Respectfully, I invite you for a little walk down the history of CrO2 tape. CrO2 was originally developed for use at the standard 120 uSec EQ. CrO2 tape, originally marketed as "Crolyn", was developed by DuPont chemists and engineers around 1969-70. It was designed not simply to be a quieter tape formulation in terms of measured S/N ratio, but to provide a subtle but often discernible improvement in the clarity and transparency of sound. Later, engineers discovered that CrO2's lower noise floor could be made even lower by deploying the 70 uSec EQ curve. Since new cassette deck heads and electronics had to be developed to provide the higher bias level needed for recording on CrO2, deck manufacturers offered not only the CrO2 bias capability but a CHOICE between recording and playback EQ on either 120 uSec or 70 uSec settings. On a properly functioning deck, CrO2 tape could be successfully and brilliantly recorded using EITHER the 120 uSec or 70 uSec equalization curves, though some bias tweaking might be needed if using the 120 uSec EQ given some decks' bias settings. Nearly all 1970s-era tape decks bore TWO tape selection switches: one for tape type ("normal", "CrO2" and in some cases "FeCr" for ferrichrome), another for EQ (120 uSec or 70 uSec, although labeled often as "normal" and "chrome"). So since inception in 1971 CrO2 tapes could be recorded using either 120 uSec or 70 uSec EQ. To illustrate this, Nakamichi decks consistently offered separate tape-type and record/playback EQ switches so that the recordist could make this choice on their own. (On my Nakamichi 480, tape type is between EX, SX and ZX, while EQ is between 120 uSec and 70 uSec). As for why CrO2 tape was an advancement for sound quality when introduced in 1971, the original 1960s ferric oxide tape formulations were what I'd call "Type 0.5" today. 1960s ferric cassettes exhibit EQ and sensitivity characteristics much lower than the higher-performance "Type I" tapes of the late '70s. If you have a deck with computer bias/EQ calibration or manual bias/EQ calibration, you'll see just how different the settings are for 1960s "Type 0.5" tapes compared with the good-quality Type I tapes from the late '70s into the '80s (Maxell UD) , much less "superferric" tapes like TDK AR. 1960s ferric tapes not only had a higher noise floor, less retentivity of high-frequency information, less-refined cassette shells and mechanisms, and less dynamic range. The tape formulations simply don't reproduce fine detail all that well. If you listen closely, you may hear a "fuzziness" when there's a bold attack on a piano chord, or applause from the live audience, or rapid picking in a guitar performance. That "fuzziness" lingers for a few microseconds, kind of like the aftertaste you might associate from eating a frozen pizza -- sometimes it's very minor, other times it's pretty noticeable and not pleasant. CrO2 was a huge leap forward in terms of producing fine detail, such as the sound of bells, piano, harps and other crisp musical transients. CrO2 tape's introduction raised the bar for improved tape formulations and manufacturing quality. Not only were numerous competing "chrome equivalent" Type II tapes developed, but huge improvements in the quality of Type I ferric tapes occurred. There was also the short-lived high-quality Type III ferrichrome formulation, which floundered in the marketplace given the introduction of Type IV metal tape and improved Type II formulations. Final thought: by the early 1980s, high-speed duplication equipment and techniques had been improved, and record companies really wanted to overcome the negative consumer experience many listeners had with lackluster-sounding pre-recorded cassettes. The use of CrO2 tape stock, along with improved duplication equipment and techniques, ultimately was an attempt to reduce "piracy" by consumers who bought high-quality blank cassettes from BASF, TDK, Maxell and Sony to record new LPs which were shared by their friends and neighbors. The CrO2 pre-recorded tapes were not a scam, they usually sounded not only a bit quieter but fundamentally cleaner and clearer. The use of 120 uSec EQ was not misleading, the consumer obtained a better product and it's particularly obvious with classical music recordings that have high dynamic range and a lot of transient sounds.
@@TechStuff1 If you don't have any first-generation 1960s "Type 0.5" ferric oxide blank audio cassettes in your collection, the Onn brand two-pack C-90 tapes sold at Walmart are pretty similar. Some people would even disparage the Walmart Onn cassettes as "Type 0", (a/k/a junk) but in any event, if you have Computer Bias/EQ calibration or manual fine-tuneable bias/EQ, you can extract decent frequency range from Onn tapes. However, the "fuzzing" effect on transient sounds, constricted dynamic range, inconsistency throughout playback and indifferent shell/mechanism quality closely resemble a 1960s "Type 0.5". Let's face it, in the early days you were dealing with a brand-new format, nobody knew if it would survive commercially, and there was an awful lot for the industry to learn. Thanks.
This. Also, I think that another reason why pre-recorded chrome tapes were recorded with 120 uSec EQ because not all consumers had decks/portables that supported 70 uSec. Anyway, the formulation of chrome tapes inherently has less noise, so they did sound better even when recorded at 120 uSec EQ :)
@@ARandomOven Exactly. And the lack of 70 uSec playback was especially prevalent on car stereos, even throughout most of the 80s, and a lot of people listened to cassettes primarily in their cars, including me. At home I mostly used records.
@@peacearchwa5103 I have a few ONN cassettes. Strangely enough, they actually sound best when I use them to transfer 1960s rock 45 rpm singles onto a basic two-head Technics cassette deck from the early 1980s. Kind of like how my dad did so in the 1970s with typical budget (Yashima, Contek Audiogold, Woolworths) cassettes of the time. They were great for that purpose. Musical but not great for dynamics. I made the mistake once of using one to dub an album of Wagner's overtures. Did not sound good at all.
A rather inaccurate video, in many ways - firstly you seem to be confusing dynamic range with frequency range - dynamic range is the loudest signal that can be recorded within a certain level of distortion minus the noise floor. Frequency range is simply the lowest to the highest frequency that can be reproduced. Also, the reason pre-recorded Chrome tapes were usually recorded with 120uS EQ is that most tapedecks, even back in the day, did not have a switch, manual or automatic, for 70uS EQ. There is another level that comes into play, the bias level, low for type one and high for type II and IV - but this is only when recording - the pre-recorded Chrome tapes will have had 120uS EQ but high bias level when they were recorded. At the moment there are no Chrome or Metal tapes in production - the only ones available new are using old stock reels of tape - new pre-recorded tapes are invariably type 1 and also lack Dolby noise reduction - the reason being that Dolby noise reduction is no longer licensed for use on new tape decks. When playing a 120uS recorded cassette using 70uS EQ, the only difference you will hear is slightly less treble - in this case less treble than was intended as 70uS recording EQ would have boosted treble to match the increased dynamic range of Chrome or Metal tapes at high frequency.
Thanks for the feedback! I do try and make these videos as accurate as possible but it sounds like I need to make a follow-up to right my wrongs on this one.
@@TechStuff1He is absolutely correct. Those tabs make all the difference in the world when recording but have little to nothing to do with playback....as you yourself discovered. Also, the tapes were never recorded onto in those shells...they were done in duplication machines in very large spools then split. This is why you hear tones at the beginning and/or end of some tapes....it told the machine to make the splice. These machines couldn't care less about the shell ... all if this came way before the reel was put in the shell...
Inaccurate comment with the missbelief of "Dolby does not licenses anymore" Dolby was no more used since early nineties, since 1992 cassettes started to leave Dolby and only use the record EQ: HX dolby, by 1994, none of them. Why? Because the recording was no more analog to analog. Masters started to be digital, they don't needed a noise reductor, recordings were made directly at high speed. With this new technology it's Useless (and even stupid) to have an inverse special master for tapes to apply later a noise reductor. Dolby simply abandoned the yet pointless noise reduction systems.
Many Type II recordable blank cassettes weren't actually chrome at all. The Japanese manufacturers generally used cobalt-doped ferric for their Type II formulations. That includes Maxell, TDK, and Sony, the three biggest sellers in the USA. True chromium dioxide was generally utilized by European manufacturers such as BASF, which were less available in the USA. The Japanese Type IIs were obviously very high quality in the main, and gave very good frequency response, dynamic range, and playback levels. A good indication that a Type II was actually chrome was they would often have a bluish color to the tape and a smell of crayons to them.
I'm glad you mentioned this, and it kinda adds to my point that tape manufacturers were quite cavalier in their marketing claims. We didn't have the internet back then to verify any of this, so most consumers were none-the-wiser.
Correct. Initially, Sony and TDK offered true chromium dioxide blank cassettes for sale (based on the Dupont Crolyn technology) recording cassettes based on the Dupont Crolyn formulation. However, after a very brief period of time, royalty payments and other T&Cs motivated Japanese companies to develop their own "chrome-equivalent" high-bias tapes. For example, TDK KR was replaced by TDK SA, based on "Super Avilyn" formulation techniques. Agfa, BASF, Scotch 3M, Realistic (Radio Shack) and Philips remained dedicated to the CrO2 tape formulations for quite some time, improving CrO2's performance to remain competitive with the ever-improving Japanese chrome-equivalent tapes. Here's an excellent related article: tapetardis.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/the-type-ii-chrome-bias-audio-cassette/
Yes, and you could notice the difference in chrome and cobalt-doped ferric tapes since a true chrome tape could not be recorded at as high a level without distortion plus most tape decks were setup for cobalt-doped ferric on the Type II setting. Using chrome tapes on such a deck would cause a noticeable loss of level on playback compared to recording that would not happen with a cobalt-doped ferric.
@@3Cr15w311 I noticed it. CrO2 never sounded too good to me. Instead, those chrome equivalents were the bomb: crisp, highly detailed, very low noisefloor and dynamic, even if I recorded them "on the reds".
Some Cro2 crome tapes were prerecorded to play back at normal equilisation 120micro second so as to playback on no tape selected 70 microsecond crome /metal selection switch settings is required
For playback you only need to set the EQ to what it was set for during recording. So a type 2 recorded at 120us EQ (I.e. type 1 equalisation) should be played back as a type 1 (normal) tape. Bias is only used during recording, not playback. The Bryan Adams tape is correct with the notches, as that will give normal EQ for playback. The reason they did this was that most cheap tape machines only had type 1 compatibility and this was a way to get the reduced noise of a type 2 tape played back on a type 1 only machine.
I will mention TechMoan, I’d be surprised if you don’t know his channel, but he did a video on Digalog cassettes. These were, of course, Type I cassettes but the were duplicated using digital audio sources. This was early 90s digital stuff, but this ensured each recording was basically a first generation. No using duplicated master tapes that ensured generation loss the more copies were made.
By manually drilling out the notches for type 2 to force CrO2 detection, effectively two things will happen: lowering the audible hiss, but also cutting down the treble. It's basically like turning down the tone control on your deck. Besides that, the plea for duplicators to adhere to standards is mostly moot now, since most if not all blank media made today is gonna be standard ferrec, unless they use NOS blanks or stock.
I agree, this is all a bit moot. I still think that, if tape does make a comeback, it'll only stand a chance to stay if they can reproduce near-digital quality playback on prerecorded cassettes. I know the quality I can achieve when I record on my own deck, so I know it's possible.
The only media on sale will be ferric because nobody makes cassette decks that support chrome these days. If you add to this the fact that Dolby no longer licence their noise reduction system there is no way that cassette is making a comeback other than as a novelty release. The only people using cassette will be old farts like me that have 1980s decks and a supply of tapes that for some reason or other I never got round to using back in the day.
@@ianz9916 that's not actually the reason why Type II tapes aren't made anymore. Essentially, Type II and IV stopped being made in around the late 2000s/early 2010s because there was no longer any demand for them at the time. Also, I've read that the way how manufacturers produce Type II and IV tape is not very environmentally friendly, so I doubt they'll be coming back anytime soon. We'll have to stick with NOS for those. Oh, well...
The notches are relevant only in the recording phase. Irrelevant for playback. I've got several prerecorded cassettes that use chrome tape. None of them has the "chrome" notches. The deck needs to know the tape type onky when recording. Once the recording is on the tape the better quality is there for playback no matter what.
From what I understand there is an issue with Type IV tapes, which can only be played back on a tape deck/player designed to play them. Playing Type IV tapes on a deck/player not designed to play it will damage the playback/recording head.
@@Solitaire001 I've never heard about that. I know that certain decks can't record in Type IV, but I think all decks can play them back. Same exact standard.
@@ian_5184 I did a quick Internet check, and found mentions of an issue with increased head wear with Type IV cassettes. I suspect it was an issue in the early days of the Type IV tapes when playing them on decks/players not designed for that type of tape. Soon they dealt with the issue, so I think that as long as the deck/player has a Type IV setting it should be fine to play those tapes on it. For myself, I rarely used Type IV tapes. Type II tapes were good enough for my needs.
@@Solitaire001 From my internet searching, I found that only the very earliest metal tapes (circa 1970s) had coarse particles that could scratch up tape heads. But from the late 70s/early 80s type IV tapes were not known to scratch up heads.
Just to explain that chrome type ll at 120 eq means the tapes are cr02 chrome recorded at ferric type 1 and placed inside type 1 shell so that when inserted into newer machines with position censor the tape plays back correctly as type ll recorded at ferric type l bias playback setting. As bear in mind that all pre-records were duplicated on high-speed duplicators then spliced into the type l shell to stop most low priced tape shell vibrating during the duplicating-process as duplicators record both sides of the tape at anything upto 32Xs normal speed. I hope this clears-up things.
The difference between the type 1 and type 2/4 selection at the playback side is the Equalisation. Type one gives you 120us, type 2/4 70us. If a type2 chrome tape is recorded with 120us eq, you need to select type1 to get the right 120 eq at playback. They did this because al lot of older/cheaper players didnt support type2 tapes and so didnt had the 70us EQ. Other difference between type 1,2, 4 switch is the amount of bias the deck present at recording. Higher for higher type tapes.
One problem with that Bryan Adams Chrome tape is the same as all BASF tapes, no matter the type, that the tape is going bad or in a few cases all these years later, about to go bad. Add AGFA, Ampex and metal TDKs to the bad tape list, plus that Van Halen: 1984 tape is not chrome, but AGFA Magnetite 12, which goes bad immediately and was a failed attempt to compete with chrome, invented by DuPont. Also apparently, Chrome and Metal tapes production has been discontinued, though not cobalt.
There's actually nothing to stop companies making new cassette decks with Dolby NR, as their patents on the process expired years ago. They just can't CALL it "Dolby", because although the patents are expired, Dolby still has valid trade marks on the name "Dolby", so they'd have to call it something else.
Most record companies actually recorded on Chrome at the proper 70uS setting, the playback therefore on 120uS "Normal" was to give it more treble and sound clearer, you can test this for yourself by getting a Chrome tape and forcing it to normal and trying to bias it up. Good luck with that :) It was a way to get more headroom before HX-Pro was a thing. That's the reason by the way why the frequency response didn't change when you forced it to use chrome settings on your deck. You're welcome :D
I respectfully disagree, in part. Most high-speed duplication equipment including the tape heads and pre-amplification electronics had to be specifically modified to accommodate recording on Type II High Bias (or Cr02) cassette tape. Ever since Cr02 tape was invented, it was fully capable of being recorded using High Bias and Standard 120 uSec EQ. You might not recall that many 1970s-era cassette decks had separate Bias and EQ switches, so you separately selected "Normal" or "Chrome" bias and "Normal" or "Chrome" EQ. Most consumers got confused so manufacturers combined it into a single switch, and in the 1980s that was replaced by auto tape-type selection. Having said that, the net result by mass-duplication onto Chrome using high bias + normal EQ was that you did gain more high-frequency headroom though with a very small increase in playback hiss noise compared with 70 uSec EQ. So there was a more consistent HF response along with less intermodulation distortion and a clearer, less "fuzzy" reproduction of transients and low-level details.
@@peacearchwa5103 Indeed and I neglected to say some of that wihich would have confused people :) I should have said that Bias doesn't equal EQ. and thats my bad. Thanks for the very cool response, it's appreciated.
All story is wrong. It is possible to record and playback 120 us equilization even on Metal tapes. Take a look onto Nakamichi decks. 120 us gives ability to record even more high frequencies. And box is made for a 120 us standard, so, decks, which has automatic tape type detection can set proper equilization. One more time, Equlization is not equal to tape type.
I don’t think the record companies really want to. I bought an old copy of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” on cassette at a yard sale. OMG whoever dubbed it made my VU meters jump. They recorded it way too hot. I’ve actually had more success dubbing stuff off my digital music apps staying below 0db.
@@joshbacon8241 Mostly because analogue recording is a precise act. The media has to be interpreted to output at or close to the original. A good digital file just needs the 1s and 0s to read and output the same way on a durable media. My particular copy of “Nevermind” sounded terrible. It was loud and distorted in a way that makes it hard to listen to. As to why the record companies wouldn’t bring good quality cassettes to market, it’s too expensive. It took the recording industry decades to come up with a reasonable fidelity for records and about 15 years to nail the sound on Compact Cassette. Meanwhile, a digital master is much easier to transfer to digital media either physical or virtual. The transfer uses a universal algorithm. You have to bias a cassette sound for the particular tape you use. Not all tape is created equal and the manufacturer who makes the product for sale has to make it sound just right. Along with the fact that the recording machines have to feed the signal consistently and anyone who’s had to clean and demagnetise a tape head knows that’s a hard ask. The small time tape makers can monitor their batches in a way that the big labels wouldn’t dare to touch. No one will sell a cassette retail for modern vinyl money, yet the care required for faithful reproduction is similar.
I did find a couple of these, one major difference i found compared to the standard releases is more bleedthough on the chrome versions. Well, they are almost 30 years old.
Get a nakamichi deck most if not all of them allow for manual 120ms and 70ms switching. Also chrome (and cobalt doped) tapes tend to shed less particles.
I had a "Synchronicity" by The Police (on the A&M Label) on Type II tape and it was also designed to be played back at the normal bias. I think it was an attempt to improve the quality of the compact cassette with better tape.
Peace Arch explains the mistakes made in this video very well. BASF engineers convinced A&M Records to record chrome tape so that it would play correctly at 120 microseconds because giving up 4.7 dB in noise with the "normal" playback allowed at least 4.7 dB MORE SOL (saturated output level) at a time when audiophile recordings with lots of high frequency energy were the rage. Chrome has the lowest noise level of all tape formulations, and Dolby B noise reduction offered another 10 dB of reduced noise, so the result was a dynamic range from chromium dioxide tape that rivaled that of Type IV metal tapes. (Metal tapes suffered from high levels of noise in their early years. They did NOT wear heads any faster than other formulations and could NOT damage heads in any way.) "Chrome" describes the tape pigment, not the setting for either recording bias or for playback equalization. Playback equalization is necessary because of the Faraday effect whereby the faster magnetic changes occur across a tape head, the more current is produced. That means that high frequencies would produce more amplitude than low frequencies because the highs change faster than the lows. To compensate, the output is increased at low frequencies and reduced as frequencies increase--up to a point. At some point the equalization is removed so that high frequency output can recover from head losses. For 120 microseconds, that point is 1,326 Hz; for 70 microseconds the point is 2,274 Hz. the 70-microsecond point means that high frequencies and tape noise get less of a boost because they don't need it. At the time 70-microsecond EQ was adopted, few people expected Dolby NR to be as successful as it turned out to be. Noise was the cassette's biggest weakness, so the new playback EQ was suggested. Advent promoted BOTH 70-microsecond EQ and Dolby NR in their Advent 200 and 201 recorders for some of the first high fidelity recordings in the new cassette format. BASF engineers thought that might be overkill, so when we approached A&M Records about using chrome for their releases, we convinced the engineering staff about the improved sound quality available across the entire frequency range if 120-microsecond playback were used. They agreed, and other music labels soon followed. (A&M's marketing people were reluctant and did not fully understand the technical reasons. I wrote them to note that they could use the standard Type I cassette housing and save money. That is what convinced them.)
I’m old enough to remember when these Chrome prerecord tapes were current. I din’t remember any real deception. Many cassettes were”plus one” with a blank side 2 for you to make your own recordings and the enclosed literature stated that the tape was formulated to record as a type I with some headroom advantages (so duplicators didn’t need new kit). We know that chrome can be biased as a type I due to ferrichrome Type III’s usually recorded as TypeI. BASF had intentionally formulated a chrome intended for type I recording. Later on Dolby HX prerecords probably nullified this advantage.Playing back with 70us won’t fully help as a different pre equalisation boost has been used during record. Enjoy your videos though.
One thing I hated about those chrome prerecorded tapes was the pre-echo. That effect was quite noticeable especially when you were listening to your tape without Dolby engaged.
I have a question. How is that TC K777 ES working for you? I've got a TC K690, that is very similar as the panel goes and I'm really disappointed in it. Very light weighted, which in my mind doesn't tell a very good story, mechanically fine but all too "integrated", nothing much in there. And I don't like how it sounds. Very low sound levels, even seen on the VU meters, it's muffled and the recording just about the same. I still wonder if the problem is with my unit or Sony really went that cheap in some ranges.
My TC-K770ES works quite flawlessly, but even an "entry level" Sony deck should sound pretty good. I think some repair would likely help your situation.
@crebegea It isn't a TC-K777ES. The 777, 777ES and 777ESII are "different level" good. Other notable Sony's are TC-K780ES, K950ES(K333ESJ) KA3ES, KA7ES and K555ESJ
Basically any noise has a frequency. Most people can hear the range of a regular piano as notes. Anything above or below is not interpreted as music but as noise. The puckering sound of a kiss is higher and we hear it but not as a musical note. Now tape comes with a hissing noise but we can hear it but since it is not consistent it is not discernible as a musical note. So knowing what frequency and loudness the noise is and what frequency and loudness the music is we can boost some noise and tamp down other noise until it sounds like it ought to. Records got the RIAA curve in the 50s as a standard to offset the noise from vinyl records. Tapes had various systems but the most famous one is Dolby Noise Reduction which boosts noises close to the tape hiss frequency and reduces them down on playback so your ears hear something close to the intended music. Equalisation helps optimise the sound by balancing out the frequencies. What sounds good playing back on a studio console might not be the same on your home stereo. Analogue media is finicky like that.
That was a not too technical explanation by Paul Blackman, which missed the main point. To be a bit more clear: the equalisation was developed to reduce tape noise and maximize the achievable dynamic range. It means a preemphasis of high frequencies during recording, and a deemphasis during playback. So basically the deck is boosting the high frequencies during recording, which needs to be attenuated during playback to get the original sound characteristics. While attenuating the high frequencies with the same, but inverse curve it was recorded with, the deck also attenuates the high frequency tape hiss, and that was the main goal. The preemphasis/deemphasis EQ curves needed to be optimised for the different tape formulations, that's where the 70 and 120us standards came from. Prerecorded chrome cassettes were recorded with EQ settings normally used for ferric tapes (120us), so the tape can be played back properly on equipment which doesn't support chrome tapes. The result is not optimal, but still much better than ferric tape. There is another knee point in the EQ curves at 3180us (315Hz), which is the same for the 70 and 120us EQ standards, and it's doing the opposite as the high frequency knee point does: it attenuates low frequencies during recording, and boosting them during playback. The purpose of this is to prevent oversaturation of the magnetic layer with low frequency signals during recording, so the tape can be recorded at higher overall levels. Thanks to this two knee points, a higher dynamic range can be achieved. Further improvement came from the later Dolby HX Pro system, which is *NOT* a noise reduction system. It operates during recording only, it dynamically modulates the level of the bias signal with the inverse of the momentary level of high frequency content in the audio signal. This way, where high-intensity high frequency audio content is present, this high frequency audio content can partially take the role of the bias signal. This prevents the saturation of the magnetic layer with high frequency signals, resulting in higher achievable recording level, increasing the dynamic range.
Does tape type really make a difference during playback? Back in the 80s I never had a cassette player with type II/IV support and any type cassettes I'd borrow from friends would play fine. Dolby C was an exception, of course, but that is a different story.
Ma quelle cassette type 2 originali sono fatte apposta così,serve a ingannare l'auto tape selector per poter essere lette con l'equalizzazione type 1,se al registratore le fai riconoscere come type 2 si va a perdere una parte della definizione delle alte frequenze,oltre al fatto che rovini fisicamente delle cassette originali.
