If tape is so good why does it record so poorly?

Kingrex

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I went to a store wth a friend shopping reel to reel decks. As a demo of why tape is so great, the owner takes a crappy cd player and uses the disc as a source to the tape deck. He records onto the tape and then flips the source switch back and forth between the cd and what has been recorded and is playing back from the tape. The owner is so smitten with himself. Listen to the difference. Hear how full the tape is. How rich the music sounds compared to the cd. I did not want to call the owner to the matt, but I sure told my friend, thats messed up. My belief would be a tape copy should be indistinguishable from the cd. Not the tape is bloated with artificial distortions, eq bands boosted. In general it was as if a loudness switch was flipped.

If this is truely what happens every time you dub a tape, how many levels would you have to go before the whole of the recorded media were not a compounded pile of mush and totally inaccurate to what was originally captured. If that is what tape does, I can see why no studio would want to use it. Digital is much more pure to each dub. It appears as if tape adds large, very audible amounts of incorrect, innaccurate additiona, not in the source noise to every level of the copy chain.

Am I wrong??? This guy swore up and down his cd player was direct to the tape with no processing. 15ips with a fairly new quality tape. TechnicsRS-1520.StereoTapeDeck1978-85SpecificationsOwnerandServiceManualPDF.jpg
 
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ddk

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I went to a store wth a friend shopping reel to reel decks. As a demo of why tape is so great, the owner takes a crappy cd player and uses the disc as a source to the tape deck. He records onto the tape and then flips the source switch back and forth between the cd and what has been recorded and is playing back from the tape. The owner is so smitten with himself. Listen to the difference. Hear how full the tape is. How rich the music sounds compared to the cd. I did not want to call the owner to the matt, but I sure told my friend, thats messed up. My belief would be a tape copy should be indistinguishable from the cd. Not the tape is bloated with artificial distortions, eq bands boosted. In general it was as if a loudness switch was flipped.

If this is truely what happens every time you dub a tape, how many levels would you have to go before the whole of the recorded media were not a compounded pile of mush and totally inaccurate to what was originally captured. If that is what tape does, I can see why no studio would want to use it. Digital is much more pure to each dub. It appears as if tape adds large, very audible amounts of incorrect, innaccurate additiona, not in the source noise to every level of the copy chain.

Am I wrong??? This guy swore up and down his cd player was direct to the tape with no processing. 15ips with a fairly new quality tape.
As far as I can recall analog tape recordings from other prerecorded media was never one to one, that was never the purpose. You should also remember that no matter how good the quality of the tape recording, you’re playing it back through the tape machine’s output amplification which has its own very different character from the CD player’s.
david

PS- We don't know which tape machine was used nor it's condition to make a blanket statement about R2R.
 
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Mike Lavigne

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beware of anecdotal experiences. not all dubbing processes and tape decks are created equal. so many variables.

note you are adding the tape deck output to the signature of the CD Player. you are assuming this particular tape deck is capable of making transparent dubs (maybe it is?). and infinite array of degrees of transparency is found. you are comparing even the interconnects between the CD player and preamp compared to the interconnects between the tape deck and preamp. and is the tape deck set up properly for optimal performance?

when i go direct Studer A-820 to A-820 with the same tape formulation stock output to stock output (with a better set of interconnects) i can't "hardly" hear any difference from the source tape to the dub. and this is with a system that tells me all of what is happening. if i made another dub or two i'm sure i would notice a slight up-tic in background noise. but the music signal would not change. but in my case you have very limited variables and tape decks that are close to transparent.
 
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Kingrex

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As far as I can recall analog tape recordings from other prerecorded media was never one to one, that was never the purpose. You should also remember that no matter how good the quality of the tape recording, you’re playing it back through the tape machine’s output amplification which has its own very different character from the CD player’s.
david

PS- We don't know which tape machine was used nor it's condition to make a blanket statement about R2R.

Technics 1520 totally rebuit. Power supply, record and playback boards, heads etc. No stone left unturned. All rebuit.

Good point about the tape output adding its own flavor. I'm not sure how to process that.

My point is that I assume the result would be the same from tape to tape. Lets says 16 tracks squeezed to 4 then to 2, then masters cut and distributed. Maybe duplicated again. Thats quite a few layers of added noise. Digital would not be adding all that noise during the record, master, distribute process. It would remain true to what the mic captured and alter only when processing was applied. The tape seems to be adding its own sound, and it was pretty dramatic with every step. Much more than I expected.
 

HughP3

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All Informative, thank you
 

Kingrex

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when i go direct Studer A-820 to A-820 with the same tape formulation stock output to stock output (with a better set of interconnects) i can't "hardly" hear any difference from the source tape to the dub. and this is with a system that tells me all of what is happening. if i made another dub or two i'm sure i would notice a slight up-tic in background noise. but the music signal would not change. but in my case you have very limited variables and tape decks that are close to transparent.

This is much more the result I expected. A lot of variables to consider. I know nothing about tape, and a friend even less. Buying a machine then becomes confusing on what you are getting.
 

Mike Lavigne

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Technics 1520 totally rebuit. Power supply, record and playback boards, heads etc. No stone left unturned. All rebuit.

real time tape dubbing with master recorder level decks properly set up can result in transparent dubs. but it's not trivial to do.

i owned 2 Technics RS-1500's; one a pristine fully stock RS-1500, and the other was a Tim deParavicini fully modified RS-1700 (auto-reversing model) with everything upgraded with custom input and output audio circuits. neither was in the realm of my Studer's as far as transparency.

a nice upgraded RS-1500 works great as a high quality playback deck, it's a fine machine. but you would not find one in a high level dubbing process.
 
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ddk

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Technics 1520 totally rebuit. Power supply, record and playback boards, heads etc. No stone left unturned. All rebuit.

Good point about the tape output adding its own flavor. I'm not sure how to process that.

My point is that I assume the result would be the same from tape to tape. Lets says 16 tracks squeezed to 4 then to 2, then masters cut and distributed. Maybe duplicated again. Thats quite a few layers of added noise. Digital would not be adding all that noise during the record, master, distribute process. It would remain true to what the mic captured and alter only when processing was applied. The tape seems to be adding its own sound, and it was pretty dramatic with every step. Much more than I expected.

There's always a loss and change from one generation to another copy the question is how much and what has changed to keep it with acceptable limits.

As far as Technics R2R go they're consumer level products and nothing even close to the level of @Mike Lavigne's Studers, expect compromises. Also rebuilt and refurbished means nothing if done by the wrong person.

david
 

Kingrex

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Thanks all. Makes sense. I was just shocked at how much alteration there was to the original. Many potential reasons at play. This particular dealer seems to like making dubs of CD and may well tune his units for a more euphoric sound.
 

audioguy1958

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Using a reel to reel to copy a cd is not a good use of that format. I personally think recording digital sources to RTR is an illogical decision. Digital should stay digital.

RTR is expensive, and is best used for modern quality analog recordings from a quality recording chain. When you consider what the cables, power supplies, microphones, preamps and professional master recording tape decks are going to cost to make a great analog recording, you should realize that a playback tape deck also needs to be up to these standards to get the best sound from these tapes. I like Teac, Tascam, Otari, Technics tape decks, but there's no way they compare to the playback of a tape on a Studer A80 e.g. And has been mentioned, then there's external playback stages which add a whole new realm of sound quality. There is far more to the uncompressed sound of RTR analog than digital, but it's not a cheap way to go.

My experience has been that great master or safety copy recordings don't lose much when copied to new tape. There will be a slight loss in SQ, but then this format has so much more uncompressed signal in it that it still bests much of the digital recordings you get today.
 
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analogsa

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Using a reel to reel to copy a cd is not a good use of that format. I personally think recording digital sources to RTR is an illogical decision. Digital should stay digital.


Why should digital stay digital? You can't really listen to digital, can you? At some stage it has to become analogue.

It is a valid experiment fot testing the transparency of the recording/reproduction chain. If it can't reproduce reasonably well a cd source what good is it? Of course the vast majority of audiophiles only use the reproduction part of the chain which is a lot less demanding.

I find it hard to believe that an 820 using its stock preamp can pass a recording/reproducing test for transparency.
 

audioguy1958

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Why should digital stay digital? You can't really listen to digital, can you? At some stage it has to become analogue.

It is a valid experiment fot testing the transparency of the recording/reproduction chain. If it can't reproduce reasonably well a cd source what good is it? Of course the vast majority of audiophiles only use the reproduction part of the chain which is a lot less demanding.

I find it hard to believe that an 820 using its stock preamp can pass a recording/reproducing test for transparency.

What I was referring to are the pre recorded tape vendors who record in digital and then transfer to tape. There is no point in doing this. RTR should be used for analog sources. When I test a tape deck I use a frequency generator, oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer.
 

Mike Lavigne

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Why should digital stay digital? You can't really listen to digital, can you? At some stage it has to become analogue.

It is a valid experiment fot testing the transparency of the recording/reproduction chain. If it can't reproduce reasonably well a cd source what good is it? Of course the vast majority of audiophiles only use the reproduction part of the chain which is a lot less demanding.

I find it hard to believe that an 820 using its stock preamp can pass a recording/reproducing test for transparency.

have you ever been present when you have two identical master recorders one making a dub from the other? it's how most better commercial tapes are now made. the quality of the dub is only limited by the quality of the source tape.

as far as an A-820 dubbing to another A-820 and it being transparent, i've made plenty of dubs that way and as i mentioned i can't 'hardly' hear any difference. mostly i cannot tell one from the other. both units have the Trafoless output card upgrade; they are both in tip top condition and one is set up specifically for dubbing to. these are arguably the top RTR decks ever built. if you made a dub of a dub of a dub of a dub.....and compare #1 to #4 you likely would have slight generational losses and a bit of noise built up. but we know that. and i don't do that. but that #2 is sweet.

you are welcome to visit and you can choose one of my tapes, we can do a real time dub, and then listen to it together. done this dozens of times as after i make a dub i sample it. of course i also switch back and forth between the input and output while dubbing.
 
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SeagoatLeo

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I've had a small experience dubbing from R2R direct to CD using the same Studer deck. The transfers sounded more neutral than the playback through the Technics deck and a Tandberg deck. It sounded better than the LPs which were not pressed on the best vinyl. None of these decks were upgraded though and this was back in the 90s.
 

Tapetech

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Technics 1520 totally rebuit. Power supply, record and playback boards, heads etc. No stone left unturned. All rebuit.

Doesn't matter if the deck was rebuilt. If you can easily hear the difference between source and tape, then it was not calibrated properly. Simple as that. Unfortunately there are few techs left that really know how to align a tape deck. The demo you heard does not represent the capability of tape decks.
 

analogsa

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have you ever been present when you have two identical master recorders one making a dub from the other?


Dubbing is not a way to judge absolute transparency. Once the signal has passed through those 5532 opamps the damage is done. Pass it a few more times, it won't make a difference.

In 2020 no one will seriously consider a 5532 based phono stage as being high end. Why would the same be ok in a R-2R reproducing amp? Pre-amp, equalisation, line amp are all built around cheap opamps with multiple electrolytic coupling caps. Did i mention the switching regulators in the power supplies?

Of course this is only true in the context of a factory stock 820. Upgrades are certainly possible and worthwhile. Would a rebuilt G36 be more transparent? No idea, but i won't be surprised.

To say i am baffled by the recent enthusiasm for tape would be an understatement. Are even 1% of tape decks properly calibrated and set up? Are the mechanics still running within specs? How about the technicians who still know how to perform maintenance? Spare parts?

Setting up a tonearm properly is not easy and this is many times harder. Ah, the attractions of a different sound :)
 
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Mike Lavigne

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Dubbing is not a way to judge absolute transparency. Once the signal has passed through those 5532 opamps the damage is done. Pass it a few more times, it won't make a difference.

In 2020 no one will seriously consider a 5532 based phono stage as being high end. Why would the same be ok in a R-2R reproducing amp? Pre-amp, equalisation, line amp are all built around cheap opamps with multiple electrolytic coupling caps. Did i mention the switching regulators in the power supplies?

Of course this is only true in the context of a factory stock 820. Upgrades are certainly possible and worthwhile. Would a rebuilt G36 be more transparent? No idea, but i won't be surprised.

To say i am baffled by the recent enthusiasm for tape would be an understatement. Are even 1% of tape decks properly calibrated and set up? Are the mechanics still running within specs? How about the technicians who still know how to perform maintenance? Spare parts?

Setting up a tonearm properly is not easy and this is many times harder. Ah, the attractions of a different sound :)

my 'dubbing' A-820 was set up by Ki Choi. it was used by him to make dubs for Gary Koh's (Genesis Loudspeakers) commercial project and previously for Winston Ma too. i have another tape tech personal friend who also tweaked it in my system along with my other decks. i can't personally claim high techie ground. but they both can.

as far as what can or can't be transparent, and exactly what transparent means, i can only speak of what i hear. and invite you to hear it too. i have some pretty high references for great sound in my system, so feel i do have a grip on that.
 

audioguy1958

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Wow, I'm not sure what's so wrong with that particular opamp. Anyways, Kingrex can still have a lot of fun and and listen to excellent tape recordings with an Otari deck or whatever! I didn't mean to give people the impression that you need to spend millions of dollars to enjoy tape, you don't! But like everything in this hobby, there's always something better. Like Tapetech mentioned above, if your deck is not in good condition and correctly calibrated you can't really compare it to anything, there's no basis to discriminate.

I know that Ed Pong's 'UltraAnalogue' recording chain is all analog, and uses a pretty expensive custom built microphone preamp with premium Western Electric vintage 300B tubes and custom wound silver wire transformers. I could be wrong but I don't think Ed even has a capacitor in the signal chain, all custom transformers. He uses a similar setup when duping customer's tapes, all WE 300B and silver wire transformers from the playback deck. I use newly designed record and reproduce cards for my A80 made by Sepea Audio. They're very nice.
 
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I dub from one MTSL modded A80RC to another and I´m not able to hear any difference in my system
as opposed to A810/812 and 820 there are no opamps in the audio boards
guess Mr King has none in his KingCello either
best
Leif
 
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