dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (04/01/84)
A month or so I posted a comment about my Harman-Kardon HK200XM cassette deck, containing mostly negative comments about the Dolby HX circuitry. Tonight, I used it to record some solo piano (George Winston's "Autumn") and decided, in the spirit of experimentation, to record a test section of it with and without Dolby HX. (Dolby B remained on throughout - you need it for HX, and the tape noise would be intolerable without it anyway.) Tape was BASF Ferro Super LHI, "normal" bias and 120us EQ (I want to play this on my car deck). Record level was set so that the louder piano notes hit +1dB on LED meters (keeping the signal up out of the tape noise as much as I could). Now, I'm not an unbiased observer - I expected the HX to sound worse, because of the great dynamic range of the music and rapid attack of the notes. However, I did not hear any problems that I could attribute to HX. And the difference that I DID hear was that the highest-level notes sounded cleaner with HX switched in. So I ended up making the recording using HX. Moral: go record and listen to a variety of types of music yourself, with HX in and out. Comment1: I really wish I had a 3-head deck. Comment2: Record noise was pretty bad. Who presses Windham Hill stuff in the U.S.? It seems to be pressed by A&M in Canada.