Sony CDit metal tapes not bad at all...

[iamhifi]

I purchased some Sony CDit on Ebay and I'm very content with their performance. My initial thought were this looks like a cheap metal tape from Sony, on the contrary the tape look steady a bit heavier than cheap tapes and performs amazing, very neutral which is what everyone craves.
What are your thoughts?
Angel

[Marc Hugo]

Hi Angel - it is indeed a rewarding metal. As is the Maxell UD Metal and TDK MA-EX.

However, I don't know that everyone wants neutrality!! Now, that may sound extraordinary, but consider this: the ruler flat sensitivity relative to the IEC reference of Sony Metal XR and Maxell MX made them neutral performers, yet those tapes would normally have been eshewed by users in favour of Metal ES and Maxell MX-S(taking price out of the equation). Yet these more expensive metals were well off the IEC spec and sported rising sensitivities, which is some cases could not be tamed (by calibration) without effecting a suckout somewhere else on the plot. The ability to soak up treble energy is, rightly or wrongly, associated with quality and thus commands a higher price. See the discussion in this topic section on Sony Metal SR when compared as matter of preference with the brighter sounding TDK MA. (Notwithstanding mechanical things like dropouts which most likely arise from unsympathetic storage).

The theory is that you should be able to bias manage the senstivity to "flatness" and thereby secure the double whammy of a faithful recording together with reduced THD. In practice, some metals senstivity can't be fully flattened, in particular double layer IVs and metals for the type II position. Also, metal users often push loads of level onto metal tape which will test the THD limits anyway.

Cheers - Marc