elf@utcsrgv.UUCP (Eugene Fiume) (04/18/84)
I don't often read or contribute to this newsgroup, so I hope I'm not
overly redundant.
I am now the proud owner of a Nak BX-2. I'm happy to say that all
my experiences so far have been favourable, except one, which I'll mention
in a second.
Since I am very new to the world of modern cassette decks (the last one
I owned had a switch called "Noise: ON/OFF"), I have been busy testing
out the two noise reduction systems and non-metal tapes. I used two
pieces of music to test things out:
(a) David Hedges' wonderful guitar piece that leads off "An Evening with
Windham Hill Live"
(b) A large segment of Bartok's 3rd string quartet by the Tokyo SQ.
These are non-trivial but not overly challenging pieces to throw on a cassette.
(My aim was not to test for saturation levels.)
Using four tapes (BASF Chromdioxid II (chrome), Maxell UXLII-S, TDK SA
(both chrome-equivalents), and Memorex MRX3 (normal ferric)), I recorded
these pieces using Dolby B and C. The Memorex is an old (unrecorded) tape
and the others were new. To keep a long story short, Dolby B was hissy; every
recording using Dolby C sounded very good, with barely noticeable improvement
using chrome or chrome-equivalents over the ferric. Among the chromes, I found
very little to choose from--they all sounded very good. I could only detect
deviation from the original using Dolby C by playing back at very high levels
through headphones. The chromes were marginally quieter and gave slightly
better high-end response (the transients in Hedges' percussive guitar work
seemed better defined) over the ferric (which of course may not be
representative of the *best* ferrics today (which are those, BTW?)).
So far, this says that my Nak seems to like ferrics and chromes almost
equally well. Within the chromes, there is virtually no difference.
Does this correspond with the experiences of others? If this does not,
could you please recommend tape brands that you have found particularly
nice for your Nak?
HOWEVER, I did notice one strange piece of behaviour using the ferric together
with Dolby C that:
(a) the other tapes don't exhibit, and
(b) is reproducible on using this particular Memorex tape (which otherwise
did well on the tests above).
It seems that you can confuse my Nak's Dolby C circuit. I was recording a
seemingly innocuous little ditty by Leon Redbone that had a low end full
of tubas and cellos (believe it or not). The meters didn't indicate anything
particularly offensive about this (though your sensibilities might).
However, when I played it back--SURPRISE--I got this swooshing sound with
right and left channels going alternately from low to high levels. Switching
to B or to no noise reduction eliminates the problem (but of course boosts the
treble). I did not try recording it using Dolby B, however, which
might have proved interesting. Can someone explain this phenomenon?
Eugene Fiume
U of Toronto
...utzoo!utcsrgv!elf