• cassette conversion

    From rdelaney2001@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jun 1 15:48:47 2018
    A question probably asked a thousand times -

    I have a box of old cassettes in the attic (like a
    million other blokes). Rather than consigning them
    to the dust bin, I'd convert them to MP3 files. Anybody
    have suggestions for a converter?

    I could buy one blind, from Amazon or Best Buy, but
    I wonder if there are differences in quality, among
    competing models.

    I plan to do one tape per day. It should require minimal
    baby sitting - just start it, then let it run to completion,
    and switch off, on its own.

    PS Some of the tapes are metal, some CrO2, some plain
    vanilla (whatever that means). And differing cutoff filters.
    So that's a complication. As I recall, there were players which could recognize these various types. How did they do that?


    --
    Rich

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  • From Dave Platt@21:1/5 to rdelaney2001@gmail.com on Fri Jun 1 22:28:12 2018
    In article <27a75074-a71e-44ab-9683-ee15ce3e4042@googlegroups.com>,
    <rdelaney2001@gmail.com> wrote:

    I have a box of old cassettes in the attic (like a
    million other blokes). Rather than consigning them
    to the dust bin, I'd convert them to MP3 files. Anybody
    have suggestions for a converter?

    I could buy one blind, from Amazon or Best Buy, but
    I wonder if there are differences in quality, among
    competing models.

    Rather than buy a whole dedicated "cassette to digital" converter, I'd seriously consider sticking with separates. Find yourself a decent
    used cassette deck - there are plenty around - and hook it up to a
    basic USB "sound card" (dongle, really). Buy a USB sound dongle that
    has a line-level input.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-6-Channel-5-1-External-Optical-Audio-Sound-Card-Adapter-Laptop-Notebook-PC/401524542860?epid=1400167209&hash=item5d7cba4d8c:g:CQIAAOSwFFtaw-mi

    is one that ought to work out fine. There are many more, both more
    and less expensive.

    My guess is that even a middle-of-the-line cassette deck from decades
    past, if in good condition, is likely to outperform the dedicated
    "cassette to USB/MP3" decks on the market today. You'd need to check
    its condition before buying, of course (failed belts or rollers would
    probably be the commonest fault) but if you check local flea markets
    and hamfests and Craigslist you can probably chase down a good one for
    a good price.

    PS Some of the tapes are metal, some CrO2, some plain
    vanilla (whatever that means). And differing cutoff filters.
    So that's a complication. As I recall, there were players which could >recognize these various types. How did they do that?

    As others have noted, there are extra notches cut in the back of the
    cassette, which can be sensed by switches in the cassette deck. Te
    different media formulations varied in both the frequency
    emphasis/de-emphasis, and in the amount of bias signal that was mixed
    into the audio signal before it was fed to the record head (IIRC,
    standard ferric used the least bias, CrO2 and "ferrichrome" used more,
    and metal-particle required the most bias).

    Most commonly, "standard" or "ferric" tapes use 120 uS equalization,
    and the others used 70 uS. However, even this wasn't completely
    fixed... some commercial tapes were recorded using a chrome or
    ferrichrome medium, but used 120 uS equalization so they could be
    played back properly even on low-end cassette players that weren't "chrome-aware".

    Some cassette decks skip the "auto-detection" feature, and let/require
    you to set the bias (for recording) and equalization (for recording
    and playback) manually.

    Be aware that many cassettes, stored in an attic for years, may not be
    in great condition for playback. Lubricants in the tape may have
    dried out with age, humidity might have led to mold growth, binder
    failure could cause the oxide to come off the tape, and dried-out
    adhesive could cause the leaders at either end to separate from the
    tape when you rewind or fast-forward. I have no doubt there's a lot
    of lore out on the Internet about how to restore a failing cassette
    tape to playability... whether it's worth the effort will depend on
    the material.

    Commercial pre-recorded cassette tapes were usually mass-produced
    using a thermal "printing" process which didn't result in terribly
    high fidelity... even if the tape is still in great condition and
    fully playable, it won't sound great by today's standards.

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  • From Trevor@21:1/5 to Dave Platt on Sat Jun 2 16:00:24 2018
    On 2/06/2018 3:28 PM, Dave Platt wrote:
    Commercial pre-recorded cassette tapes were usually mass-produced
    using a thermal "printing" process which didn't result in terribly
    high fidelity... even if the tape is still in great condition and
    fully playable, it won't sound great by today's standards.

    Hell *NO* cassette sounds "great by today's standards"! Only ones that approached HiFi were recorded on, and played back on one of the better Nakamichi's. Anything else is just not worth the effort now.

    Trevor.

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