Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

    Denon came out with a new tape several months ago.  Its 100 minutes.
    I have been using it for all my CD-->tape copying.  I have a Denon
    cassette recorder, and using Dolby C and HX-PRO, I can make tapes
    almost indistinquishable from the CD.  Of course, the tapes I make
    are usually for the car, and such faithfuless of the music fidelity
    is overkill on my stock Delco stereo system :(  Also, you are not
    likely to find this particular Denon tape discounted.  Expect to
    pay close to retail.
    
    Ken P.

    
    
    It drives me nuts to read notes like this -')  I'm one of those
    who can't just put on a record or disc and walk away while it's
    recording. If I'm listening to "custom" made tapes, they should
    sound like that. I pause just after the song fade (or cold end),
    que up the next track and recover anywhere from 1-2 1/2 minutes
    removing the "dead-air" between songs. I also make attempts at either
    keeping different length tracks of other artists handy, that'll
    fit into a wide array of "left-over" tape lengths. Sometimes, I'll
    even keep an instrumental handy, to fade at the end of side 1 or
    2.
    
    Why bother to buy the disc, if timing to tape is a concern...just
    get the doggone tape !! 
    
    				The Cruiser
    
    (I think I'm only grouchy cause it's Friday night) -')
    
    

    
    I have a *good* tape walkman with Dolby C that I regularly use at work,
    with Denon 100 min tapes mostly, changing my selection as and when I
    want, sometimes mixing and matching tracks for my enjoyment, sometimes
    just recording whole CD's.
    
    One reason for not taking CD's to work or in the car is simply the cost
    if they are stolen. At least the tapes can be replaced at low cost - as
    some of my CD's are collectors items, I don't want them anywhere but at
    home thanks, whilst still allowing me to enjoy their recordings
    elsewhere. 
              
    Good tape is the nearest you can get to good CD's.
    
    Andy

    I believe that Denon also has a 75 minute tape - good for taping
    a really long CD, assuming it has a good breaking point somewhere
    in the middle.  I've got one of the 100-minute tapes but haven't
    tried it out yet.

    
    	More tape maufacturers recognize that now they have a potentially
    	new market to address in the home-user who wants to tape his
    	CD's for personal use (No need to mention the DAT fiasco as
    	this will take about another 6 - 9 months to straighten out)
    	with his "walkman" or Automobile Cassette player.  More of them
    	are following Denon's lead into the 100+ minute tape lengths.
    	There is still some holdback though because they don't know
    	if the market will grow only to shrink when DAT comes out.
    	I think it unlikly since more folks can afford $100 - $400
    	cassette decks than $1000 - $2000 DAT decks.  They are coming
    	but very slowly and also more expensively in the next couple
    	of months.  Summer time in the US is always an introduction
    	period for "personal-anything-type-gear", including tape.

Re: .2, why not just buy the tape?

Grouchy cos it's Friday or not, that sentiment is ill-considered.  
Commercial tapes are rarely as well transferred as CDs.  I go for taping 
stuff myself for a variety of reasons, such as:

o	The tape maker isn't going to invest top-quality tape into the
	product and then sell it at almost the same price as a good
	blank tape.  Using lower-grade tape may mean that the tape isn't
	even chrome, let alone metal.  If I tape my own, I can choose
	the grade of tape and suit it to the intended use. 

o	Not all commercial tapes are recorded using Dolby noise 
	reduction.  That's Dolby B, gang, not Dolby C.  Although I'm
	not prepared to state that nobody records using Dolby C, I've
	never seen a prerecorded C tape, and I don't expect to because
	of the vast numbers of B tape decks and walkpersons out there.
	C doesn't make good business sense.  If I tape my own, I can
	tape with Dolby C or not, as I choose.

o	The use of nonmetal tape means that as much as 15 dB of dynamic
	range is lost, with about a 2 KHz frequency-range loss as well.  
	If I tape my own, I can apply equalization and dynamic range
	modification to tailor the sound to what I think it should be.
	I can also, if I have some *perverted* reason to do so, use dbx
	instead of Dolby, to recover or insert an additional 30 dB,
	giving me the full dynamic range from a whisper to a jet engine
	six feet away. 

o	Especially with analog masters, manufacturers rarely do anything
	to recover the innate quality of the sound that is lost by the 
	taping process.  If I tape my own, I can apply impact recovery, 
	single-ended noise reduction (hiss elimination), and other
	modifications; by this process, I can make a tape of a
	20-year-old recording that will sound fresh and almost digital
	in quality. 

o	Commercial manufacturers decide the programming on their tapes.
	If I tape my own, I can select only the tracks I want to hear, 
	in the order I prefer.

o	Commercial tapes are rarely, if ever, 90 minutes long.  I have a
	commercial tape of Mahler's second symphony.  Or rather I have a
	two-tape set of it.  I could have put the whole thing on a 
	single C-90 comfortably.

o	If I buy a commercial tape and use it until it wears out, I have
	nothing.  If I tape a CD and use the tape, when it wears out I 
	can still go back and make another tape.  When recordings have
	been withdrawn from the catalog, this ability becomes priceless.

o	I'm not ready to cart CDs between home and work.  Hell, I'd have
	to cart half my collection every day because I'm never sure what 
	I want to listen to until I decide I want to listen to it.  I 
	have about 80 cassettes at work.

- Dick

    Interesting discussion on tape lengths, but I'd like to divert a
    bit.....
    
    When recording a cd to cassette tape, should you record with the
    dolby on, or off.  For instance, how would you tape a DDD cd?  Would
    using Dolby C with a DDD cd improve the recording quality?  Any
    advantages or disadvantages in this?
    
    On the other hand, I've recorded an AAD cd with lots of hiss using
    Dolby C, and the tape sounds better than the cd.
    
    Thanks,
    John

    re: .6
    
    Right on the money!
    
    re: .7
    
    Dolby noise reduction is not meant to remove noise from the audio
    source, instead it is supposed to remove tape hiss upon playback,
    that was introduced while recording the tape. As a result anything
    can benifit from the used of Dolby.
    
    Since tapes have less dynamic range than CD's, a tape made with
    Dolby could have less hiss than a CD of an old recording, since
    the tape attenuates much of the high and low end of the audio
    signal the hiss would be less noticeable.  However, you are also
    losing some of the source's signal as well.
    
    Martin H.

Re: .7, .8

Let me provide a slightly more complete discussion of Dolby - I know
this ought to go into the Audio Notesfile, and there's probably one
already there, but the query was put to us here, and the answer belongs
here. 

All tapes hiss, with ordinary oxide tape (Type I) the worst and metal 
tape (Type IV) the best.  The objective of Dolby, whether B or C, is to 
reduce this inherent hiss.  In very general terms, Dolby works like 
this:

o   On recording, everything in the incoming signal that is above a
    certain frequency is boosted.  This has the effect of raising the
    recorded level of these higher-frequency sounds above the level of
    the unavoidable hiss, because the hiss is inherent to the recording
    process and wasn't boosted to start with.

o   On playback the higher frequencies are attenuated by the same amount 
    that they were boosted on recording.  This restores the desired 
    signal to its original level, and also reduces the hiss greatly.

Dolby B boosts everything by a fixed amount.  Dolby C uses a more
complex boost curve to compensate for the fact that hiss is most
prevalent in a certain range of frequencies around 6 KHz.  This 
difference allows Dolby C to cut the hiss better with less loss of 
signal quality.

The subject head of .8, "DBX is the best!" introduces yet another kind 
of noise reduction, the dbx system.  dbx does much the same as Dolby, 
but with the added function of a 2-to-1 dynamic range compression as the 
recording is made.  The dynamic range is re-expanded on playback.  The 
system works well, especially for capturing great dynamic range when 
recording live music, but there are a couple of reasons why it's not as 
good as Dolby:

1.  dbx tapes cannot be played back anywhere except on a system with a 
    dbx decoder.  Dolby tapes can be played anywhere, with a greater or
    lesser degree of success, simply by twiddling the treble tone
    control (or equalizer controls) downward a little.  This is an over-
    simplification, but it is usually tolerable with a walkperson or in
    a car.

2.  The dbx system's design turns out not to be perfect in terms of the
    recovery of high frequencies.  I have found about a 2 dB loss at 14 
    KHz when using dbx.  (I did this twice, using two different tape 
    decks, each time with playback on the system that recorded the tape).
    The loss causes instruments like violins, with lots of harmonics in
    their sound, to sound dull.  Dolby C does not experience this loss.

Any time you record onto a tape, you should make the recording using 
Dolby or dbx, as you prefer.

If your recorded tape sounds better than the original, what you are 
experiencing is a slight increase in the high frequencies, introduced by 
the little bit of hiss that is still in the signal.  This increase of 
highs sounds "brighter" to the ear.

Now back to the topic at hand, i.e., CDs!

- Dick

    "walkperson" !!???? :-)

    The only time I would record a tape without using the noise reduction
    system of your choice (in my case, Dolby C) is when dubbing a tape
    that has already been recorded using the same noise reduction system.
    In that case you'd be adding two extra processing steps (decoding
    the source and encoding the dub) needlessly.  In that case, turn
    off all noise reduction on both the playback and recording deck.
    
    I make all my recordings on Dolby C.  If you dub them yourself
    the physical size of your cassette collection goes down by almost
    a factor of 2, since you can usually fit 2 albums on a single
    cassette which prerecorded tapes almost never do.

re Note 1177.11 by BAVIKI::GOOD:

>     In that case you'd be adding two extra processing steps (decoding
>     the source and encoding the dub) needlessly.  In that case, turn
>     off all noise reduction on both the playback and recording deck.
  
I had heard that this doesn't work correctly unless you get the levels exactly
right.  But I had also heard that Dolby uses a form of compression on the
frequency ranges it processes.  Otherwise, Dolby as described is just a fancy
equalization curve, right?

Bob

re Note 1177.6 by SMURF::BINDER:

> o	Especially with analog masters, manufacturers rarely do anything
> 	to recover the innate quality of the sound that is lost by the 
> 	taping process.  If I tape my own, I can apply impact recovery, 
> 	single-ended noise reduction (hiss elimination), and other
> 	modifications; by this process, I can make a tape of a
> 	20-year-old recording that will sound fresh and almost digital
> 	in quality. 

How do you do this -- with what equipment?

Bob

Re: .13

> re Note 1177.6 by SMURF::BINDER:

>> o	Especially with analog masters, manufacturers rarely do anything
>> 	to recover the innate quality of the sound that is lost by the 
>> 	taping process.  If I tape my own, I can apply impact recovery, 
>> 	single-ended noise reduction (hiss elimination), and other
>> 	modifications; by this process, I can make a tape of a
>> 	20-year-old recording that will sound fresh and almost digital
>> 	in quality. 

> How do you do this -- with what equipment?

I have the following equipment:

o	A dbx 1BX-DS dynamic range controller, which can do these 
	things:

	1.  Dynamic expansion or compression, variable up to 20 dB
	    compression or 12 dB expansion.
	2.  Impact recovery, variable up to 10 dB.
	3.  Variable ambience increase or decrease.

o	A DAK-1 (made but no longer *marketed* by dbx) single-ended
	noise reduction unit (hiss eliminator).  This unit is a fast
	variable-cutoff low-pass filter, and it works wonders with hissy
	stuff like old tapes.  (Unless there isn't any high-frequency
	*signal* left...)

o	An ADC EQ-3000 equalizer/spectrum analyzer.

Recording using all this signal processing equipment is ticklish 
business - you have to try it, and listen, and try it again.  And again.  
But the final result is worth the effort. 

- Dick

Re: .11, .12

>    ...the source and encoding the dub) needlessly.  In that case, turn
>    off all noise reduction on both the playback and recording deck.

The level problem mentioned in .12 notwithstanding, by duping direct
that way you are recording the original's hiss intact onto the copy, in
addition to the hiss generated in the copy.  This seems counterpro- 
ductive.  I vote for decoding and re-encoding; as I pointed out in .6, 
this also allows me to apply some signal processing to an essentially 
clear but perhaps less than perfect signal, to improve it just like the 
big boys do when they remaster old stuff for CDs.

- Dick

    re:.10
    
    �"walkperson" !!???? :-)�
    
    Yes, Andy, the term "walkperson" has been used in commercial
    advertisement for that particular type of equipment. Why? Because
    "Walkman" is actually a trademarked name of Sony's.
    
    --- jerry

    Anybody know of a good source for the Denon tapes?  What do they cost?
    
    I've been using TDK SA90's which seem to consistant;y run 46 minutes
    on each side.  That extra minute can make a difference!  I tried some
    SONY 90 minute tapes, but they only ran 45:00 to 45:30 long.
    
    -Dave

    I got the 100 minute tape at the Coop for about $6 for a single tape
    (without the case discount).  I haven't tried finding a lower price
    yet.

    Strawberries in Nashua had 'em for $4.95 when I bought some in Feb.

    I remember reading in various sources (including tape deck warranty
    requirements) that any tape over 90 minutes in length could be
    hazardous to your deck - and with some manufacturers, void the
    warranty.  Have the 100 minute tapes over come this problem or are they
    just not as bad as a 120 minute tape? 

    From what I've read, the idea was that 100 minutes was as long as you
    could go without running into the problems associated with 120 minute
    and longer tapes. When you read those sources, what you read was true -
    any tapes then available over 90 minutes in length had serious
    problems.  Until CD's came out and slightly longer albums became more
    popular, I guess there wasn't a big market for 100 minute vs. 90 minute
    tapes.  We'll see how big the market really is by seeing what other
    tape manufacturers jump in.

    Has anybody checked the time on their 100 minute tapes?
    
    I found the the two I bought to try out only lasted somewhere between
    49:30 and 49:45 on each side (Total time = 99:00 to 99:30).  This
    might not seem so bad, but when you program for 50 minutes, you
    expect to get 50 minutes worth of tape.
    
    I know it's not the speed of my deck, the TDK SA90's consistently
    last 46 minutes, and SONY ULX-II's (I think) lasted 45:00 to 45:30.
    
    -Dave

Re: .-1

>    Has anybody checked the time on their 100 minute tapes?
    
>    I found the the two I bought to try out only lasted somewhere between
>    49:30 and 49:45 on each side (Total time = 99:00 to 99:30)...

I've been using Denon HD8 C-100s like they're going out of style (no 
comments on grammar, this isn't Joyoflex).  I find that these tapes 
consistently run a solid 50:45 plus/minus a couple of seconds per side.  
I found this out the first time by trying to record a 51:30 CD and 
coming up (by my watch) 45 seconds short.  Since then, I've monitored 
them.

- Dick

    re: .23 This reflects my experience also.

    
>   I know it's not the speed of my deck, the TDK SA90's consistently
>   last 46 minutes, and SONY ULX-II's (I think) lasted 45:00 to 45:30.

    Well, I now have egg on my face for making such a bold assumption.
    Dick Binder (SMURF::BINDER) was kind enough to loan me one of his
    tapes that lasted over 50 minutes in his deck.  I took it home and
    it only lasted 49:40 in mine.  Time for service on an OLD deck.
    
    So, for those of you who may be worried that the Denon tapes are
    short, don't be.  They are indeed fine.
    
    -Dave

    re: a couple back
    
    Tweeter in chestnut hill mall had the denon 100's for 4.49 each,
    and he offered 39.95 for a case of 10.  I wasn't sure on the price,
    so I passed, but I might head back after seeing the 6 and 4.95
    prices here.
    
    Ken
    

    On prices for the Denon tapes:
    
    I bought a pack of two to try at Strawberries on sale for $6.49.
    I went back and they no longer have the sale.   So I went to
    Tweeter in the Pheasant Lane Mall (Nashua) and asked them if they
    would match Strawberries price if I bought 10.  They said okay.
    
    So I got 10 for $32.50.
    
    -Dave