General > General Technical Chat

Interesting bit of kit, cassette tape duplicator

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Cerebus:

--- Quote from: Red Squirrel on December 18, 2020, 01:23:29 am ---Yeah that one is high speed, like maybe a minute or so for a tape.  I might have to take it for a spin, it did not seem to be working when I plugged it in though, but maybe it's normal if there's no tape in it.

--- End quote ---

Almost certainly normal. Those things work at such a high speed (typically 15-30 times normal speed), and consequently with such high forces, that they needed to have careful servo control or they were just going to snap tapes. There's almost certainly a microswitch or optical detector that detects the presence of the cassette and an optical detector that detects the presence of actual tape.

The better ones of these would use the tape presence detect to line up all the tapes at the point where the clear leader stopped and the tape started before starting the duplication run. They're not too fussy about speed, they can't be because there isn't enough leader in a cassette tape to get up to speed without stretching the tape with the force required. Instead they are fussy about keeping the lengths of the different tapes synchronised, that way acceleration at the start of the run and deceleration at the end of the run doesn't affect the copying as the tape speeds up and down. Very different to designing a standard speed tape recorder.

Ed.Kloonk:

--- Quote from: Simon on December 17, 2020, 09:43:28 pm ---The talking newspaper that I run used to use cassettes, boy am I glad we don't anymore and even the old farts are too as now they get through the duplication and dispatching faster with memory sticks even though the cassette duplicators did 19 cassettes at a time in 3 minutes.

I really have to cringe when I hear stuff like that warm analogue sound of cassettes. I had a couple of cassettes as a teenager and did my own mix tape of some of my dad's music. But I can't say I enjoyed tape, it was something to be endured.

The resurgence of tapes rode on the coat tails of the misconception that vynal was better than digital because the old farts that could not let go said so and for some reason the millennials re-enacted much like a cargo cult the actions and attitudes of their parents that grew up with vynal.

Anyone that claims tape is better is suffering under several illusions.

--- End quote ---

Never mind the sonic shity-ness, who remembers the tangled mess in the car?

Simon:

--- Quote from: Cerebus on December 18, 2020, 01:58:37 am ---
--- Quote from: Simon on December 17, 2020, 09:43:28 pm ---The talking newspaper that I run used to use cassettes, boy am I glad we don't anymore and even the old farts are too as now they get through the duplication and dispatching faster with memory sticks even though the cassette duplicators did 19 cassettes at a time in 3 minutes.

I really have to cringe when I hear stuff like that warm analogue sound of cassettes. I had a couple of cassettes as a teenager and did my own mix tape of some of my dad's music. But I can't say I enjoyed tape, it was something to be endured.

The resurgence of tapes rode on the coat tails of the misconception that vynal was better than digital because the old farts that could not let go said so and for some reason the millennials re-enacted much like a cargo cult the actions and attitudes of their parents that grew up with vynal.

Anyone that claims tape is better is suffering under several illusions.

--- End quote ---

Of course if you've got anything recorded before about 1990, possibly later, it was most likely originally recorded on tape and you probably haven't even noticed. There's a world of difference between 2 tracks on 1/4" or 24 tracks on 2" tape running at 15 or 30 ips on a machine built around a hefty casting, and 4 tracks on an 1/8" tape running at 1 7/8" ips inside a little plastic case.


--- End quote ---

We are talking consumer grade stuff here. Yes the masters were done on tape but very expensively in order to preserve the quality and not by a means that you could affordably use for distribution. I think the actual master would only be used a few times to produce duplication masters, it was rather tedious. For example my father never played his records, he would keep them safely having made a tape copy, so yes years later when we came to transfer them to computer and put them on CD you would not necessarily think they were from records as there was no cracking due to years of wear and handling.

I think the problem for the analogue people is that they struggle to separate the idea of "data" from the signal/storage method used and think of them as one and the same. This was the downfall of the tapes and records. Had the sound been digitally encoded on the tape just as computers do onto tape drives the tape would have had no effect on the sound quality for as long as it remained decodable. But if that were the case you would still get claims about how the tape made the music sound better, I know this as a fact as I saw it on a CD!!!! yep, some asshole produced a blank CD and claimed that it had superior sound quality :palm:

I don't think in the Victorian times when they used punched cards to store music anyone claimed that they cardboard gave better tones and neither did the makers of the self playing pianos say so about their papers, ironically both of these technologies long before the advent of electronics beat MIDI to it.....

Ed.Kloonk:

--- Quote from: Simon on December 18, 2020, 08:24:05 am ---
--- Quote from: Cerebus on December 18, 2020, 01:58:37 am ---
--- Quote from: Simon on December 17, 2020, 09:43:28 pm ---The talking newspaper that I run used to use cassettes, boy am I glad we don't anymore and even the old farts are too as now they get through the duplication and dispatching faster with memory sticks even though the cassette duplicators did 19 cassettes at a time in 3 minutes.

I really have to cringe when I hear stuff like that warm analogue sound of cassettes. I had a couple of cassettes as a teenager and did my own mix tape of some of my dad's music. But I can't say I enjoyed tape, it was something to be endured.

The resurgence of tapes rode on the coat tails of the misconception that vynal was better than digital because the old farts that could not let go said so and for some reason the millennials re-enacted much like a cargo cult the actions and attitudes of their parents that grew up with vynal.

Anyone that claims tape is better is suffering under several illusions.

--- End quote ---

Of course if you've got anything recorded before about 1990, possibly later, it was most likely originally recorded on tape and you probably haven't even noticed. There's a world of difference between 2 tracks on 1/4" or 24 tracks on 2" tape running at 15 or 30 ips on a machine built around a hefty casting, and 4 tracks on an 1/8" tape running at 1 7/8" ips inside a little plastic case.


--- End quote ---

We are talking consumer grade stuff here. Yes the masters were done on tape but very expensively in order to preserve the quality and not by a means that you could affordably use for distribution. I think the actual master would only be used a few times to produce duplication masters, it was rather tedious. For example my father never played his records, he would keep them safely having made a tape copy, so yes years later when we came to transfer them to computer and put them on CD you would not necessarily think they were from records as there was no cracking due to years of wear and handling.

I think the problem for the analogue people is that they struggle to separate the idea of "data" from the signal/storage method used and think of them as one and the same. This was the downfall of the tapes and records. Had the sound been digitally encoded on the tape just as computers do onto tape drives the tape would have had no effect on the sound quality for as long as it remained decodable. But if that were the case you would still get claims about how the tape made the music sound better, I know this as a fact as I saw it on a CD!!!! yep, some asshole produced a blank CD and claimed that it had superior sound quality :palm:

I don't think in the Victorian times when they used punched cards to store music anyone claimed that they cardboard gave better tones and neither did the makers of the self playing pianos say so about their papers, ironically both of these technologies long before the advent of electronics beat MIDI to it.....

--- End quote ---

There were a number of attempts at digitizing the analog signal on an LP. All had dreadful results regarding reliable playback. There were a few digital tape formats, some were backward compatible some not so, all could have been the killer app but the record companies shot down every attempt.

As for CDs, there were some dodgy D/A conversion done in the beginning. There was no real specification in that regard. There was one notorious model I recall that to save cost it had just one D/A converter and used a analog switch at high speed to separate the channels. It had a whole heap of filters on the output because the switching noise was horrendous, so they smoothed off the top end. Machines such as that is where some of the snobbery comes from.

The other misunderstanding with CD's sounding better is in the compression and equalization applied the signal. It wasn't as easy to apply the same techniques on to Vinyl. LP's had a RIAA eq curve already applied so the bass didn't make the groove too phat. When 90's doof doof came along they had to moove to 12" singles so they could be played loudly at discos, and other reasons.

I didn't mind fanboys in either camp, I just wished they'd compare apples with apples.







Syntax Error:
Seeing the commercial audio visual equipment label on the back reminded me of this. The UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage - anual October 27th
https://www.ccaaa.org/pages/news-and-activities/World-Day-for-Audiovisual-Heritage.html
and
https://www.iasa-web.org/world-day-audiovisual-heritage

Yes eev bloggers, it's a real thing :)

Keep on surfing those dumpsters.

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