Hi all, On one of my tapes I've noticed it has a consistent problem on all my Walkmans and my deck, in that the audio is slightly choppy (for lack of a better term) at the start. I swear I've read some sort of explanation about this in the past but I cannot remember or find that, anyone here care to enlighten me? Thanks! Hope you are all well.
Hi Stereomecha99. Yes, that's pretty common. In fact, I'd say that almost all tapes, no matter how good they are suffer from some dropouts at the beginning of the tape. I usually wait 10-12 sec until I start to record anything, to avoid that degraded tape. When I want the best quality, I wait 20 seconds. Reason why its worse? I guess something related to the sticking to the leader or maybe other reasons, I don't know...
I always expect the beginning to not be perfect. If you look at a visible playing cassette in most players the beginning seems to jerk a little, maybe it's the empty reel or the bump from the leader, where it's taped on the reel, causing a slight speed change, or more exposure to the elements, but it seems to be common.
Read an local article on the local (Indonesian) cassette industry and it mentioned that problem. What's interesting about, though, is what the writer mentioned to be the reason. He specifically said that it was due to the inevitably greasy fingers of the factory workers sticking the leaders on! Now, I don't really know how much that applies to production of cassettes in more advanced countries, but I assumed that it's an automated process. The article is from a very reputable source and written by a highly recognized professional in the industry, so I wouldn't doubt it's authenticity. It just surprised me that there is that much human intervention in production, at least locally...
We used Otari Tape Loaders, it was automated except you had to load in the empty shells, it held maybe 50 shells at a time. Other than that we didn't touch the anything except to load the media reel.
I have never come across this problem, only on cassettes I have abused. When I record I just let it roll past the join between leader and the tape before I start recording.
Me neither, never have this problem with any tapes I've personally recorded or most of the ones I've imported or bought locally. This is one Japanese tape in particular that's otherwise in alright condition, I quite like the album and it's not a huge nuisance but I would have liked to know if there's anything I could do to help it out. If nothing else I can always record the album again onto a nicer tape (have it on record too), and then transplant that tape back into the old shell? God bless those old Japanese tapes for holding the shell together with screws
Ah, interesting. Given how sensitive this magnetic tape is to folds, creases, slight imperfections etc. I don't doubt him either! Fascinating read
