| 36 year old technology [message #75025] |
Wed, 19 December 2012 19:43  |
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gofar99
Messages: 1947
Registered: May 2010
Location: Southern Arizona
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Illuminati (5th Degree) |
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Hi everyone, Possibly this one should go down in the dungeon, but it does relate to a "source". I had an interesting experience with some "old tech" gear today. I was reorganizing a closet and ran across a whole box of cassette tapes. Roughly 75 of them. One caught my attention and I wanted to hear it. OK,how am I going to do that. Out to the shed and bring in my 36 year old recorder. A high end unit from back then. Harman Kardon HK391. Made back when they were a first rate company. Complete with a hand signed copy of its performance charts. For those unfamiliar with it (likely nearly all of you) it was one of a very few that could deliver excellent performance. Not up to a high end reel to reel, but still a huge way above the average. 30HZ to 22K +/- 1 db at "0" level. All the bells and whistles, Dual capstans, Dolby B, C and HX Pro, LN, Chrome and Metal tape capability and had provisions to fine tune each to the tape you were using. Anyhow, I dusted it off, cleaned the heads and stuck in a tape. Behold it worked fine. I played a few 30-40 year old tapes and they were fairly good. When I made a new one with a chrome tape and dolby c. That is when the surprise occurred. It was really quite good. S/N at least as good as an LP and no audible artifacts (distortion, frequency anomalies and such). All in all a refreshing trip down audio memory lane. 
Good Listening
Bruce
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| Re: 36 year old technology [message #77221 is a reply to message #75025] |
Sat, 20 July 2013 08:48  |
RustyC
Messages: 44
Registered: July 2013
Location: AL
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Baron |
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How incredible. You must not have been neglecting the recorder or the cassettes as much as I have mine, though. If I'd gotten out something 36 years old from a shed, it would not be worth dusting off. We still have a decent collection of cassettes and play them, mostly in one of the cars, but they are on their way downhill. We've not been re-recording, just replacing with digital. I'll probably be sorry some day.
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