Hi, I'm a big fan of microcassettes. However, I've been left quite disappointed by the sound quality they offer. Even on metal microcassettes, the sound gets transformed quite weirdly. A lot of the "life" of music is lost, it sounds muted. Using Dolby HX Pro makes it even worse - the highs get even more cut off and the whole thing starts to sound too warm and bassy. In fact, when using my Sanyo RD-XM1, personally, I think ferric microcassettes sound better, despite more noise. So I decided to do a little experiment - I had some DATs laying around that I found on a flea market. I transplanted the tape from one of them into a microcassette shell. The result was very good. Noise remained the same as on a metal microcassette, but the highs were much more present and overall, whatever music I tried to record sounded just like the source, only with added noise. And all of this with Dolby HX enabled too, so the noise wasn't that big of a deal. I could erase and overwrite the tape without any issues. There was only one downside - the tape can't handle more than +3dB without distortion, while my Olympus XH60 can go up to 8 no problem. So, just leaving this out here, if anyone's interested in this stupid "hi-fi" format just as much as me, try doing this. I can really recommend it.
Interesting. I guess DAT was one of the last tape formats introduced and was really aimed at professional users, so they would have specified the latest and greatest tape formula. I still keep wondering about the idea of using quality Video Tape in Cassettes but have no idea how you would slice it down. There are usually more listings for new SVHS cassettes than used ones on Ebay.
Splicing down video tape is not a feasible idea, in my opinion. Also, I don't think using analog video tape would yield any better results than using a good quality metal tape. They were similar in formulation. Video tape was either metal particle or evaporated metal particle tape. Using digital video tape might be different, but I'm not sure if that's any different from a DAT tape.. after all, DATs were also used to capture digital still frames of video, which could mean their formulation is close to stuff like Digital8.
Yeah I was about to ask if the tape inside DV cassettes and DAT isn't pretty much the same or at least a very similar formula. Would be interesting to know what kind of sound that would result in, DV tapes are easier to get a hold of than DAT with proper thickness these days (at least I could still purchase DV in some normal stores and not just online), you can still get some of the "better suited" DDS online at least. Should I ever get a microcassette player I'll definitely look into all of this myself. Thanks for posting about your experiment!
I think most tape was split before spooled in it's final form. I picture a u-channel with two razor blades coming up and a roller right before the blades holding the tape down before it's split, easy-peasy....
Yes there are pictures in the Tape Recorder review magazine you posted recently. Of course most things are easy if you are prepared to design and make a machine to do it. As an apprentice the bloke I was working for and myself once spent an entire day working out how to rewind a Teasmaid clock motor. The key thing with doing that was a small brake putting tension on the spool of wire.
I never saw tape being split but I did build some pretty cool jigs to help with the assembly process for 8mm cartridges. I used a little JET Mill-Drill, tons of aluminum, UHMW, socket cap screws and the builder's bible, McMaster-Carr. I'm more of a designer than builder but I can see it being done. My biggest concern would be the tape width not staying consistant. This could be a fun winter project, we still have boatloads of 8mm tape around town but you'd only be trimming that to size. DAT is non-existant, I'd love to find that for my one player, VHS is the only real solution but the question is if there's any benefit. If you haven't seen this catalog, you'll be amazed, it's on every factory's shelf over here. https://www.mcmaster.com/
The article on tape manufacture goes on about the importance of getting the width right. The reason I keep thinking of VHS is that I have been selling a load and are typically getting about 30p a tape in bulk for quality brands like TDK and even BASF chrome. I'm sure you could make lots of Compact Cassettes from one VHS tape.
hi Quaz, Do you have a tutorial for this transfer ??? Does is work with normal-size metal cassettes to microcassettes ?
