Normal tapes vs chrome and metal

[braxus]

Ok. Im just trying to get a feel of the characteristics of tape types for cassettes. Normal tapes usually have the thickest sound of analog with great extended bass, and in some cases rolled off highs. Chrome tapes have a extended high end, but the bass can be weak compared to normal tapes. Metal tapes someone said (may) have the same bass type of normal tapes, but the high end is the best and most extended. Is this assumption correct? Lets not forget FECR type 3 tapes which were supposed to have the same bass quality of normal tapes, but extended high end with it. If that is so why did type 3 tapes die out in favor of chrome ones, especially if the bass on chrome tapes are weaker?

Ive heard comments on good premium normal tapes from TDK and Maxell. They are TDK AD, AR, and AR-X, then later DS-X. And then UD, XL-I, and XL-IS tapes. Its been mentioned the final version of the XL-IS tape is not as good as its predisessors (sp?). In Sony's camp there would be HF-S, HF-ES, and HF-Pro. Im trying to find some higher end normal tapes to buy so when I wanted a more colored tape sound, I can use those. Or when I want the better bass sound. I know in Denon's camp they have the DX series of which I don't really know much about. I see them on Ebay now and then, but can't really relate to what is good compared to the other big brands. But from what I understand the DX-3 is comparable to Maxell XL-I and TDK-AR. DX-4 is their best normal which would be the same as AR-X and XL-IS. Anyone ever use these Denon's?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...C1A9639482 60

Interesting article from 1985 above, and 1990 below.

http://groups.google.ca/group/rec.au...471d228ba9f4ba

Any users of premium normal tapes please respond. Also any users of Maxell XL-IS tapes please comment if you've used the older versions and also the last newest version. Im trying to find out if you've noticed the change in the tape formulation. Also can anyone list the breakdown on BASF tapes and what was available? The only normal tapes I've bought from them are the LH-EI ones and I have no idea where that stands in relation to the other brands listed above, but I assume that tape is the bottom of the barrel. The link above says they made a Ferro Super and Ferro Maxima, but I've never ever seen them for sale anyway. Even Ebay I've never seen them there. Interesting link on BASF tapes:

http://www.stereodisco.sk/kazety/basf/basf.htm

Maxells here:

http://www.stereodisco.sk/kazety/maxell/maxell.htm

TDK:

http://www.stereodisco.sk/kazety/tdk/tdk.htm

Sony:

http://www.stereodisco.sk/kazety/sony/sony.htm

And an interesting site with many tapes listed by their case style:

http://www.melofanas.lt/1left/kol/kolekcija_sarasas.htm

And tape terms here:

http://globalrecordings.net/article/232

[NAD613]

Give these a try:

http://www.batteriesandbutter.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=AKAISX-90&Category_Code=ta

[canonlon]

This is a good topic but not much response so far. I've only purchased NOS chrome and metal tapes since I recently got back into cassette decks. For home stereo system use, is the general consensus that there is little benefit using Type 1? Would it be correct to state that even the best Normal Position cassettes just can't compare to an excellent Type II or IV? I'm curious to try some of the best NOS Type I's > I've noticed most list on Ebay for $8-15 > I'm not sure if it's worth that kind of investment if I can spend about the same for a top notch Chrome or Metal.

[Warped Bezel]

Type I can be excellent tape for all manners of use. Great Type I tapes of yore would include Maxell UDXL I for a start, premium ferrics were sleepers that didn't catch on in the US for some reason...one of our members is named Maxell-LN so there must be a reason...

Just don't buy it by the ton until you've dabbled, one brand at a time. There is a reason it's priced like that, it was great when we were younger, but find a price point you can handle and learn all you can.

There are several cheaper good quality NOS ferrics on the Phoenix site and many are Dr. Bo's. (DB--- denotes Joel's stock) and many can be had for under $5. Ask Larry or Joel (Oxidenation is his eBay store) and you can PM speakerman1 or Dr. Bo as they are TH members (last time I looked).

[speakerman1]

Type I can be excellent tape for all manners of use. Great Type I tapes of yore would include Maxell UDXL I for a start, premium ferrics were sleepers that didn't catch on in the US for some reason...one of our members is named Maxell-LN so there must be a reason...

Just don't buy it by the ton until you've dabbled, one brand at a time. There is a reason it's priced like that, it was great when we were younger, but find a price point you can handle and learn all you can.

There are several cheaper good quality NOS ferrics on the Phoenix site and many are Dr. Bo's. (DB--- denotes Joel's stock) and many can be had for under $5. Ask Larry or Joel (Oxidenation is his eBay store) and you can PM speakerman1 or Dr. Bo as they are TH members (last time I looked).

I'm still here I think. Someone emailed me about some BASF Type I pancakes. I asked a few questions the guy hasn't gotten back to me yet. We are hoping to be loading tapes by the 1st of the year. So we may be doing a Type I Phoenix. I would like to thank the person who emailed me.

Larry

[canonlon]

...There are several cheaper good quality NOS ferrics on the Phoenix site ....

Could somebody please post the link to "the Phoenix site"?
Cheers

[speakerman1]

LOL
It is at the bottom of the page. Phoenix Audio Tape Company banner.

Larry

[Skywavebe]

Hi Larry,
A lot of people do listening tests with a tape with out having the machine they are using set up properly for that tape. A long time ago, I started evaluating tapes as to their merit with regard to performance. I was using a Teac C-1 at the time. I don't see how people in general can rate a tape when it could be their machine or the settings in it that are really giving a superior tape a bad result. I realized this early on and that is why when I evaluated a tape I did so on it's own ground. First you have to use a good machine that has just gone through calibration playback wise. The record section is going to change as you optimize the Bias, record EQ and level to the tape you are testing. Now, when you do a sweep of frequency capability the true result will come out of the tape you will be testing.
At some time in the workings at Teac in Arlington Heights IL, There was a two week period where the use of an Audio Precision was loaned to us for evaluation. This was not the compact unit that they have today, but a larger collection of boxes including an HP computer. We took some better decks as well as some junk one over to the empty bench and started testing with sweeps. The tape of the time that we came out with that was above all others with respect to frequency response, noise level, and distortion figure was the Maxell XL IS. It beat the XLII and almost anything else we could throw at it. Metal tapes were in the start up back then so what we tested gave a terrible distortion figure above all else and even though it had very good high frequency, the distortion figure killed it's landing a good position. XLII and SA and SAX would all rate higher as well as the new Chrome Bias HXS from TDK.
Tapes are a different story today and most of the last good ones are not as good as the earlier good ones. Any Chrome tape that has a good name such as TDK SA or SAX can be said to have a lacking low end is most likely due to under biased condition. Almost ANY tape deck can give you low end and midrange but the better ones will give the rest of the frequency all the way up into the 20KHz provided the head can handle that- that is where Nakamichi heads were known to accelerate above the rest- I wonder who made them? In any case this is where tape evaluation is correctly done not on a single machine that someones has had around and has no idea what it's condition is.

[JaeTee]

[QUOTE=speakerman1;109437 I would like to thank the person who emailed me.
Larry[/QUOTE]

*wave* *Hi5*

*reelspin**Spin**reelspin*

That auction has you written all over it! Looks like a pretty good quantity for you.

BASF made so many tapes it's scary... I just hope that tape stock is worth it...

[speakerman1]

*wave* *Hi5*

*reelspin**Spin**reelspin*

That auction has you written all over it! Looks like a pretty good quantity for you.

BASF made so many tapes it's scary... I just hope that tape stock is worth

it...

Thanks again. Yes we are getting set up for loading tapes. I hope it is music grade. I asked; but got no reply. I'm watching it. It is a very good price. Thanks for looking out for me. Well we will have to practice on loading the tape. It is nothing like having 11,000 feet of tape all over the floor. LOL We are going small and slow to begin. We are going after the little labels who use tape to record with. So we will see. I have 1100 tapes right now I bought preloaded. About 400 are sold. Some with printing. All type 1 ferrics.

Thanks
Larry

[Nick Sunn]

Don't even waste your time searching for old type I tapes. The only old type ones that were great were TDK AD and those were circa '79 - early eighties.
STICK TO SEARCHING FOR CLEAN LITTLE USED TDK SA-X, SA
MAXELL XL-II S And MAXELL XL-II from the mid 1980's.
Avoid BASF typeII as those were garbage.

Maxell LN from late 1970's and early 1980's were about as good as TDK D which was very basic type I but were "industry standard" for type I. BASF type I was mostly horrible. Ampex ELN (AMPEX stopped making cassettes around late '81-early '82) was OK sounding but the tape and shells didn't hold up for more than 1 year or so. Labels would warp up, and didn't hold up in the car enviroment. TDK D was the best overall basic low noise type I circa 1978 - 1984. Maxell UR circa 1985 was best of that breed of low noise type I.

You are making a mistake using type I tape if you want quality sound reproduction.

Get a Technics or TEAC deck from the early to mid 1980's that has dbx noise reduction, and use dbx and type II tapes (good ones, TDK or Maxell).
You'll get a S/N ratio of about 91 which is as good as tape ever offered and its almost in the range of the S/N ratio of 1996 and later minidisc decks which offered a S/N ratio of at least 96.

If you want enhanced BASS, get one of those Realistic ten or twelve band equalizers from the early 1980's or perhaps a Numark EQ-2400, as those will do wonders. To get the most out of your tape equipment, you've gotta use good tapes, even if you're using used tape. New SA are still available.

[A.N.T.]

You are making a mistake using type I tape if you want quality sound reproduction.

This is not quite correct. Compared to most Type II tapes, Type I cassettes have better distortion behaviour and, due to 120us EQ, much better HF distortion too. Main problem with Type I is higher noise.

Alex

[bluegreengold]

To get the most out of your tape equipment, you've gotta use good tapes, even if you're using used tape.

Yeah, clearly using the 'best' tapes give the best results, but my view is that so long as the shells are decent and the tape doesn't shed, it's good enough to play with. I don't need to make every recording on vintage MA-X. Sometimes it's more fun to try and make great sounding recordings from more modest tape.
That might mean squeezing everything you can out of a run of the mill type I on a nice nakamichi, or pairing some lofi music on 7" with a TDK D on a no-name combo turntable cassette deck. I've known few tapes that were so hissy after dolby B that it bothered me. In fact, unless it's quiet classical music, I prefer to have a bit of the hiss there.

When making tapes you have so many variables to play with and ways of manipulating the sound and context of the music.

[Pacific Stereo]

For just about everything, I have always been an SA fan- I just always liked the sound of that tape on a correctly calibrated deck better than any other, overall. For special purpose recordings I would also use MA-R (or MA), and HS-X.

I would caution against going with dbx noise reduction. Yes, it's quiet, but noise isn't the only factor. I find tape hiss to be completely transparent- I can listen right through it and not even notice it. What I CAN notice, are the artifacts introduced by the companding process. I just can't stand dbx NR- it's too obtrusive.

And before anyone starts to tell me that "You've obviously never heard a properly calibrated dbx system..." please allow me to stop you mid-sentence. I have, in every environment and situation you can imagine. You can chain two dbx units together and hear them work, forget about having tape in the middle.

One of my favorite moments was when someone came into Pacific once with a 2-track mix (no noise reduction) of a multitrack of a new album he was recording. He put it on for me to hear, and within 5 seconds I asked him, "Were the individual tracks recorded with dbx?" He just looked at me, dumbfounded. "Yes."

The other problem with dbx is that an undecoded tape is unlistenable. You better have dbx playback available everywhere. With any form of Dolby, you can still play that tape back undecoded and have a satisfying experience.

[Des-Lab]

What Pacific said.

I tried the DBX on all my Teac X decks and absolutely hated it. Yes, it defeats base hiss down to at or below the threshold of audibility. But the excessive modular sound of DBX along with the difficulty in tracking soft and fine sounds, it's not worth the tradeoff.

That type of sound system *MIGHT* (my emphasis) work on a highly dynamic recording (such as a live rock concert or what have you) where the finer details are not as crucial. But conversely, any signal of that strength and the base noise will be submerged anyway.

[Pentium100]

I usually use Dolby B (compatibility), but when the recording has wide dynamic range, I use dbx. For example, a song by the Hungarian band Omega can stay at -20dB for some time (with hiss quite audible even with Dolby B) and then jump to 0. Dbx, to me, works really well on this type of recording. A choir singing without music also requires dbx because there are periods of silence and the hiss is audible during those.

[yamahaKX530]

I don't think BASF type II tapes were garbage at all. They are true chromes, and need to be treated with respect (low MOL). Used properly, they can be stunningly spacious sounding with superb high frequency extension and treble character. Chrome Super II was not generally available here in South Africa, but the cheaper Chrome Extra II was freely available. Taking the plunge on CEII (no NR), and peaking the meters at 0dB, occasionally +2dB resulted in a tape with somewhat higher levels of hiss than ideal, but usually a spectacular listening experience.

TDK AD was good, but AR was even better. Its high MOL (+6dB no problem) made it one of the few type I's I could use without NR.

[Wilhelm]

Type I - most variable category in terms of quality. TDK AD tape had a higher than normal coercivity, giving it a rising high end, good SOL, but poor MOL. The best Type I tapes could be excellent in terms of quality, but they all had a 4.5 dB disadvantage in terms of the 120 microsecond playback EQ. Type I is generally the most stable of all the tapes. BASF manufactured the IEC I standard.

Type II - more costly pigments meant less variability in quality. The 70 microsecond EQ gave these tapes a 4.5 dB advantage in terms of lower tape hiss, but that EQ setting sacrificed some--not all--of their SOL advantages over Type I. There were two basic pigments used: chromium dioxide and cobalt-doped iron oxide. Chrome initially had problems with lower sensitivity, MOL, and print-through; but BASF developments in milling and pigment development improved all these low points. Combined with its distinct advantages in low noise floor, low modulation noise, and freedom from magnetostrictive losses in high end over time, chrome's advantages made it the choice for the music industry's best tapes. Double-coated chrome tapes (Chrome Super and Chrome Maxima) had MOL levels equal to that of the better chrome equivalent tapes without a sacrifice in noise levels.

Cobalt-doped tapes have high MOL levels and generally greater sensitivity than chrome tapes (partly due to higher packing densities), and the fact that the playback meters showed higher output gave them a distinct marketing advantage. They did suffer from higher initial noise levels and increasing noise over time ("delta noise") as well as some loss in short wavelength response due to magnetostrictive effects from capstan/pinch roller pressures. Most had very good resistance to print-through except TDK's SA-X tape which was formulated to beat BASF's claim of "world's quietest tape" for its chrome tapes. TDK probably milled the particles to tiny sizes for lower noise, but that would run the risk of too many crystals with paramagnetic properties that would lead to instability. Cobalt-doped tapes were often more prone to rub-off than chrome tapes, which were noted for the clean running properties. BASF made the intial IEC reference tape using a chrome formulation. In the 1990's BASF changed the IEC II standard using a ferric cobalt formulation.

Type III -- a combination of a ferric oxide base and a chrome upper layer for increased high frequency sensitivity and a low noise floor, ferric-chromes had amazing MOL levels at 315 Hz (due to high packing densities) and the same low noise floor of chrome tapes. But that's all. Their mid-range output levels were quite low, and their SOL levels were very poor due to the imbalance of short wavelength flux penetrating below the thin chrome layer and reaching self-erasure in the ferric base. Both BASF and Sony made ferric-chrome tape; Sony made the IEC III reference tape.

Type IV -- a pure metal pigment tape "reintroduced" by 3M with its Metafine formulation (BASF's iron carbonyl from 1934 was actually the first metal pigment), metal tape had enormous levels of output compared to all other formulations. It needed it. The noise levels were also the highest, probably because the particles were so difficult to disperse and orient in manufacturing. The resulting S/N at 315 Hz was often only slightly better than the best Type I or Type II tapes, but the SOL levels of metal tape were substantially better than any others. TDK made the IEC IV reference tape.

[speakerman1]

You can't make a blanket statement that all BASF Type IIs were crap. I really like a BASF Type II very much. It isn't marketed as a BASF; but has great headroom and can be recorded very hot without any loss on playback. It is one of my favorite tapes. Next to the Denon HD-8. I have used both and maintained my peaks on playback. I hate a tape that my peaks drop on playback. If I wanted less dbs I would have recorded it that way. I have gotten rid of all the tapes that won't hold my peaks on playback.

Larry

[Wilhelm]

"Equal output" for "equal input," as measured by a deck's meters, is a measure of sensitivity. It is not a quality parameter. The input is a measure of current flowing to the head; output is a measure of current induced by the head as that tape's flux changes pass by it. A tape formulator can increase low frequency sensitivity by increasing packing density (at the risk of increasing ruboff) or tape thickness. HF sensitivity can be increased by raising coercivity or putting a better polish on the tape by hard calendering (at the risk of increasing stiction).

The more sophisticated cassette recorders included a setting for adjusting tape sensitivity of different tapes. It made a difference only for Dolby NR tracking because the compression/decompression of the circuits is based on a tape's output/sensitivity at 400 Hz. If a user does not use Dolby NR, sensitivity is irrelevant.

[michaelhigh]

On a site such as this, I would opine that this thread should be a sticky because of it's relevance and topical significance. Not everything should be but this should IMO.

[RedGrant]

I would caution against going with dbx noise reduction. Yes, it's quiet, but noise isn't the only factor.

This is one reason I think S/N is a bit over-rated.




I find tape hiss to be completely transparent- I can listen right through it and not even notice it.

Ditto, me, too. Unless truly excessive, hiss doesn't bother me at all.




What I CAN notice, are the artifacts introduced by the companding process. I just can't stand dbx NR- it's too obtrusive.


Indeed, I ask people whether they prefer live music or pre-recorded music in their room. Almost to a man, they prefer, live music.

I ask them, even though live music contains a lot more background noise, echoes, what have you, producing far less S/N than your pre-recorded music?