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VHS Hi-Fi Quality Example, here is how it sounds

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electronicle

New Member
I recently posted this over on Tapeheads as well. I created this video just so there was an example out there of what VHS HiFi Sounds like. So many videos on youtube about it are great but never give any examples. Mine isn't the greatest video, but it gives a bit of a taste of what to expect.
 
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Seems like many years ago, I read articles in hifi mags on this... there were audio folks talking about the merits of using VHS for high quality recording and playback....

Friend of mine gave me a Sony DAT deck / tapes that I have yet to experiment with. Nice vid, thanks for sharing with us :)
 
Back in the early 90's I had an NEC hifi vcr that incorporated dbx noise reduction built in. I made a sample recording (SP), for giggles, just see how well it stacked up to the CD player I recorded from and a Pioneer RT-909 RtR deck. As I switched between them during playback I could not detect any obvious sound difference between them. Bonus was the NEC allowed me up to 4 hours (LP) of recording time with no noticeable sound degradation and just as much dynamic range as the RtR all in an enclosed case. The most quality recording time I could get out of 909 was 3 hours using auto-reverse, and at times tape noise could be heard unless and external dbx encode/decode noise unit was used.
At 6 hour (EP) recording time is when some things became a tad noticeable, but for 6 hours of background music in the 90's...:bigok:
 
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I had a JVC 9000 S-VHS high fidelity machine. It was supposed to be the best of the best at the time. But I found my Sony SL 1800 Beta HiFi machine to give better results. I will say both out performed my Revox B-77 unless I used it with a DBX 157 decilinear professional noise reduction system. But the video machines both had less wow and flutter.
 
Cool video, HiFi VHS is an area I never got into, I got close to pulling the trigger on the early Sony Beta PCM F1 but they've always been expensive. It's one of the few I'd go for since looks is part of the purchasing decision and it would look killer in my industrial audio rack.

I do have a Sony SLV R1000 (I think it's this model) I should mess around with, just need to move a few things.

Back when I was a young audio tech, I was logging data for VHS cleaning tapes, that might be the biggest issue, VHS/Beta shreds like crazy. It might be fine for everyday playing but I wouldn't archive with it.

There is some rumblings that the tape media might be coming back, they've found ways to massively increase it's storage and it's survived much longer than expected, who knows we all might be using Walkmans again.
 
Back in the middle 70's we would install Revox A77's with Dolby in discotecs to play music during happy hours before the dancing started with the DJ's mixing music. But when Beta HiFi came along we switched to Sony professional SL 1800's VCR's 10.5 inch reel tapes were expensive and untrained folks didn't keep the Revoxes clean and were damaging the tapes. The Sonys were a no fuss machine. Put the cartridge in a push the play button. 3600 ft tape which had to be flipped at 3 and 3/4 ips gave up 192 minutes. The Sony 830 video tapes gave us almost as much with no muss no fuss. I owned a Sl 1800 and a JVC 9000 and they both made excellent party tapes. Of course today I use music on my Apple computer to make play lists for when friends are over. Easy peezy. I also play nusic for my pets some times when I am gone for a day.
 
electronicle said:
I recently posted this over on Tapeheads as well. I created this video just so there was an example out there of what VHS HiFi Sounds like. So many videos on youtube about it are great but never give any examples. Mine isn't the greatest video, but it gives a bit of a taste of what to expect.
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I tried it back in the day and was hopeful, but was never impressed with the sound.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
And the dbx like compander which is used to conceal head switching noise is not defeatable. And audibly sometimes pumps and breathes. And compatibility between machines sans picture debatable.
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Yeah, I was being polite, tbh. I played with it for a week in different iterations and found none of them worth listening to. Cueing was awkward as well, there were far, far better options for recording at the time.
 
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