What was the best tape head?

Numistrek09

Super Member
Ok, academic question here for you guys; what was probably the best type of head used on tape decks? Better still, how about a list of pros and cons for the various types. (This is just for audio heads, we'll leave video out of this.) I don't know what use this information might serve, but i'm still courious none the less. So guys, who is your choice?
 
Ok, academic question here for you guys; what was probably the best type of head used on tape decks? Better still, how about a list of pros and cons for the various types. (This is just for audio heads, we'll leave video out of this.) I don't know what use this information might serve, but i'm still courious none the less. So guys, who is your choice?

That i would think is a hardcore question - since there are pro's and con's regarding allmost every type of head.

First i guess one has to list the different type ( core material / face materia )
then try to get a grip into the different manufacturer reasons for choosing, and that would be extreemely difficult, because not all gives their reason.

Maybe we can list them, and write what we think is their advantages, and dark sides... list could be quoted, and filled with remarks? but indeed maybe very interresting.

TEAC : Normal
pro : pretty good frequency response
con : wear, not long lasting

SONY: Ferrite/ferrite heads :

Akai : Glass/Xtal ferrite

Revox : Revodur and their butterfly version

Technics : HPF (hot pressed Ferrite)


Just to start with ????
 
Deep gap heads don't change the gap as the head wears. IIRC, Ampex had deep gap heads.

The HPF would take longer to wear but the gap changed as it wore.
 
Amorphous Heads are supposed to wear slower and last longer then older heads. Also they have a clearer treble then some others. Not sure of any cons to them. I know many manufacturers switched to amorphous heads late in tape deck production life around the late 80s and later.
 
The Akai glass heads should last just about forever, and they don't groove like straight ferrite and permalloy can.
 
Akais heads are somewhat over-rated IMO. They do last a long time, but they are not impervious to wear as many think (that was just a marketing claim, not science). Their glass heads form pits in the surface as they wear. And their ferrite poles do chip at the gaps over time as well.

Sonys F&F heads last at least as long as the Akais, and personally I have always been very fond of the way these sounded. Like other ferrites, these had exceptionally extended HF response, but are subject to gap chipping.

Most manufacturers used either Permaloy, or some proprietary variation on permaloy heads. These wear farily quickly, but can be easily resurfaced.

Revox had some special alloy which I think was a just permaloy variation.

Sendust was very popular in cassette decks, and lasted longer and performed better than Permaloy, but was not as hard as Ferrite. I never saw any Sendust heads on R2Rs though.

Nakamichi had some proprietaty crystal permaloy heads which surprisingly seemed to last better than just about anything else on cassette. This was used on thier 3 head machines, but most of their 2 heads decks used sendust heads.

Amorphous heads came towards the end of the game. They had better HF performance than permaloy, but I'm not certain if they wore significantly better than hard-permaloy.

A nunber of manufactures mixed and matched heads over the years and would use Ferrite for either the play or record head, and would use either Permaloy or sendust for the other in an attempt to get the best of both worlds. There was no single best head. All had strengths and weaknesses.
 
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Akais heads are somewhat over-rated IMO. They do last a long time, but they are not impervious to wear as many think (that was just a marketing claim, not science). Their glass heads form pits in the surface as they wear. And their ferrite poles do chip at the gaps over time as well.

Sonys F&F heads last at least as long as the Akais, and personally I have always been very fond of the way these sounded. Like other ferrites, these had exceptionally extended HF response, but are subject to gap chipping.

I agree on all points. :thmbsp:

Nakamichi had some proprietaty crystal permaloy heads which surprisingly seemed to last better than just about anything else on cassette. This was used on thier 3 head machines, but most of their 2 heads decks used sendust heads.

Notable exceptions are Nakamichi 500 Dual-Tracer and Goodmans CD-100 (essentially a repackaged Nak 500) - both have Crystalloy heads. I have both these decks in my collection. Very nice sound and heads like new after 30+ years.

Amorphous heads came towards the end of the game. They had better HF performance than permaloy, but I'm not certain if they wore significantly better than hard-permaloy.

Amorphous heads usually last longer than Sendust heads, and that means much longer than any permalloy. There are some combination heads where the recording head is made from permalloy and the playback head is made from amorphous alloy. Usually when the first is completely worn out the second is in an excellent shape. Heads like these were used in Aiwa XK-S7000, Sony TC-K670 as well as in many other decks.

Alex
 
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I'd say the best was ferrite, best sound by far of those I've ever tried (amazing high end, really low distortion) and also I've never found one that wasn't in great shape. But I've only seen 3 decks with them so far in my entire life so it's not exactly a common thing to find...

my Lo-D (rebadged as Realistic) SCT-3100 3 head deck has ferrite heads.
 
My Akai has the ferrite heads and I have been very under-whelmed by the sound (hence why it's sitting in a shelf in the basement unused), but that is in comparison to my Tandberg and Revox, which may be the electronics.

James R.
 
I have also been very under-whelmed the the Akais (and for that reason sold my 747dbx some time ago). But that may or may not have anything to do with the heads.

Some of the better Sony R2R with the F&F heads sounded superb, and were easily in the same class sonicaly as my B77, and TD20A. And don't forget that the Tandberg TD20A uses a Ferrite playback head, and that the TCD-3014 uses a Ferrite record head.
 
I have also been very under-whelmed the the Akais (and for that reason sold my 747dbx some time ago). But that may or may not have anything to do with the heads.

Some of the better Sony R2R with the F&F heads sounded superb, and were easily in the same class sonicaly as my B77, and TD20A. And don't forget that the Tandberg TD20A uses a Ferrite playback head, and that the TCD-3014 uses a Ferrite record head.

thanks :)... James got me worried there LoL

PS - I don't count Akai's glass heads as typical ferrite heads. the performance isn't nearly the same, and I would imagine the glass coating (assuming that's more or less what it amounts to) is partly responsible for the lack of performance.

It seems there's a trade off between price, reliability and performance. Kind of like everything else in the world eh?
 
FYI - The handful of 3-head Realistic machines with ferrite heads were really just rebadged Hitachis. And FYI - These used the same Ferrite heads as some of the highly saught-after BIC models.

My first decent deck I purchased as a kid was a 3-ferrite headed Realistic SCT-33, if memory serves. The biggest problem with that machine was that the 1-motor transport produced some very audible flutter to my ears.
 
FYI - The handful of 3-head Realistic machines with ferrite heads were really just rebadged Hitachis. And FYI - These used the same Ferrite heads as some of the highly saught-after BIC models.

My first decent deck I purchased as a kid was a 3-ferrite headed Realistic SCT-33, if memory serves. The biggest problem with that machine was that the 1-motor transport produced some very audible flutter to my ears.

yup, for those others who don't know my latest project, that's the Lo-D I'm talking about restoring :) realistic sct-3100 (3 motors, 3 heads, ferrite, 20-21k, dolby b only, 1981 etc etc)
 
yup, for those others who don't know my latest project, that's the Lo-D I'm talking about restoring :) realistic sct-3100 (3 motors, 3 heads, ferrite, 20-21k, dolby b only, 1981 etc etc)
I'd really like to see some pictures of the insides of that machine. I've never heard of a 3-motor realistic before.
 
I'd really like to see some pictures of the insides of that machine. I've never heard of a 3-motor realistic before.

My friend's parents had that SCT 3100 deck. Nice unit. It was probably Radio Shacks best deck ever. I thought someone said Aiwa may of made it, but you mentioned Hitachi- so I don't know. There was also a SCT 3000 I think, which was very similar.
 
I'll take some pics asap. I just am working on it this weekend and am almost done the absolute fundamentals, moving onto the next stage of issues (bad pinch roller on trailing capstan), then it'll be elctronic stuff and fine tuning the mechanics (with do, otherwise, seem to be working perfectly now, in a non-audio sense anyway (haven't even started worrying about audio yet, just functionality first).

it was definitely made by Lo-D - I have a photo of a Lo=D from the same era that is identical other than features.

cheers,
Don
 
and note that R2R don't have the limiting speed factor that cassette decks have, so you won't find the extreme HF limitations from other head types that you do with cassette decks (such as nothing above 16k in some cassette decks with certain head types on certain tape formulations).

They still do make a difference of course, but not as obviously so with R2R (from my own experience anyway, but it's been quite a while since I had R2R so this is all distant memory and common sense backing me up).
 
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