Some of you guys are so very wrong in your judgement.
We have made ABX tests here with some friends.
We also have made coffee & listening sessions.
Every time it turned out the same way.
Equipment in use was:
Speakers: Wilson Sofia & ProAc D25 Response
Power Amps was Audio Research VT-150 & OVC 48 W class A tube amps
Pre amps was Mark Levinson No 380s & Audio Research Ref 3
Wadia 521i, Mark Levinson 512, Audio Research Reference CD3, Pink Triangle CD.....................all CD players in the extreme Top of all CDs.
Recording sources were:
Lyrec Frida PTR-1 and Studer A80 playing original master tapes
Dunlop Systemdek IV modified with ext psu and upgraded motor+outbalanced platter/RB700/Benz L2/Whest .2/ringmat/brick wall mounted shelf/disc of silence feet
And the AnaLog with Helius Omega arm and Lyra Olympos
We also had Ergo2 / Stax Omega2 and AKG K1000 Earspeakers (as they are meant to be the best ever of their kind)
We also had Tandberg TPT 3001A, Magnum Dynalab MD 109 and Day Sequerra Studio1 FM tuners.
Be aware that we had radio broadcasting in old fashioned superior quality from classical and jazz live events from Swedish, Danish and Norwegian Public Service state radio stations with law regulated standard of sound quality.
The test was to hear difference from source to copy on Tandberg TCD 910 / TCD 3014A.
None out of 15 could.
These 15 were invited because most other people in High End HiFi related shops and exhibitions picked these people out as those with best ears and best ability to match gear with synergy.
No Double ended Noise Reduction were used.
(I rarely use double ended NR systems as they tend to degrade SQ like when digitizing analog reference sound.)
We recorded from CD's of high quality.
We also had several CD's with the same music material on LP. All handpicked for great masterings and high quality of sound.
We had some where we all judged that the LP was somewhat better than the CD.
Recording from LP and comparing to CD made tape better than CD.
We also made CDs from mastertapes played on R2R ½-track; 15 ips. CDs downmixed on stand alone DAWs as we (again) judged that downmixed on PC DAW was not as good.
Then we compared these high quality made CDs to cassette recording and found recording better.
Comparison from original FM, R2R, LP, CD, DVD-A were made lots of times and no ability to distinguish source from recording where traced at all.
(edit: We compared whatever high quality CD product we could imaginge, if necessary with other sources as a kind of intermediary or as original analog reference, having better quality than what is possible to buy as well as we used the best CDs we could find from own and friends shelves.
We also downmixed a digital master from 24/192 to redbook format.................as an example of how we tried to compare CD with cassette in any possible way.
No intention to compare R2R to cassette.
No intention to compare LP to cassette.)
TCD 910 will cost from ~ £ 1.000 - > £ 3.000 as used depending on condition.
When on the market.
400 psc of TCD 910 were made.
40 psc of TCD 911 were made.
Main Specs on mine are measured at service:
FR Me 16000 - 25000 Hz +/- 1,5 dB
THD Me < 0,7%
SNR Me 85dB weighted
Erase Ratio > 86dB
W&F 0,04% peak weighted
Crosstalk side A/B > 90dB
Crosstalk tracks > 74dB
Winding time C90 45s (1s pr m pt)
These specs might not be as great as CD but it certainly outperforms any CD.
Just because people have no such experience, they should not be rejecting facts.
Suggesting any conclusions related to something they know zill about is, generaly speaking, somehow a not so good idea.
But most other decks were just mediocre sound quality.
A few came up close to Tandberg TCD 3000 series regarding SQ.
Those were decks like Nakamichi CR7/ZX-9/Dragon
Teac Z-7000
B&O Beocord 9000 (but very fragile build quality)
Happy New Year and Halleluja.
;-)
"dolph"
And what I post came out of someone's ebay listing or such. I just searched a bit more and didn't find anything. We do know though that Dolby C provided 15 db improvement (A-weighted). So subtracting that, we get 60 db which sadly, was the spec for just about every cassette deck out there which is to say, damn noisy. The narrow tape and slow speed does have a price.
