brent@itm.UUCP (01/18/84)
Since I used to be the director of the third largest cassette duplication house in Atlanta, may I respond to the question of cassette tape quality? (rhetorical question?) Pre-recorded music tapes are now selling in quantities almost equal to LPs. This is brought about largely by the Sony Walkman and its clones. When you take into account the volume of spoken word (non-musical) cassettes produced, the volume is larger than LPs. As with LPs, the quality of the product is determined by the quality of the materials, the type of production machinery, and most importantly, by the care of the engineer in charge. Tapes may either be recorded after the tape is in the shell (in-cassette) or before it is wound in (pancake duplication). I'll relate one test I tried of in-cassette machines we used. I used good quality ferric oxide tape (Agfa PE611) and recorded in real time from a reel-to-reel master tape played on an Ampex 700 onto a cassette in a Nak 480. I then recorded the same program material reel to cassette at high speed (cassette tape going 20ips) on our Infonics duplicators. I then played the two tapes back on the Nak. The test was double-blind. I had the tapes marked on the back as to which was which. The result: I could hear some differences, but couldn't tell which was which. With good material and care, high-speed duplicated tapes can't be distinguished from real-time tapes even in exacting environments. There is one short-run duplicator I know of on the West Coast who has a showroom full of Teac cassette decks. He advertises real-time duplication. As soon as the customer is out of sight, he takes the tape into the back room where he runs them at high speed on the Infonics machines. The room full of Teacs is pure eyewash. No one is any the wiser. If there is any interest, I could post articles on the nuts and bolts of the cassette industry: equipment, materials, volume, costs, etc. Let me know. Happy Listening, Brent Laminack (akgua!itm!brent)