John Mellencamp's Love Death Love and Freedom is the first (?!) cd ( in fact it's a dvd ) in the new audio format - CODE. I didn't listen to it yet but will try to get it soon.

http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/20..._love_and_fr_15

Any spec without qualification references is meaningless:

EG, 17hz to 25khz -9db @ 3% thd is not very impressive. And with cassettes you have that thing called wow and flutter, and oh crosstalk (channel seperation) of less then 60 or so db. Let's not also forget signal to noise ratio.

I'm making up the numbers, but you should get the idea.

I do like cassettes, they have a different magic, where your expectations of audiophilia are a big second to the music.

Cheers,
Ian

emaidel,

Any other Telarc rock recommendations? I've not been disappointed yet regarding a Telarc recording, CD or vinyl. I'd me interested in something other than just the classical recordings I have.

Let's look at the Tandberg TCD 3014.

± 1 dB 18 - 24.000 Hz

I know that these machines also do better that Redbook CD standard:
Tandberg TCD 910
Tandberg TCD 3004
Tandberg TCD 3014A
Tandberg TCD 440A
Tandberg TCD 330 mkI & mkII
Teac Z-5000
Teac Z-6000
Teac Z-7000
B&O Beocord 8000
B&O Beocord 8002
B&O Beocord 8004
B&O Beocord 9000
Revox B215
Revox B710
Nakamichi Dragon
Nakamichi CR-7
Nakamichi ZX-9
Nakamichi 1000ZXL

Now I could continue for a long time doing this, listing up machines doing better frequency response than CD's when best.

In my opinion Cassette CAN, if you get the right machine, sound better than any digital source, like the 32 bit 192 kHz stand alone HD recorders I used as Back-Up on master recordings.

I might have been rough in my choise of language in some of my replies.

I found insultments in those posts I replied. I usualy don't accept people around me if they don't behave and treat other people with respect.
I will have to accept all sorts of people in a forum, I guess.

So accept my apologies for my language and my way to answer back.

I do know a bit of what we discuss, though.
And when it comes to specs we were talking about, I did not post any falsum.

Now you can go look up data on all those machines I listed and get convinsed or you can give a hoot about it, but then don't continue discussing it here.

I think some people here should consider wether we are on an entry level into this "hobby" or we are on advanced and pro-sumer level of something that has been both hobby and job through more than 40 years.

I have music in focus and do enjoy it no matter if it's from MD, RT, MC, LP, 78, CD, FM, SACD, XRCD, DXD, DVD, DAT, HiFi-VHS, PC or whatever.

Last night my enjoyment was to listen to music through this equipment:

Loudspeakers: Audiaz Aurea Diamant
http://www.audiaz.de/index.php?option=com_...w&id=4&Itemid=7

Power Amps: KR Audio Kronzilla DX Dual Mono
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio...x_monoblock.htm

Preamp was from Art Audio
http://www.artaudio.com/vpsindex.html

Sources was CD/TT/RT of the best kinds.

This is not far from the sound I have at home.

As I wrote: I apologize for my behavior but at the same time I believe some people should get a grip and expect that some other people might have more experience than themselves.

"dolph"

I kept out of this conversation. But I wanted to say things. We all have opinions. One is no more right than the other. I prefer reel to reels to cassettes. Just my choice.
This is a very laid back forum as you can see. We all like different music and different equipment. We all chose a media that fits our needs and taste. So lets bygones be bygones.

I don't think there are any other rock recordings on Telarc aside from "California Dreamin." There is an offshoot of Telarc called "Heads UP" that's primarily jazz, though.

If you want any classical recommendations, I'd be happy to provide you with some. As I've said, there are a few duds in Telarc's lineup, but for the most part, nothing I've heard elsewhere even comes close.

Dolph: Calling you "nuts" may not have been the nicest thing to do, and you have my apoogy. Still, there are aspects about me and my career that you should know about before making some of the assumptions that you have.

For one, I'll be 64 in January, and spent over 30 years in a career in the Consumer Electronics Industry. I've worked for such companies as Lafayette Radio, Pickering, ESS, Onkyo, ADC and dbx (while owned by BSR), and Stanton (prior to the sale of the company). So, I'm not as inexperienced, or naive as you may have thought.

And I do have friends at Telarc who are renowned audio engineers, and do have another Austrian friend who won a Grammy for his engineering work for the "St. Matthew's Passion" on Teldec. They, and I all feel that the best audio format - anywyere - is the SACD, and our second choice is the "lowly" redbook CD.

I can't question your frequency response claims for the cassette decks you've listed, but I have to wonder: what possible source is there available that matches those response statistics? As another poster indicated, pre-recorded cassettes sounded horrible, so what sources are you listening to? Like most others, I used the various cassette decks I've owned (as well as my R2R machines) to record from other sources - primarily LP's and CD's).

As a passionate lover of the classics, I became a fan of the CD fairly early on, as I was finally able to listen to an entire symphony without the snap, crackle and pop I had to put up with on even the finest LP's available, nor with the equally annoying tape hiss from a cassette or reel tape. I have a number of truly awful sounding CD's, but then, I have quite a few more that are absolute, sonic knockouts.

Your claim for the superiority of cassettes startled me, as I've never heard anyone - anywhere - ever make such a statement. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and I'm entitled to mine too. We just disagree.

I never said I like Cassette more than R2R.

I have R2R at home and I use it and judge it to the best source ever.

I have used R2R for decades when making master tapes.

My favourite R2R machines are Ampex, Studer, Sony APR 5003, 3M, Lyrec PTR-1 Frida, Lyrec TR55, Nagra T, Stellavox TD9.
I also had Akai, Teac, Revox, Sony, Pioneer, Saba, Telefunken, Studer, Tascam, Tandberg and many other brands.
From those I chose to have the Lyrec PTR-1 Frida myself.

Let me just go into a few details about the Lyrec PTR-1 Frida for a moment.


This machine had a price tag from new at Dkr. 76.000,-
Today currency exchange ~ us$ 16.000,- / £ 7.600,-
Fairly cheap compared to other brands because of the concept of only selling directly from factory.
Lyrec made also matrice cutting gear, tapepacking gear, vinyl pressing machines and multi track machines.

This machine took over from Nagra T and Stellavox SP9/TD9 in studios in Switzerland, the homeland of Nagra and Stellavox.

It is modular built with insert cards and is really a piece of engineering art.
Specs is next to none.
The machine is (kind of) portable.

Unfortunately the factory closed down in the spring 2008.
Spares will be scarce from now on.

These machines are impossible to operate without reading and understanding the manual.
They look as if they are up to nothing but under the hood a world of allignments and option are hidden.

Rec level and Eq are seperately adjustable and seperate for each channel, seperate for each speed seperate for PB and for Rec and Bias is adjustable seperate for each channel and seperate for each speed.

Runs at three speeds: 3,75 ips; 7,5 ips; 15ips
But with fully adjustable pitch control it also plays 30 ips. Actually up to 48 ips.
But what machine records at that speed?
Display switchable between timer and speed. Shows also pitch speed with precise read out with two digits.

Has a dump-tape option.

Takes 11,8 inch/30 cm reels.

Real time counter w/two flags and goto.
HX-Pro.
ICIR(IEC)/NAB EQ.
Calibration in/out.
Fader start.
Editing board.
Remote controlled etc.
Remote control pin code in manual. So you can build you own very advanced remote.

Sound Quality of recording and playback is equal to or better than B67, A80, A810 or any other Studer, Nagra T, Stellavox SP9, any Otari, any Tascam, any Teac, any Revox, any Fostex, any Technics, any Ampex, any Pioneer, any Sony, any Mitshubishi, any Samsung, Ferrograph..............any deck.
Next to no other R2R.

There is more to it............a lot more.
But I'm not going to make a compendium about the subject.

It's amazing they are obtainable at these low prices today.
That is how it is with all R2R.
To our advantage.
General appreciation of the best source ever is way to low but maybe rising again........... slowly.

The analog sources and analog gear in general deserves a revival .................. and are getting it!
If not at this very moment then very soon and showing.

"dolph"

Let's shake hands..................
Apologize accepted.

I have only 50 maybe 100 pre recorded tapes in my home. The rest of my thousands of R2R and Cassette tapes are made by myself.
The sound quality of prerecorded tapes are, except a few bought 2. generation masters recordings on R2R, very different and quite a bit inferior to home made recordings.

Most recordings I made is of course from high quality vinyl like Verve, Heavy Vinyl, Chess, Chesky, Flying Disc, Mobile Fidelity, half speed masterings, Direct discs etc. etc.

But I happen to have some master recordings made by myself, either in my function as Readio Tech, Tape Operator, Sound Engineer or later on as a private guy making the recordings in mutual agreement with musicians and managers not to share or distribute the music.

Most of it is jazz but I do have classical and modern music as well.

I have beyond 5000 titles on LP and several thousands of titles on Tapes.
Furthermore I have ~1000 titles on CD and some Mini Discs, some DAT's, some SACD, XRCD, DVD-A and many different digital formats on PC like FLAC, WAV, WMA, MP3, Ogg Vorbis.................anything goes.

In my setup, that has been put together and upgraded since the 60's is all kind of sources. The keyword is to get the best of each unit and do in the spirit of matching gear as an art............................matching as THE art of our hobby.

My main Cassette player is Tandberg TCD 910. I had all the Nakamichis and Revox' I could dream of.

My main R2R is Lyrec PTR-1 Frida.

My Loudspeakers right now is ProAc Response D25 and my preference is Wilson Alexandria.

My preamp is Mark Levinson No 38s

My 2 X Mono Power amps are from Audio Analogue and my preference is OTL from Atamasphere.

I use Ergo 2 as Ear-speakers and Beyer Dynamic DT880 (Soon to be changed) as earphones.

My CD player is from Audio Analogue

My FM Tuner is Tandberg TPT 3001A

I have a DAW digital recording studio with build in hard disc using 24 bit 96 kHz and I have been testing 32/192 as well.

I have a Dunlop Systemdek IV (the rare TOTL from them) TT with Ringmat, Benz L2 cartridge, RB700 arm, Whest .20 RIAA and seperate power supply. TT is standing on Sound of Silence from Solid Tech and they are standing on a traingular tarmac damped Target shelf boltet to a brick wall. This is my main TT rig.

I have philosophy about a lot of those compromises within reproduced sound as you get when you work intensely with recording through many years.
I make my own cables as multicables in the understanding that cables never do the music any favour.
I believe that every experience of listening to reproduced as well as live music is an individual and subjective experience influenced by our own subconsciousness, oru anatomy of the ear and the enviromental surroundings.
This is causing us to never agree on any subject in any HiFi fora.
If HiFi was purely science, all gear would be the same.


And being educated as Radio Mech, Radio Telegraphist, Officer in the merchant marine, Social peadagog and working many years resocializing hard criminals might have made me extreme direct in the way I adress people when tendensy to conflict.

What a lot I wrote.
Hmmmmm
Hope it's worth it.

"dolph"

dolph, glad you revisited this thread. have you ever tried the same kind of mastering techniques to make your own cd's, and if so how did they compare to your custom cassettes?

I will have to warn that the differense between the best of the two worlds are only detecktable for some people and on some equipment.

When that is said, my opinion is that it takes one of the 10 or so of the very best cassette decks to surpass the best CD and it probably takes the very best or second best cassette deck to surpass the best of digital sound ever, which IMHO is 32/192 Wav made on the very good pro gear with very great ADC from Mic.

Even if I keep my master back up in 24/96, which by far is a better resolution than CD, Cassette tapes coppied from the mirror R2R master tape will perform better.
So logically the cassette will perform better than the CD made from the 24/96 master back-up.

But this would not be the case on many cassette decks.

I hope that readers of my posts do understand that when I state my opinion of one media being superior to another, it will always be the ultimate comparison between the potentialy best of both worlds.

I think most CD's, maybe over 99% of them, will outperform most Cassette dekcs.
This is due to the fact that a lot of cassette decks were just consumer mediocre low-end equipment.

I think many readers didn't get my posts in the right perspective, which is why I thought it would be best to explain.

But this also is an answer to dingus' question.

"dolph"

IMHO, with the fast approach of new audio formats i think capturing/recording audio in 1-bit / 5.6 MHz enables recordings to be archived in the highest quality ever available and allows the re-purposing and distribution of archived recordings into any current PCM format types while preserving the original pristine 1-bit audio files for upcoming future formats.

1Bit / 5,6MHz ~ 24Bit / 192 kHz PCM

I was used to 32Bit / 192 kHz

Do some calc's on it.

"dolph"

That’s indeed the point here. With 1 bit there’s no need calculation.

1 bit in, 1 bit out.

Surprisingly, most current 24-bit/32-bit converters already use 1-bit conversion at the front end. After capturing a high-speed 1-bit stream the converter uses what is called a Decimation Filter to change the 1-bit data into the desired multi-bit format. A simple explanation of the decimation filter is that it is a form of sample rate converter or divider which parses the 1-bit stream into the needed number of samples for the multi-bit format.
Meaning it throws away sample information (in an intelligent fashion, of course) that is not able to be used.

…and this is only half way the signal path in a multi-bit converter unit.

IMO, There’s data manipulation in all multi-bit systems a minimum of two times from the original - at encoding and then again at decoding.

In a 1-bit system, the audio is recorded at super-high sample rates, commonly 2.8224MHz up to 5.6448 MHz (The technology has been adopted and promoted by Sony and Phillips as Direct Stream Digital recording (DSD) in their SACD configuration ).
At this high rate a 1-bit system is able to reproduce frequencies from DC up to 100 kHz, which exceeds all other digital systems and even magnetic tape, which can reproduce up to 50 kHz. At these high rates there is no longer a need for steep filters, which removes a possibly coloring element in the encoding chain.

Even better, by remaining in the 1-bit format that the converter already used, there is no need for the decimation filter process during recording, and no need for the interpolation and oversampling filter processes during playback. So what comes in goes out, with no extra math in the process, thus eliminating any need for the data/audio to change. As you guys might know, decimation filters and their design have a major influence on the sound with PCM recording, and 1-bit recording eliminates the need for them.

Sometimes less is more, imo of course.

BTW, Sony's new Four-layer Micro-Reflector Holographic Recording System is based in 1-bit also.

DSD64 = 1BIT / 2.8224 MHz = 2.8224 Mbit/s (per channel)
PCM 24Bit / 192kHz = 4.608 Mbit/s (per channel)
DSD128 = 1BIT / 5.6448 MHz = 5.6448 Mbit/s (per channel)
PCM 32Bit / 192 kHz = 6.144 Mbit/s (per channel)
DXD (PCM) = 24 BIT / 352.8kHz = 8.4672 Mbit/s (per channel)


IMHO even the PCM 32 / 192 is not as natural and great saounding for recording as R2R.
I have heard DXD but never used it for recording.
I don't find it any better than any of the other resolutions close to it, that be 1-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit.

We are out there in sound quality where no science can be arguments anymore...............only feelings and personal preferences can make us do the choises we do.

IMHO.
My choise is stille R2R.

"dolph"