Need advice quick...112mkII or 112B

[Beck]

Now, Tim, are you saying that "your button" does not cut? Heh heh.
I never had a "button" that did not cut. (including numerous decks pulled straight out of the box... you know that brand-new gear smell

As I have said, pushing the Dolby button in on a poorly calibrated deck (of which there are many, even straight out of the box) can cut the high end too much. However, a properly calibrated deck doesn't cut the high end, but rather returns the overly bright highs to their normal state. If you play a Dolby encoded tape without Dolby, what you have is an exaggerated compressed high end (There are uses for that in production, but that’s another story).

Of course, the tape in question must be Dolby encoded in the first place. If you play a non-Dolby tape with the Dolby engaged it will kill the high end. I’m amazed by the number of people that still think Dolby is a single-ended filter for playback.

Bottom line… the majority of NR problems are due to user error.

My equipment is well calibrated; so using NR works like it should. The Dolby B/C on my TASCAM cassette is transparent. Same for my outboard Sony Dolby-C units I use with my half-track, and the DBX on my TSR-8 and 246.

That being said, there are people that don’t like using NR of any kind. Ok for 2” 16-track and even ½” 8-track depending on the dynamics of the music. But if you want your background hiss dead quite NR is the cure.

The home/project studio trend with 16 on ½” as the standard would not have been possible without NR… and multi-track cassette, forget about it.

 

[Dr ZEE]

I’m amazed by the number of people that still think Dolby is a single-ended filter for playback..

No it's not single ended system. It's lock-key system.
You can think about that system anything you wish, but all you have (as cassette player user - THAT IS!) - is the key.
You can adjust your key perfectly to Ray's personal lock and go to bed happy. Next morning, when you find out that you can't open any lock with Ray's logo on it - you'll just blame the lock makers. Or keep re-adjusting your key. Or get tired of it and just keep all the doors open....

Bottom line… the majority of NR problems are due to user error.

..but of course. where else have I heard this?

hmmmmmmmmmm????

 

[Tim Gillett]

Dr Zee's experience is many commercial Dolby B cassettes, played on a good, well aligned cassette deck, still sound terrible with the Dolby switched in. That's my experience too, and no doubt millions of others. So what's the explanation?

Beck's explanation, that the deck MUST need a tune up, is wrong. I'll say it again. Dolby is a both record and play coding. If it's wrong at ANY point, it'll sound bad.
That means the tape may never have been RECORDED properly in the first place. I mean recorded onto the cassette tape at the duplication plant.
With cassette recording especially, the level of say 10khz is sensitive to the condition of the record head, its cleanliness, the bias level and the rec eq boost, as well as whether the record head azimuth is true. The overall recorded level may be wrong. Get one of these factors wrong and Dolby cal will be wrong ON THE TAPE.
In our home recording, we have control over the RECORDING parameters. When it was a commercial tape, bought at the music store, we had no control. We had to trust that the factory made the dupe right. I think the only sensible conclusion is that too often, and for whatever reason, they got it wrong. What do others have to say on this?
Tim.

 

[Beck]

Beck's explanation, that the deck MUST need a tune up, is wrong. I'll say it again. Dolby is a both record and play coding. If it's wrong at ANY point, it'll sound bad.

No, Beck is right about this and I agree with him 100%.

Oh heavens, the implementation of Dolby in home and car stereos is historically so sloppy that most units needed calibration right out of the box, though hardly anyone ever understood or took that step. “Good and well aligned” cassette decks were the exception. For all but the better decks, such as Nakamichi and Denon, Dolby was a good idea, but for the most part unrealized.

Commercial tapes – that’s another story. Some tapes were produced better than others… that includes mechanical alignment, biasing, EQ and other variables, not just Dolby.

Yes of course, both sides of the equation affect the outcome. In my last post I thought I made it pretty clear that Dolby is an encode/decode process, and that there are many end-users that were/are unaware of this.

Cassette is a delicate format – slow speed, narrow tracks. When discussing NR on its own merits our hypothetical deck must be mechanically and electronically aligned, clean and demagnetized. If those things aren’t in order, properly calibrated NR alone won’t make up for it.

P.S. Is it February or is text messaging just inadequate in general?

~Tim

 

[Beck]

..but of course. where else have I heard this?

hmmmmmmmmmm????

Yeah, but that user error was buying Windows in the first place.

 

[Dr ZEE]

I'd say that issues of: a technological idea as a concept, understanding/misunderstanding of the technological idea, capability of the technological idea, practical implementation of the idea, implementation of the idea into commercial mass production and practicality of such implementation should not be all thrown into one soup cooking bucket, hopping that it will taste like a sensible universal conclusion.
Bon Appétit

 

[Dr ZEE]

... user error was buying Windows in the first place.

heh heh..
..do you mean - buying a computer?
*****
... arghhhhhhhhhhh. Mac? what's Mac?

 

[Beck]

I'd say that issues of: a technological idea as a concept, understanding/misunderstanding of the technological idea, capability of the technological idea, practical implementation of the idea, implementation of the idea into commercial mass production and practicality of such implementation should not be all thrown into one soup cooking bucket, hopping that it will taste like a sensible universal conclusion.
Bon Appétit

But, such is life... never like the brochure. The idea that you can casually, effortlessly master any technology is a marketing thang.

Plus, the cheap junk equation has always been with us... even before digital.

 

[Beck]

heh heh..
..do you mean - buying a computer?
*****
... arghhhhhhhhhhh. Mac? what's Mac?

Oh come on.........

 

[Dr ZEE]

But, such is life... never like the brochure. The idea that you can casually, effortlessly master any technology is a marketing thang.

Plus, the cheap junk equation has always been with us... even before digital.

Yes.
And so life is like: millions of bad locks, millions of bad keys, millions of users clueless about which end of the key to stick into the lock hole ....and ..... and ONE lucky Ray

 

[Dr ZEE]

Oh come on.........

heh heh heh .. good one

 

[Beck]

Yes.
And so life is like: millions of bad locks, millions of bad keys, millions of users clueless about which end of the key to stick into the lock hole ....and ..... and ONE lucky Ray

Millions of people that didn't know to say no to the Goldstar combination cassette/8-track/turntable/AM/FM/shortwave/Hair cutting system with Dolby at Grants discount store.

 

[Beck]

I'm getting hungry... hang on, 'be right back.

 

[Tim Gillett]

Beck,
I was talking about cassettes that wont decode even on a perfectly aligned and high quality deck. Sloppy standards re home and car players is another issue.
Commercial tapes is what Dr Zee and then I were talking about. Remember his Sade tape?
"Mechanical alignment, bias, eq etc" affected the Dolby record calibration!!! That's my point. It depended on flat frequency curves and correct level standards, more so than without Dolby.
I agree that a well recorded Dolby tape will not play back correctly unless the play deck is also aligned.
So equally, a badly recorded dolby tape will not play correctly even on a perfectly aligned player!
The question then becomes, what was the normal cause of commercial Dolby cassettes not playing well. I guess that would be a study in itself.
But I have a number of commercially produced and very little used Dolby cassettes. Maybe one in four will track correctly. Many of them of them have poor highs, even with no dolby decode. They should sound brighter than good non dolbised tapes.
I can only guess that Dolby B encoding became a cheap way for shoddy record companies to boost the highs in their high speed duplicators rather than go to the expense of proper machine parts replacement and alignment which cost downtime and money.
Yes cassettes were a difficult medium. I should know. I was involved in high speed cassette duplication for 20 years.
Over to you.
Tim

 

[Beck]

So equally, a badly recorded dolby tape will not play correctly even on a perfectly aligned player!
Tim

Yes, exactly... no argument from me there.

There were problems on both ends to be sure. However, it’s been my experience that when dividing the problem pie, the biggest piece would be shoddy workmanship in aligning inexpensive consumer decks for the masses.

But to begin with, this being a home recording forum, I wasn’t initially thinking specifically of commercial tapes. In the end, I’m sure many were at least as bad as many commercial CDs are now, quality wise.

High speed dubbing... eek! An unfortunate but necessary evil from a time and cost perspective. In a perfect world there would have been an audiophile section in every record store where you could buy tapes recorded at real speed on properly aligned machines using high bias tape… for more money of course.

 

[Tim Gillett]

Beck,
Sure. I guess Dolbyised, music cassettes as a consumer format was a good idea in theory but the logistics of getting it consistently right for true Dolby decoding at the user end were horrendous.
Tim