Check out the new Tape Project website at tapeproject.com, now with online ordering. Inventory is updated every week, so stop by often to see what we have in stock.

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - braver

Pages: [1]
1
General Discussion / Re: The SACD vs Tape Challenge
« on: February 17, 2009, 11:04:33 PM »
Bob -- thanks for the info!  It would be a very interesting comparison indeed; and it might show advantages of tape, too, or some features of tape folks prefer to SACD -- and vice versa.  Definitely a few different SACD/tape pairs are best to gauge what the spectrum is.

Cheers,
Alexy Khrabrov

2
General Discussion / Re: The SACD vs Tape Challenge
« on: February 17, 2009, 08:39:42 PM »
DocB -- am correcting this.  I have a genuine interest in the high fidelity audio, and as a scientist I'm always asking the questions about any claims and proposing experiments to solve such questions.  Hopefully something beyond message format can be found to support a constructive discussion!

It would be nice to identify some areas where tape can beat SACD, or differences create substantially different listening experiences, aside from watching reels turn, -- which is definitely a plus for tape, seriously, as it adds to the experience, similarly to LP providing a physical evidence of the music playing.  However purely acoustically, a master tape can be copied to DSD directly, and then comparisons can be made...

Cheers,
Alexy Khrabrov

3
General Discussion / Re: The SACD vs Tape Challenge
« on: February 17, 2009, 04:39:59 PM »
DocB -- true, you guys have the capacity to implement it.  But not many others.  Basically you have the master tapes, and Paul who is an expert in making SACDs.  I missed a tape comparison with SACD if there was one?  I agree that it would be nice to provide a way to set up this challenge so I have something to lose, yet so is the majority in this forum -- in fact, everybody except you guys in charge.  However the comparisons are made all the time, and it's legit to ask for ways to substantiate them...  Obviously it's a hypothesis and you may or may not be able to do it.

SACD effective range is 100KHz.  It beats tape in all technical parameters -- effective frequency is 100KHz, sampling is 1 bit at 3 GHz.  Notice G for Giga -- this is not PCM for discrete A/D, this is what Sony and Philips call "digital analog" for capturing the waveform.  Folks can see more on SACD at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD, or the SACD forum, http://sa-cd.net/.

I personally would appreciate Paul's opinions from his own SACD mastering experiences on whether a DSD recording directly from the master tape realized as SACD can beat the tape copied through 2 generations.

Alexy Khrabrov

4
General Discussion / Re: The SACD vs Tape Challenge
« on: February 17, 2009, 02:15:07 PM »
ceved -- if you read this forum, several threads talk about comparing a tape to an equivalent LP.  Basically, if you only got 8-10 tapes, you've got plenty of time on your hands and might as well do a reality check.  Now I'm a computer scientist and a physicist and am sick and tired of all the nostalgic stuff.  Either an SACD with HDMI 1.2a out and an appropriate modern amp is better than a tape feeding a tube amp, or it is not.  My hunch is, a properly recorded DSD-throughout-SACD beats the living stereo out of your tapes.  However, Paul S. is the SACD guy, so he is in a unique position to either prove or disprove it.  If he really believes it, he'll make it happen; if not, it means this analog enterprise is just a business model geared to high-spending audiophiles, right there with $1000 cables and other gold-plated stuff.  I believe digital HDMI supercedes any gold-plated cables, IMHO; and the challenge is stated as clear as ever possible -- the very best possible analog vs. the very best digital.  Take it or leave it -- but then we get a default judgement.

Alexy Khrabrov

5
General Discussion / The SACD vs Tape Challenge
« on: February 17, 2009, 12:08:59 AM »
Well the good folks at the QuadraphonicQuuad reminded that Paul S. is one of the top SACD mixing engineers.  Hence I believe we finally can solve the "analog vs digital" once and for all.

Mix stereo SACD from a master tape -- directly to DSD -- and compare to a Tape Project tape.  Do it in a double-blind panel setup.  The equipment has to be the same -- it's not fully possible, but for just stereo output can hopefully be approximated with the same amp.

Alexy Khrabrov

6
ironbut -- thanks much for explaining!  So the bottom line seems that using 1/2 mode of a Technics/Otari should be better than just using a purely quarter-track tape machine such as an Akai, correct?

Cheers,
Alexy

7
General Discussion / Tapeflix?
« on: February 09, 2009, 08:53:32 PM »
Being a graduate student and a technogeek, I can only regret liking tape recorders -- it seems an expensive way for well-off retirees to have fun outbidding each other on ebay. :)  Clearly the $200/300/a tape setup is not in my range at this point.

It got me thinking on setting up a rental service a la Netflix.  How about you TP guys make some extra copies, and rent them out by mail, with a deposit?  I can see tapeflix in the making!

NB.  Consider this a copyrighted idea, I've staked the tapeflix.com domain just in case -- but would trade for a few tapes!  :)

Cheers,
Alexy

8
ironbut, steveidosound -- thanks for the info!  I can read the tracks allright, it's just seems that the pauses are different sometimes.  The tape seems to go absolutely straight through the Akai -- I got it from an audiophile single owner, it's very well preserved.

I thought that 1/2-1/4 capability means separate heads for separate number of tracks.  What about the width of the tracks on the mono systems?  Intuitively they can be wider and would benefit from the 1/2 wide heads.  Looks like ideally I'd get a mono deck, but I loath to get some old crap with worn out heads while I have a later GX heads, yet narrower.  That's why I was so curious about the dual width capability of the Technics/Otari.  Does anything move vertically when you switch 1/2 vs 1/4?  Because if it's only the matter of picking the active tracjs, my quadro will get all there is out of a tape, compared to any other 4-track heads which is switched to only 2 active for mono.

9
General Discussion / Boston area/NH members?
« on: February 09, 2009, 07:43:08 PM »
Greetings -- I'm in Hanover, NH, and wonder if there're members in Boston or even closer who can share experiences/help with restoring machines, etc.?

Cheers,
Alexy

10
Tape Project Machines / Re: "TP to move away from Technics decks"
« on: February 09, 2009, 06:19:44 PM »
I'd like to know the answer, too -- especially given the Big Red sale above.

11
I see that Teac X-2000M fits; can an -R be adapted though?  Apparently it's 4-track machine, a usual stereo one; does it have half-track-capable heads?

Cheers,
Alexy

12
I have old family reels, recorded on the first Soviet consumer high-quality machine, Astra-2.  (The qualifiers are from its manual.)  It's a half-track mono machine, two tracks, you turn the reel over to listen to the other side, as usual.  Being a quadrophonic fan, I got an Akai GX630D-SS, and discovered that listening to my family tapes is a stochastic experience.  The quadro mode helps very much to get all contents, but not very reliably.  Usually, I get the original forward side from quadro track 2, or backward from track 3.  In both cases I feed the RCA outputs to Edirol UA-1EX and record on a Mac with Audacity at 96 KHz, and the backward one can be time-reversed and listened to with the same quality.

What I notice is, I pick up different amount of cross talk each time I play the tape -- as if the quarter-track heads wobble between and around the half-track recording's actual tracks.  The original voice recordings had many usual real-life pauses and shifts in the recording level, so I'm not sure whether the gaps and sudden level drops are original or caused by the 2/4 tracks mismatch.

In any case, when researching the issue, and googling for something like "reading mono tapes on a stereo reel to reel tape machine," I've stumbled upon this amazing project.  Kudos to all!  If I get a Technics 1500, will it read properly the mono tracks I have?  Remember I get the signal from track 2, so apparently it's the upper half of the tape being the forward side -- does it match the Technics layout?

Also, with all due respect, quadrophonic surround beats any type of stereo quality; being a long-term SACD fan, I can hardly imagine a stereo tape beating the immersive experience.  I noticed the nuance such as the sound of fingers plucking strings first thing listening to jazz.  In order to achieve a true quality comparison, I suggest the guys in charge issue SACDs accompanying the tapes, so that we can really compare sound, not nostalgic biases/hindsighted justifications of expense.  SACDs are not copyable still, so adding them to a license wouldn't be too hard, IMHO.  Why not produce the original masters in multitrack on quadrophonic tape?  I'd be really curious to compare the quality obtainable from a Technics to that of a quadrophonic Akai.

Cheers,
Alexy

Pages: [1]