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Hi Fi VCR In Stereo System?

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Northguy

Active Member
Does anybody still use a hi fi vcr in there strictly audio system? Back in the 80's when hi fi vcr's became readily available to consumers I recall all the talk was how they would replace the reel to reel tape deck in your audio system.

I used to use one in my system long ago, but just when I was entertaining as I had made three 120 minute tapes of good assorted songs and could spend more time with guests rather than changing cd's or flipping records.

Don't see hi fi vcr's mentioned very often in threads. Just curious how many of you did use or still use a hi fi vcr in a dedicated audio system?
 
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I remember buying my first (Beta) HiFi VCR in 1984 with that purpose in mind. I don't think I ever recorded audio on it, though. I do recall recording some super bowls with local teams and having the TV audio on the linear track and the local broadcaster from radio on the hifi tracks.
 
Northguy said:
Does anybody still use a hi fi vcr in there strictly audio system? Back in the 80's when hi fi vcr's became readily available to consumers I recall all the talk was how they would replace the reel to reel tape deck in your audio system.
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I still have a couple Hi-Fi VCRs laying around. Back in the day, I remember that you could get excellent audio from them, unlike the linear trackers which were atrocious. Although you can get near CD quality from them, the advent of CDs, CD recording, CD changers and MP3s pretty much rendered them obsolete as far as the convenience of long play time.
 
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I have a 1982 Akai Top-Load VCR and a 1984 Sony Betamax connected through my Sansui rig (as well as a 1987 Pioneer Laserdisc). It's the one room whereby I still have a tube-television as well. Never know when I might want to drop-in an old concert vid.

The VHS is for s**t, really, both sound and video quality... but the Betamax and Laserdisc are both quite good. Matter of fact, the Laserdisc player also plays CD's (Pioneer CDL-1010) and is simply great!

It's fun to look at, and pretty cool for entertaining friends.
 
I owned a VHS HiFi and a Beta HiFi. I preferred the Beta because it had a better picture than VHS. Beta recorded and reproduced more lines than VHS. That means a sharper picture. I always lamented that VHS became dominant even though Beta had a better picture.

I used both for audio recording.

Many TV stations used Betacam recorders for on the scene recordings and broadcasts because of their inherently higher resolution until digital finally took over.

I had a VCR connected to my system starting with my purchase of an early (mono) top load Betamax unit.
 
Betacam is NOT home Beta. Not the same animal at all.

I have about 6 assorted VHS Hi-fi and S-VHS Hi-fi machines, and a lot of stuff on tape that I still like to watch. I've never owned a Beta format machine, or a non-Hi-Fi VHS machine, but I do have two Philips VCR-format machines from the early 1970s which are stereo in linear tracks.

Early 1990s, I bought a Yamaha 7 channel amplifier with Dolby Surround, so use with the surround VHS tapes, but it was such a crappy amplifier that I put it in the store room after about 6 months (where it has been ever since) and went back to 2 channel stereo.
 
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Harman Kardon manufactured a model VCD-1000 VHS HiFi VCR back in the mid '80's that was marketed towards audiophiles. Something about a "discrete audio stage", supposedly meaning no cheap, current limiting ICs to limit dynamics, frequency response, etc. It didn't sell well at all, as it only had two video heads as opposed to the more desirable 4-head offerings of the day. Might be a good audio machine to play with if you can find one, though...

VCD1000-1.jpg


VCD1000-2.jpg
 
Northguy said:
Does anybody still use a hi fi vcr in there strictly audio system? Back in the 80's when hi fi vcr's became readily available to consumers I recall all the talk was how they would replace the reel to reel tape deck in your audio system.

I used to use one in my system long ago, but just when I was entertaining as I had made three 120 minute tapes of good assorted songs and could spend more time with guests rather than changing cd's or flipping records.

Don't see hi fi vcr's mentioned very often in threads. Just curious how many of you did use or still use a hi fi vcr in a dedicated audio system?
Click to expand...

I was in the 'did use' camp years ago. CDs & DVDs were just in it's infancy so to speak and the decks were very expensive, at least to me. My VHS deck died about that time so I replaced it with a top of the line Sony Hi-Fi deck which was one of the last models before they started dumbing them down. I still have it and exercise it occasionally but don't use it. But back then I did use it some for recording music, I thought it sounded great and liked the fact I could put a couple of hours or so of continuous music on it. But then the CD players came out and DVD become more affordable and the machine was retired. Sony made some good equipment back in the early 80s.
 
I had a Akai VS-A77 Hi-Fi Dolby Surround VCR in my stereo system back in the late 80's,up till around 1994 when it developed a fault. I've kept hold of it for nostalgia's sakes as it was an awesome sounding deck that won many awards in Hi-Fi magazines at the time,such as What Hi-Fi.
 
Thinking about it,I just might place the newly acquired JVC HR-S5000EK 4 head S-VHS VCR in a stack,then record some CD's or FM stereo broadcasts onto some hi quality VHS tape... It'd be interesting to hear the results!
 
Only way I liked a VCR for audio was with a PCM adapter. VHS need not apply here. Tracking not robust enough. Had to use a U-Matic or Beta machine. HiFi VCR can sound good, but the mandatory companders used and the tracking on VHS decks made any compatibility between decks a crapshoot. Not archival.
 
Speaking of high quality VHS tape, what is THE brand / type to look for when out an about at estate sales, etc.

I'm very familiar with TOTL cassette tapes, and I've had REALLY good luck acquiring them NOS over the years. I see VHS tape often, but really have no idea what is worth buying. I'd like to add some to the collection. Already have more NOS Betamax tapes than I'll ever use :)

Thanks for the help.

Hello, Kent, good to see you here!
 
KentTeffeteller said:
Only way I liked a VCR for audio was with a PCM adapter. VHS need not apply here.
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Early VHS recorders are much better for mating with PCM adapters;
the trouble comes from "HQ" - a subsequently developed video noise reduction circuit - that gives the PCM decoder rubbish data if there are dropouts. The PCM decoders were designed to cope with video dropout, and do data correction or interpolation. But the HQ circuit stops the dropout from looking like a dropout, and the data returned during the dropout doesn't make sense to the PCM decoder.
 
Northguy said:
Does anybody still use a hi fi vcr in there strictly audio system? Back in the 80's when hi fi vcr's became readily available to consumers I recall all the talk was how they would replace the reel to reel tape deck in your audio system.

I used to use one in my system long ago, but just when I was entertaining as I had made three 120 minute tapes of good assorted songs and could spend more time with guests rather than changing cd's or flipping records.

Don't see hi fi vcr's mentioned very often in threads. Just curious how many of you did use or still use a hi fi vcr in a dedicated audio system?
Click to expand...

I had an NEC hi fi VCR back in the 80's. Used it to record my albums so I also would not have to change albums. My Pioneer back then was manual.
 
Can't imagine why other than for nostalgia's sake one would want to use one for music in this day and age of digital servers. Granted, six hours of non-stop music was grand back in the day, but now we're talking several thousand - with random shuffle!

That said, I did just pick up on a shiny new Toshiba DVR620 VCR to rip all my old tapes to digital. The old JVC was getting pretty strange with green bars and noise - I thought it was the tapes aging poorly, but the playback on the new unit is quite nice. Better yet, it's got HDMI out, so easy hookup and upscales to 1080P for outstanding results. Also has the DVD recorder, so it's one button duplication if I want to go that route. New meets old and all that.
 
Last night I placed the JVC HR-S5000EK S-VHS VCR in the Technics pro stack (there's also a much more common JVC HR-S5000U model that looks similar,but seems to be a down graded model of the HR-S5000EK). Anyway,recorded some BBC Radio 2 FM stereo songs off the Technics ST-9600 tuner... The results were spectacular (and this was using normal,quite old VHS tape).



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Thanks to Toshiba, the helical-head was born in 1959. That one invention probably primed the revitalization of Japan. JVC gave it an awesome voice in 1983 so we could hear dynamics that rival theaters. Audiophiles have been unfairly pummeling it since 1984: you’d think we would learn to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

“Both VHS Hi-Fi and Betamax Hi-Fi delivered flat full-range frequency response (20 Hz to 20 kHz), excellent 70 dB signal-to-noise ratio (in consumer space, second only to the compact disc), dynamic range of 90 dB, and professional audio-grade channel separation (more than 70dB)”

“The sound quality of Hi-Fi VHS stereo is comparable to the quality of CD audio, particularly when recordings were made on high-end or professional VHS machines that have a manual audio recording level control.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS


Vinyl duplication done right: high resolution to high resolution. No expensive and huge hard-drives, no compression, and no digital conversions to get in the way.

I use a Panasonic AG-5210: a duplicating VCR. It is not pretty but its strength is inside. The AG must have a much more precise setup because they are designed to duplicate tape information that must be compatible with any VCR.

The specs for VCRs are impressive.

No wow or flutter

Recording time of 2, 4, or 6 hours

Indexing

Record time

Remote operation

My fancy R2R couldn’t match them so they are retired. With R2R, fancy tape supply is limited. OTOH, I find VCR tapes are easy to find and cheap. The super-speed of the helical heads means any quality tape can be used. The cassettes are sealed from the elements. A 10-minute walk gets me to Rasputin Music. They have an 8-foot tall wall that is 100-feet long holding 50¢ tapes. And the thrift stores have bins of them languishing. I have friends that give me their tapes. Last weekend I picked up 10 new tapes for $1. Supplies are easy to get.

The problems was/is, ‘why don’t persnickety audiophiles use them?’ I never could get straight answers so I kept going.
 
I purchased a hi-fi VCR with the intention of using it for audio duty. In fact, I never did do that except for a couple of test tracks.

The first example was a Marantz deck, and the audio was horrible. Wow 'n' flutter speed variation like crazy. I drove nearly 175 miles to buy it, and I returned it to the seller, another 175 mile trip. (I live in audiophile hell.) The sales girl told me when I returned it that I should have used Monster Cable interconnects to achieve the ultimate in sound quality.

Years later, I learned that the deck I returned probably needed a video signal to synch and lock the speed of tape playback.
 
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