rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (09/12/84)
*************** What is this Hi-Fi? in the 50's an 60's it meant NOT STEREO. My VHS recorder is stereo with dolby, and I've had it for 2 years. So what's this Hi-Fi? Are they re-using this old term and giving it another meaning? The best I can guess, is it must mean extended frequency response. If so, what is it extended to? (what was it extended from? ) *************** Old term, new meaning thanks to Sony's marketing department. It means extended performance in every sense compared to previous (mono or stereo) video sound. Frequency response is extended past 20 khz. More importantly, Signal to noise ratio is increased from around 40 db to 80 db. No more hiss. Distortion is reduced to .00zilch. Wow and flutter become unmeasurably low on most test equipment. Sound on many movies now sounds better than most theaters if you use even middle fi speakers and amps (I use 20 year old Harman Kardon tube amp and AR-4 (cheapie) speakers; results superb). System is radically different. Following explanation applies to both Beta Hi-Fi and VHS Hi-Fi: Video tape moves thru VCR at slow speed - slower than audio cassettes. Original VCR sound was recorded linearly along tape as in audio cassettes. Because tape moves so slowly, fidelity is worse than with audio cassette (both S/N and freq. response). Meanwhile video signal is recorded on slow moving tape by swiftly rotating heads which record "slant-wise" on the tape at a high effective speed. Hi-Fi moves the sound from its previous position and mixes it with the video signal where it is recorded on the high speed portion of the track. Beta records FM signal. VHS records... something that gets around Beta patents. Result is actually better sound than can be obtained in open reel tape recorder (without,say,dbx). Almost as good as "digital" tape recording or CD's. Tape cost is lower than audio cassette and results are far better. Hence, may well be the end of the audio cassette industry (5+ hours on one tape with better quality) Only advantage of audio cassette is smaller size. Dick Grantges hound!rfg happy owner of Beta Hi-Fi