So i bought myself my first 3Head deck the other day and today it finally arrived. So installed it right away and tried it out. I tried to record a cassette, trying out the monitoring feature and the manual bias adjustment, when i noticed, that something was wrong. When i turned the bias adjust knob, i couldnt hear any difference, i tried it again with good headphones but i still couldnt hear a difference. So are my ears just untrainend for such fine tuning or could it be, that the bias adjustment just doesnt work? I am happy for any info i can get from you so thanks in advance! Dennis
Bias Adjustment is for Recording only: turning CCW during Recording increases hi frequencies, turning it clockwise will tame them down (counter-intuitive, but that's how it is...). With 3-head decks it is easier to adjust the sound to your liking but you are right, it takes a bit of practice to know what to listen for, not just hiss or background noise Personally, I set bias at default and do not worry about it: I record cassettes to be replayed thru boomboxes for my "Beer'n'Boomboxes" sessions and bias is "too hi-end" for that Our benefactor who runs this chatroom, @walkman archive has a thorough tutorial on his blog here: WALKMAN ARCHIVE
Yeah i already read that and i tried during recording with monitoring the tape but i couldnt hear any difference. :/
there is always a chance that the pot got busted! also a chance that the differences are not so evident and/or your ears do not care about 'em. Move Bias at Max then at Min: if you do not hear the differences then leave it at 'default'.... I had this same dilemma with my custom-built tubed phono-preamp: it came with RIAA adjustment knob you do Not see in many phono-stages. At its 'default/middle' position the sound off the TT was flat and boring, but I disregarded this as a downplay between my present Technics SL-1200 (gift from @Boodokhan, Million Thanks to you, my friend!!!) and my burned Keel-ed/Naim-ed $20k Linn Sondek. Then I turned RIAA knob CCW and at some point the tune, all of a sudden, 'snapped into focus'. My point is: 'canned' music, even at its best is NOT an Opera House or Symphony Orchestra experience (places where I spent my formative years) so your reference should come Not from 'real life' but from your experiences at your local hi-end dealer. Find your nearest hi-end dealer, Talk to the Dude, listen to what he (always he) has to sell... Usually it is from $100k to $5k setups, anything cheaper gets covered by BestBuy and such... then go home and take your time thinking, then subscribing to Stereophile or what-not... But I must have gone off the tracks here: the first thing you should consider is what kind of music you are listening to...: when I brought my then fav Art of Noise album to Chicago Pro Musica, the Dude, John Schwartz gently advised me to use something/anything else for the demonstration! Dead Can Dance and also Tchaikovsky's 5th I brought,... and then he actually talked to me, and demonstrated, and It Was Good!!! Playing the same CD through $2k or $20K setup, with the only difference being a CD player, that was a revelation!!!
Yeah I alerady thought about bringing my deck to a repairmen to let it get checked to get best out of it. Lets see what he will say, thank you for your time an help
I don't think I have a single deck with bias adjustment, at least on the control panel. I found this quote from SkywaveBe over on Tapeheads.net, he has a lot of great information on component tape decks. From what I have seen in knob adjusted bias on decks is that they do very little and sometimes are not even enough to make any major difference. The reason they have such a small amount of adjustment is that the manufacture has to make sure you can not adjust the bias so low as to stop it from recording. This would create a warranty nightmare. There are decks that are better I believe that have screw driver slots for adjustments such as on the Tascam 122 Mk II and these with an internal oscillator allow you to do the job much better than some knob you turn without knowing what is going on. The knob type adjustment is a marketing thing and has very little use or utility. A knob like on the X2000R is a total waste of time. Cassettes the same thing. __________________ Best regards, Sam Palermo, BSEE , ProSquad Member Skywave Tape Deck Repair- Chicago area (708)334-2260 Do the recordings sound bad to you? What tape type are you using and what's your source? It's hard to draw a conclusion without all of the variables.
I normaly use type one and two cassettes, mostly sony hf's and BASF Chrome Super II. My Source is always Spotify(with the highest audio resolution setting) on my laptop with an external soundcard. The recordings dont sound bad at all. i am happy with the results
