On my latest walkman revival adventure, I brought back to life a Sony sports Walkman that doesn't have any Dolby. I've never owned a walkman without Dolby and I have many tapes encoded with Dolby C as that was my preferred NR in my later cassette years when I had acquired better equipment. So to get to the point, I've been listening to Dolby C tapes on this walkman and to my shock, they sound acceptable. Quite good actually. I'm perplexed as anytime I've ever listened to a Dolby C tape with Dolby switched completely off, it sounded like garbage. But that was always on a deck/player with Dolby C or at the very least Dolby B. Did Sony do something with non-Dolby walkmans/players settings to make Dolby tapes sound less tinny and hissy or am I just getting old and my ears are failing? Not saying the tapes sound perfect, but very listenable. Am I going nuts? Figured I'd ask the walkman experts here.
Yes. My preference is always record without using Dolby, my equipment’s all have low noise anyway, so no real need to use any NR. Besides not using Dolby means better compatibility.
I just gave it a quick try this morning to double check and refresh my mind. Playing a Dolby C encoded cassette on a Nakamichi CR-7, Sony D6C and Sony DC2 without Dolby the voices and instrument just did not sound natural. Playing Dolby B encoded cassettes without Dolby, you can just about get away with it. It sounds a bit brighter, but listenable.
Ha! Well, I am using TDK SA 60 type ii tapes. They're not quite like metal, but pretty quiet in terms of noise. I'm just so used to the Dolby switch being on. So, I lied. I do have another walkman without Dolby. Never really used it. Just as I figured, tapes sound like junk. Lots of noise/hiss and unlistenable tinny audio. But on the sports walkman, it's fine. Ok, much appreciated input. I just gave the tapes another listen on another non Dolby player. Hissy and tinny, very unnatural sound as you describe. But...when I put the Dolby C tapes in the sports walkman without Dolby, while the highs are a bit on the bright side, it's like listening to a Dolby B tape with Dolby switched off. It's almost as if there's some kind of sound processing happening here. There's no excessive noise like there usually is on Dolby C tapes. It's a WM-FS398. A run of the mill, inexpensive Sony Sports model. The only thing fancy about it is that it has MEGA BASS. ♂️
From my memories the worst combination is a tape with no Noise Reduction and Dolby C turned on. Many years ago I was at an Aerobics class and the sound was awful and the instructor was wondering why. I recognised what was happening went to the DJ desk and switched off Dolby C on the tape deck and everything sounded fine.
Dolby C works in a relatively different way compared to Dolby B, it's not just doing more of the same stuff hence why the 2 systems are incompatible with each other. Even if a Dolby C encoded tape is played with B, the sound will still be unnatural and will have noise modulation (breathing effect), just not as much as if played without any Dolby decoding. In my opinion, there can be no compromise in regard to Dolby C: tapes must be played on a unit which has Dolby C decoding capability. Even more than this, the playback levels need to be calibrated in order to have the natural sound. Otherwise there will be muffled highs and/or breathing artifacts in the sound. This is also true on the recording stage: if recorder is not properly calibrated (bias and rec sensitivity) on that specific tape, Dolby C encoding will be mediocre at best. I do like Dolby C a lot, only issue is there aren't that many walkmans (which is my main way of listening to tapes) which can decode C so I limit the tapes I record this way for compatibility reasons. TYPE Is are the ones that pair the best with Dolby C as they're the most hissy ones, TYPE IVs being second. TYPE IIs are usually very quiet and in most cases don't need any NR. They can get extremely low noise with Dolby B. Dolby B is much more tolerant in regard to playback on units without Dolby or units that are not properly calibrated. However it's not immune to incorrect calibration, rendering muffled highs when playback levels are lower than specification. To answer your question, SONY didn't to anything to make non-Dolby devices more compatible with Dolby C (there's really nothing that can be done to obtain such effect). How listenable a Dolby C encoded tape is on a non-Dolby device will depends on some factors like: - the type of music: that breathing effect isn't that audible if music has low dynamic range; - how the tape was recorded in terms of calibration; I have tried this on many devices in the past and to me it's quite unlistenable regardless of device.
I always assumed metal tapes were the quietist. I haven't used metal tapes since the 90s. Even then, they were quite pricey. I only ever used them for master original recordings. All the above posts/points I agree with...perhaps just caught with a moment of ears playing tricks on me. ♂️ Hmm...we'll just go with this explanation. Now that I'm done fixing this sports thing, I'll just go back to my WM-701C. My tapes deserve at least that for a player.
