with my original point, you can not rewrite the laws of mathematics and calculus, you can not turn a straight line into a curve, you can get closer and closer by the calculus and differentiation theory but it is all in the infinite limit of mathematical theory.
?

 

[Smithers XKR]

I did not say you were stupid (tho' you claimed to be so earlier!) just wrong about digital waveform reconstruction.

I have no intention of "falling out" with you. You are completely entitled to your opinions and sound preferences it is just not right IMO to promote inaccurate information in a well regarded forum such a HR.

I am old enough to remember similar discussions about Dolby processing. Many old diehards claimed it altered the sound. It did not. In a properly setup A/B test nobody could tell the difference better than chance.

Dave.

I did not say you were stupid (tho' you claimed to be so earlier!) just wrong about digital waveform reconstruction.

I have no intention of "falling out" with you. You are completely entitled to your opinions and sound preferences it is just not right IMO to promote inaccurate information in a well regarded forum such a HR.

I am old enough to remember similar discussions about Dolby processing. Many old diehards claimed it altered the sound. It did not. In a properly setup A/B test nobody could tell the difference better than chance.

Dave.

I apologise, I hope we can agree to not have more discussions Dave, you are an intelligent man and I understand what you say but I just cant agree. Thanks ?

 

[Pinky]

I am sure he will appreciate your message ??

No.

[see, I think that's hilarious especially in the context of the thread ]

There's no problems on this end, I wasn't the one butt hurt. But I'm glad the powers that be have come to their senses and granted me another chance to be... me. Narf(?)

 

[Pinky]

The snake oil level issues that get batted around on music production and audiophile forums are often ripe with half-truisms, so when a random thread gets started pronouncing the merits of a (mostly) long dead and universally accepted as flawed format things are bound to get dicey. No matter how many tape decks are rehab'd and tests run on them, the course of history is not going to be reversed or the tales of woe rewritten. There are forums on the internet that are walled off from objective and engaging discourse, that might be more welcoming of the revisionist and echo chamber level exchanges that seem e̵x̵p̵e̵c̵t̵e̵d̵ required. This forum is not one of those internet safe spaces. Expect controversial ideas in the music recording space to be challenged.

 

[Pinky]

I have an audio repair shop that specializes in magnetic tape media and cassette deck restorations. Have had the business since 2009 having done over 240 cassette deck restorations. I enjoy the sound of a good working tape deck.

Just want to be clear -- this was post 4 in the discussion. The course was set early on. Buckle up buckaroos.

The only reason I find value in what you do is the need for people (like me) with old tape recordings that need some means of extracting that information and saving it digitally. It's a means to an end. Full stop.

 

[clamsterdamm]

I’m good over here

 

[clamsterdamm]

Your opinion is that it’s a means to an end. Maybe for the single customer who Wants to extract information. But to me as the owner/operator I have many customers, often times returning with another deck for restoration. Others are a one time deal. The emails are too much to keep track of

People still listen to music on cassette

I certainly do

 

[Slouching Raymond]

Yes ADAT was using SVHS, I have them. ADAT is digital format. I think the OP was referring to analogue ??

Yes I was Smithers. Even thought of cobbling a vhs multitrack together myself, possibly using multiple stereo heeads.

 

[ecc83]

"That really does not make sense in any way. You are trying to use an oscilliscope which uses analogue voltage modulation." Now you are inventing things I never wrote.

The harmonic distortion of a decent A/D, D/A setup can easily be better than 0.002%. That low figure could not be achieved if the waveform was 'choppy'. THD is also way below anything that can be had from tape or vinyl, very few power amplifiers are that good, especially past 5kHz or so and no loudspeaker gets close.

I do not rubbish tape systems. I have a Teac A3440 and my son made very satisfactory guitar recordings with it some 20 years ago. I have two cassette decks. The Sony mentioned (will check that mod #!) and a Denon. Both are capable of recording a CD that is very hard to tell from the original.

I do not see that my choice of forum name has any bearing on this matter whatsoever? I chose (if you REALLY have to know) because I was, tor the last few years of my working life, with a local guitar amplifier manufacturer. In another place I am known as ef37a which some here might be old enough to know about.

Dave.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

my point is that digital can never recreate analogue waveform by its mathematical calculus nature. No matter how high the digital resolution it can never recreate a perfect sine wave, we respectful agreed to disagree

I don't know who is on which side, but I say that it can recreate a perfect sine wave. The first requirement is sufficient oversampling. The next requirement is appropriate filtering after the output D/A.

 

[ecc83]

I don't know who is on which side, but I say that it can recreate a perfect sine wave. The first requirement is sufficient oversampling. The next requirement is appropriate filtering after the output D/A.

And 'dither'.

Let us not have "sides" Ray. I only commented originally to correct a concept that has been stated as 'fact' (to denigrate digital systems) many times on forums.
You could argue that tape recording is a 'sampled' process? Sampled by the bias waveform. The IF wave of an FM signal is not remotely 'analogue' in the same way that AM is but nobody has ever said the result was made of 'bits' of chopped up 10.7MHz!

Vinyl might be said to be sampled by the inescapable surface noise (way..WAY worse than even 16 bit digital). But, I enjoyed me Beatles in the day and GOOD pressings of Bach.

Dave.