wjm (03/24/83)
(In reply to a query from Marc Luria but posted to the net since tt seems
to be of general interest ...)
While it is true that Nakamichi has not seen fit to include dbx noise
reduction on its tape decks yet (forcing me to add an outboard 224 to my
Nakamichi deck), this does not take away from the basic fact that dbx provides
significantly more noise reduction than does Dolby C. The reason may be more
legal than technical - Every tape deck manufacturer (with the exeception of
JVC - who doesn't use Dolby) uses Dolby B on their decks and therefore has
(or should have) a license from Dolby Labs, and it is probably fairly simple
(as legal things go) to expand this license to cover Dolby C. On the other
hand, adding dbx requires another licensing agreement with dbx, inc. (I've
heard that dbx is trying to expedite these licenses in order to bring the
benefits of dbx to more and more people, however).
The bottom line is still performance, and dbx gives far more noise reduction
than either of the Dolby systems. Admittedly, you still need Dolby B to
play pre-recorded tapes, but I can't make a good case for Dolby C - If you
give up the ability to have quasi-listenable tapes for more noise reduction
why stop at Dolby C's 20dB, why not go to dbx's 30 to 50dB?
Incidentally, dbx now makes a reasonably priced (about $150) encoder/decoder
called the NR-40 which can be added as an outboard unit. If your contemplating
a Nakamichi deck, is not that much of an additional burden.
After reading the reviews of the new Revox deck, I think its overpriced.
Its performance doesn't seem to be in the same class as similar priced
Nakamichi machines. I still think Nakamichi is The machine for the high
end of the market.
Bill Mitchell
Bell Laboratories
Whippany, NJ