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Do you prefer the sound of a good deck or a turntable?

Discussion in 'Cassette Decks' started by walkman archive, Sep 19, 2017.

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  1. Helaba

    Helaba Active Member

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    Hi Hugo

    Can you Sum Some mfsl cassettes That can compete With the vinyl version???
     
  2. Elite-ist

    Elite-ist Well-Known Member

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    Very good opinion piece, Hugo. I might even have an old review article in one of my stereo magazines which compared formats - vinyl, cassette and open-reel. Too bad 8-tracks didn't make the cut.

    Nando.
     
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  3. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    Boy! Good that I asked!!! Right now I feel like an i-Gen toddler who swipes his tiny hand across a book and thinks that it is a broken iPad. I have no opinion of my own on the subject simply because I could not even imagine (like that toddler) that cassette may be considered superior to the "original". I will research it a bit further, but now I see that its a great conversation starter! Hopefully more tape-heads will chip in :)
     
  4. speedy2.0

    speedy2.0 Active Member

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    I prefer a turntable but I refuse to buy a portable one!!
     
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  5. Elite-ist

    Elite-ist Well-Known Member

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    Here is a portable I have had a for a few years - a JVC DC-7.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Nando.
     
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  6. speedy2.0

    speedy2.0 Active Member

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    Amazing! How does the stylus operate?
     
  7. Elite-ist

    Elite-ist Well-Known Member

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  8. walkman archive

    walkman archive Administrator Staff Member

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    I have just very few MFSL tapes (3 or 4). Star wars by Zubin Mehta is one of them. Sinchronicity does also sound very slightly better. I'm about to receive Sgt. pepper by Beatles, I'll share my thoughts.
    Dark side of the moon also sounds very very well, but I don't have the original US version in vinyl, only a spanish edition which usually sounds worse, so I cannot compare directly.
     
  9. Helaba

    Helaba Active Member

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    Ok.... Many Thanks !!!
     
  10. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    Just noticed that a similar thread is alive at Audiogon forum: What makes tape sound better than vinyl ?
    As it happens lately, discussion gets heated sometimes, but its fun to read! OP mentions Nak cassette deck at first but then plays it safe by talking about R2R, that part is confusing. I mean, decent R2R "deck" can beat LP, as some rooms at Hi-End Audio Shows demonstrate. At $450 a pop it must! Acoustic Sounds R2R
    Until I get my hands on a decent prerecorded cassette, I won't comment on cassettes vs. LPs
     
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  11. autoreverser

    autoreverser Well-Known Member

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    i contend carefully there's NO pre-recorded cassette with better sound than vinyl (or cd).

    why ?

    very easy - in times when cassettes were common media besides very, very few tiny (mostly regional or fan) label released on cassette only. if they did, funds in the little lable for sure weren't big enough to make metal-tapes and record with multiple Nak 1000 tri-tracer's - they either made the tapes each by each or had them made on multiple-tape-recorders, wich for sure weren't designed to record high-end. well, even vinyls weren't the highest quality, but definitively better than the noisy cassette-releases.
    nowadays, when cassettes are so f***ing retro, even if they wanted, they could not make good recordings, because nowhere you can buy blanks in good quality in a bigger amount, besides the necessary high-quality recording-device - that they would have to organize.
    we all here know what high efforts it takes, to get the proper hifi-gear together to manage our own (what we call) high quality recordings - but they all are based on perfectly adjusted, cleaned, proper lubricated, serviced and demagnetized decks - not even talking about the proper cassette to go with it. and there nobody here can deny that good cassettes cost good money.

    i have a lot of pre-recorded cassettes, still from my serious punk-time in the early 80'es but also newer and brand new releases. even the best off'em do have ground (white) noise, worst are the pre-recorded with dolby, because if you use it they sound terribly dull, no matter wich of my decks i'm using, without they're noisy de luxe...

    sure, i do listen to them when i feel like it, but for sure than it's no matter of "good sound", more because i want to listen to the music.

    not wanting to bring up the vinyl vs. cd- case - any of them is better than any cassette. that's it.
    the only tape-recording that comes close to vinyl/cd is (good) r2r - for that reason i'm busy restoring a ReVoX A77 to perfection (serious).
     
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  12. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    ReVoX sounds like a good project. @autoreverser , You are shooting for the stars!! Good Luck! Since I am no longer afraid to play my LP collection as often as I want (Lyra/Aro/Sondek seem to be very gentle on LPs), I am not making any tape copies (Except for my Elephant Boombox, to be played outside) And $450 per reel is a bit too much for me, I got so cheap recently that even missed this Brahms Cycle. :(

    If I see MFSL cassette, I will try it. But not Star Wars, that music (also soundtracks from any Spielberg movies) is a torture for me!
     
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  13. autoreverser

    autoreverser Well-Known Member

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    :thumbup::groupwave
     
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  14. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    @autoreverser THANK YOU!!! I thought I am the only one with this defect. Now I am not alone in The Universe :)
     
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  15. Michelle Knight

    Michelle Knight Active Member

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    I honestly can't say, for some of the reasons that were given earlier. All the pre-recorded tapes I owned were normal bias junk. I pre-recorded at the time on the best tape deck I've owned since a teenager, being a lowly Technics RS-B605 - which has survived being stolen, covered in fingerprint dust, returned, cleaned, carted around Europe and is still with me and working. My personal recordings at the time were TDK SA-90 and were mostly copies from CD or the local FM radio (Swansea Sound)

    So to that degree, vinyl wins out for me... again nothing special, just a Pro-Ject Debut and humble Ortofon red.

    But the other angle is that the vinyl wins out over the AK70 because of interaction. Playing vinyl is not just the sound, it is the experience... and with the AK70, you just hit a button and you have hours without having to touch the thing. That's another reason I want the HS PX303 ... the interaction... the emotions... the sound is fine for my nearly-fifty year old ears. It's the rounded experience. We eat with our eyes, and I think to a degree, we listen with more than our ears... or at least that's how I think of it.

    I do manually clean my old vinyl and digitise it... and listen to it in FLAC... it seems to capture the pleasing atmospherics without the clicks... so now once I've got a tape system I'm happy with, then I expect to get some metal tapes, record out, and enjoy being on the move with tape once more.
     
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  16. Phil Wood

    Phil Wood Member

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    I always bought LPs, then recorded them and used the cassettes, so most of my vinyl has only been played once. Far better quality this way than buying pre-recorded cassettes, which in the early eighties were almost all abysmal. A few early albums I had which were ruined by cheap record players put me off just repeatedly playing records, once I had a decent cassette deck I was sorted. Then of course CDs happened and vinyl, tapes, Dolby B, C and HX-pro all got pushed to the side bit by bit. Once I discovered minidisc I thought it would replace cassettes, but that didn't happen!
    Today, for me, if I really like a piece of music, CD is the only way to go, streaming and downloading then iPodifying it is ok for ok music but I will still buy shiny round things if there is quality to be enjoyed.
     

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