VCR For Audio

[Theophilus Punoval]

Someone told me that VCR tapes were excellent for sound. His argument is that because the tape has a lot of room for audio and is moving quickly over the heads it provides great fidelity.

Does anyone have any knowledge about this?

 

[century tek]

It's not the size of the tape because the audio portion only takes up a small portion of the tape but it would be the fidelity of the VCR itself and whatever speed you are using for recording.

My VCR has 3 different recording speeds SP, LP, and EP, but if you want the best fidelity, use the fast (SP) speed.

I own an NEC 4 head hi fi VCR which states in the instructions that it can be used for hi fidelity music playback but this is only because it is a hi fi stereo VCR. Most of the later VCR's were hi fidelity stereo units. Heck I still own a mono VCR which only has one audio input and output. Not very good for hi fi but it does have an excellent picture for being only 2 head.

Take a look at the audio track!

 

[Condorsat]

Back in the day ... some audio magazines were recommending using VHS Hi Fi in place of Reel to Reel.

Had a friend I use to work with in 84 who did that ... sounded good as I recall.

 

[loopstick]

I used one to background record an Eighties audio channel on satellite TV then record songs off the VCR tape onto cassette tapes for my car. The VCR audio sounded very clean.

 

[House de Kris]

I've made hundreds of VHS Hi-Fi tapes for audio use. Sounds pretty good at first glance. The more you listen, the more annoying it is. Head switching is the real issue. Complex music hides the switching artifacts, while simplistic music allows it to be heard more easily. These days, there are lots of better ways to record audio. It's better than cassette, that's about all that can be said for it.

century tek's picture is for a non-Hi-Fi machine. Hi-Fi machines do use the whole width, and the effective tape speed is quite fast.

 

[restorer-john]

I got into HiFi VHS recording in the late 80s when I couldn't wait for DAT to come along. On paper, specs were impressive and the AFM system promised a lot. I splashed out on the best machine I could for audio after trying them all- a Mitsubishi E70 SVHS deck. $1899AU. Beautiful piece of gear, defeatable AGC, individual sliders, peak hold LEDs etc. Yes, I bought a top of the line SVHS machine for audio only...

Bought heaps of TDK SVHS pro tapes and recorded many 3 hour plus compilations straight from CD (super mixtapes!).

Like House De Kris said, the harder you listen, especially with low level detail, the switching noise becomes a deal breaker. Great for high quality background music tapes, but who does that anymore? I still have a pile of unopened SVHS TDK Pro tapes in their black cases.

Sadly, anything tape based is dead, we can do it better, cheaper and more user friendly on HDD, flash memory now.

 

[cademan]

Hi-Fi machines do use the whole width

Then where is the video information put?

 

[lini]

cm: Basically the hifi audio signal was modulated deeper into the tape and the video signal above that.


HdK, John: Indeed. I had six VHS/SVHS hifi recorders over the years (1x Philips, 1x Goldstar, 2x Grundig and 2x Panasonic (still have the latter two, an NV-HS900 and an NV-HD660)), but none of these was really free of that bloody, more or less faint head-switching noise. For my taste a rather annoying noise, so for pure audio I would actually rate (S)VHS hifi lower than CC with Dolby C.


Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[KentTeffeteller]

I rank VCR audio below cassette. And Dolby C is my least favorite NR, I prefer B on cassettes or S when available when I need NR. I prefer not using it as a rule. I prefer open reel to cassettes,, half track, 7 1/2 IPS if you please for most general recording.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

VHS is a video medium, not an audio medium. And you can't defeat the mandatory companders used for VHS HiFi. And sometimes they're audible.

 

[mfrench]

Some deadheads used to do this before DAT. A friend had tons of dead shows on (superhifi) vhs and they did sound better than cassette (admittedly an apples/oranges comparison as I wasn't paying attention to the history/generation of each tape).

That would be me, at least thats what I did. I'd run DAT masters to VHS HiFi for listening. DAT tapes and machines were expensive, and the DAT heads quickly wore out, and needed to be replaced fairly often if you used the machines for playback, at least as often as I used them. A DAT head replacement through Tascam was $350, and likely more via Sony or Panasonic.
I found that the VHS HiFi tapes sounded great on the deck that you used to master them. But, on other decks, you had to fiddle around a whole bunch w/ tracking to find the sweet spot, and the playback sound was not as good as with the mastering deck.

 

[EchoWars]

I actually thought the compression/expansion algorithm used in most Hi-Fi VCR's was pretty good, but it's the head switching that relegates the medium to background music status.

 

[twiiii]

Back in the 80's We installed quite a few Sony Sl-1800 professional Beta Hi fi decks for the audio Quality as a music source for Discos, base ball parks, meeting venues, where preprogrammed music was needed for foreground music. Not for full live music levels, but where the music was clearly heard and not to cover background noise, ala, MuzaK. It eliminated the need for for a DJ during Happy hours and before the After dinner crowds showed up. The source was also great for exiting music, allowing the DJ's to pack, up clean up and leave a little early on a slow night. The machines were a lot more popular in Hotels and resort centers in Mexico than in the US. Where in the US R2R, cassettes and later CD changers were popular before Satellite pre-programmed music came along. Beta HI fi was as popular in Mexico. It was a different time. Today there are so many sources of music over the internet, I wonder how the Satellite based services are doing. I have been away from foreground and background music commercially for 14 years. And thats a life time in the advancement of commercial audio. Does anyone remember Tape-a-thon? 7 inch, 10 inch, and 14" reel to reel , 1/2 trk mono, at 2 ips, so it couldn't be played on standard decks. They also had 1/4 trk stereo for a brief time, but again at some other than normal speed. 2 ips worked great for music on hold, elevators and bathrooms. You see the stamp for the Howell Co, Thats where I worked in the 70's. Wonder who posted the literature to the internet?

 

[sreten]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_PCM-501ES_digital_audio_processor

Hi, Uses the video signal of a VCR to store CD standard sound, rgds, sreten.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Yes, remember Tape-A-Thon, they supplied background music for business, also did some broadcast automation (7 1/2 IPS/1/2 track Stereo but with odd cue tones) and also later did a cassette system. We used Tape-A-Thon gear for our SCA feed. And their machines were reliable and well built. And their broadcast machines sounded very good.

 

[AdamAnt316]

I've used a Sony SLO-323 industrial Betamax VTR (linear stereo, not Beta Hi-Fi) as an audio recorder. The audio quality seemed fairly decent, though I didn't thoroughly compare its output to the sources I used to make the recordings. One 'fun' thing I found is that I had to feed a blank video signal into the unit, or it would record only silence. Apparently, these units use the video signal as a sync function, or somesuch.

As far as using videotape for dedicated audio recording goes, I find myself wondering how well this Technics contraption worked. Apparently similar to Sony's two-piece PCM Betamax deck, though more integrated (and far less portable). Sony produced at least one other external PCM unit which could be used with external VCRs (either Betamax or Umatic, though I'm guessing their rival VHS could be made to work as well).
-Adam

 

[JoeESP9]

Having had both VHS HiFi and Beta HiFi decks, IMO Beta HiFi sounded better. It also had a better picture (more lines).