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Another tape head

Discussion in 'Introducing myself' started by lewistapehead, Jul 15, 2017.

  1. lewistapehead

    lewistapehead New Member

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    Hi guys, I'm Lewis and I got a lot of interest in vintage technology. I started my venture in the cassette world last year when I decided to buy a Maranz PMD-740 multitrack cassette recorder to create music on and since then, I started accumulating cassettes to listen to. What I like is to go at various thrift stores and buy obscure recordings. That's a fun hobby that doesn't cost too much except when you want to buy high end players.. Everyone was laughing at me when I mentionned cassettes in a discussion. Their arguments was that it was a bad sounding format but I knew they didn't know about Type II,III and IV. Anyways, I'm happy to be there with you. I hope this community is as cool as the synthesizer community which I'm also part of :)
     
  2. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    Welcome from another synth-head! I am on the consumer/listener side of it, still listen to the early vinyl pressings of TD and KS.
     
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  3. lewistapehead

    lewistapehead New Member

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    Cool! I love TD!
     
  4. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    Welcome.

    Maybe we should start a synths thread in The Lounge. I have more Synths and Keyboards than I have Boomboxes,
    although I doubt if any would get an enthusiast excited.

    The first Pre Recorded Cassette I was ever bought (my choice) was Vangelis Albedo 0.39 back in 1976.
     
  5. lewistapehead

    lewistapehead New Member

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    Nice haha! I doubt that the synth thread will get that popular here lol
     
  6. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    Lets see, you never know... You go first ;)
    We can continue here but admins will spank us for using intro section for talking about important stuff :)
     
  7. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    Welcome aboard Lewis!

    Very nice multitrack deck. I didn't knew it but it looks very cool indeed.

    Some friends were very skeptical at home when I talked about cassettes. I knew they thought cassettes sound like crap, but I made jaws drop everytime I put a good recording in one of my best decks and let them hear. I also did sometimes comparison with their flagship smarphones (using very good headphones) and cassettes won everytime, by far.
    Then skeptism and laughs stopped forever :bigthumbsup:

    Yes, it's best. This one os for introducing only. Feel free to start a new one in the proper one.
     
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  8. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    @walkman archive I concur!!! I might have been one of those digi-heads, I still remember that the only reason I bought Linn Sondek 15 years ago was to play 180g reissue of Tchaikovsky's Fifth... And got hooked on analog, while spending all my allowances on yet better digital: Naim CDS3, Wadia 781i (still keep them) while going thru a bunch of McIntosh, Krell, Ayre, Linn plastic spinners. Haven't invested into PC replay for the reasons of not being able to rip my thousands of CDs. Full story at my personal homepage, but the end result is that when I want "real music", I move my arse from my sweetspot and play LPs or self-recorded cassettes!
     
  9. Mystic Traveller

    Mystic Traveller Well-Known Member

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    Welcome to S2G, Lewis! :)
     
  10. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    Absolutely. When I want to hear real music, I pick a vinyl album or a good cassette and enjoy, with a good cup of wine. The rest of the week I use spotify to discover new songs and artists...
     
  11. lewistapehead

    lewistapehead New Member

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    The Marrantz is good indeed! But a little noisy in the preamp section.. What I found cool is that it's playing tapes without wow and flutter (barely) and it's not really noisy in playback. I only have DBX NR which is all the time off when playing records. I often use it for listening to records on cassette but since I'm going back to the dorms next semester, I wanted something more compact that wouldn't take 1/3rd of my desk so I bought a Walkman WM-2 and a new belt for replacement if it needs. I can't wait to try it! It's coming tomorrow, I paid $35 for it shipping incl. and it comes with accessories. Can't wait to have a real good deck to show my past teachers (in sound engineering) that cassette can be good so they can stop laughing at me.. I know these guys are tired of analog and prefer digital over tape. They made records from the 70s up until now with big time artists such as the Bee Gees and Chicago so they were kind of tired with splicing tapes and gluing them back together.

    Oh and I love your site Hugo! I'm a huge fan!
     
  12. lewistapehead

    lewistapehead New Member

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    BTW I don't mention the WM-2 as a good deck! There are FAR better options!!
     
  13. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    The Marantz sounds pretty good. I didn't notice any noisy behaviour in the preamp (I guess you mean the line in, right? Or do you mean mic?) In fact, it's deadly quiet especially using dbx.
    The headphone output is very noisy, but it you use the line out, it sounds great. Not as great as a SONY D5, which has a bit more punch, but very well. The D5 doesn't have many of the nice features of the 430.
    Don't hesitate to share your experiences and photos with it ;-)
     
  14. lewistapehead

    lewistapehead New Member

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    Damn! I didn't aknowledge it was the headphones out that made all that noise.. I had many problems with the faders, they are not sliding softly and the ones for channel two and master are intermittent. I cleaned them and it still didn't solve the problem then I took it to a repairs guy and it worked for some months before doing the same for CH 2.. While I have your attention, I need help to fix my WM-2 if anyone knows about it..
     
  15. Command8

    Command8 Active Member

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    Welcome Lewis, I hope you enjoy this community as much as I have.
    I am also thinking of getting a 4 track cassette recorder to produce/direct my friend's band and their songs.
     
  16. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    Yes, the headphone output is MUCH worse than the line out. I cannot figure out why, but it is...

    Regarding the service, please see the world service list, but it's better if you ask your questions in the proper forum :nodding:
     

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