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Dolby Options and Playback

Ronald1973 said:
I'm certainly far from an audiophile, lol, but I've never been a huge fan of Dolby C. IMHO Dolby C muffles the sound too bad to the point of losing crisp highs and just a general lackluster sound. I keep my cassette deck in good working order via cleaning the tape path and demagnetizing, etc. Dolby B on the other hand is a must for me. Any tapes I do automatically get the Dolby B treatment.

I used to think the same thing, about Dolby B or C, until I got and refurbed a Nak RX-505. Dolby C is amazing on a quality NAK. I'm not trying to knock whatever deck you own, but I was used to my high quality Yamaha K960, that I owned since new in the early 80's (so, of course, I knew that Dolby sucked), but now it is clear that it doesn't hold a candle to my 505's. It REALLY makes a huge, huge, difference what tape deck you use. Most pre-recorded tapes played on my Naks sound superb, with Dolby B decoding. The ones that state Dolby HX and B NR, (most of the latter high quality pre-recorded tapes) sound better than many CDs I have, have almost as good S/N for background noise, and the highs are crystal clear. I recently got a hold of a Yamaha K-1020, and it rivals the Naks. I just love finding little used tapes for $.85 at the GW, and listening to a new album, in new condition for pennies!!!
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So far, I've found that leaving the Dolby "off" sounds better most of the time, especially on bass heavy music. Sometimes, Dolby B makes no difference when I'm listening to a song but between songs, I don't hear any hiss if I select Dolby B.

I've found that some pre-recorded cassette tapes sound just as good as cds, and others don't sound as good. I buy all my pre-recorded tapes used but in excellent cosmetic condition so even if the tape looks new, it might have been listened to a lot.


Are pre-recorded tapes recorded using high bias? If I copy a CD to a blank TDK SAX or Maxell XLII high bias tape, will I get better fidelity than the factory cassette that I'm currently using? Will it sound better in my walkman or the car than the factory tape?
 
The Teac AN-150 was Dolby B only. Dolby wouldn't license Dolby A to any consumer or semi-pro deck due to mechanical/electrical reasons. Dolby A was optimized for 15/30 IPS use on decks like 3M, Ampex, Studer, etc. Dolph, any Dolby cassette tape with Dolby was mastered to Dolby B standards. If the master was Dolby A it was decoded on the master reproduce machine.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
The Teac AN-150 was Dolby B only. Dolby wouldn't license Dolby A to any consumer or semi-pro deck due to mechanical/electrical reasons. Dolby A was optimized for 15/30 IPS use on decks like 3M, Ampex, Studer, etc. Dolph, any Dolby cassette tape with Dolby was mastered to Dolby B standards. If the master was Dolby A it was decoded on the master reproduce machine.
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Thanks!!! I had HEARD of Dolby A but never knew exactly what it was used on.:banana:
 
Dolby B and C always left me wanting more - it was probably the deck I was using. I would love to experiment with Dolby S and hear how good it sounds.

Not to steer away from Dolby, but if you want to hear the potential of cassettes, make a recording with dbx instead of Dolby. You may be surprised - I was. From now on, I'll only use dbx when recording. Now if I could just locate a few more good decks with dbx to have on hand for the future. Playing back a tape recorded with dbx on a non dbx deck is painful.

Rob
 
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