The resolution of the tape actually is higher than 'redbook" (CD)! If you record from a "hi resolution" 96/24bit source, you'd get a bit better results as far as musical information! The signal to noise is not as good on the tape,but you get more information! I know.....I'm such a damn nerd! But audio is all I've known my entire 53 years! It's OK to disagree, even the professionals don't agree with each other! 😊😊
Very cool Tony. Those old tapes, after cali. sound great. I got hands on a Revox chrome. Think from the late 80s. Cali. on Dragon and: Sounds superb. The Dragon really can make nearly any tape sound ok, but good Cassetes blow your ears😂. Carry on, I love your vids👍
Neat. Never used any Philips branded cassettes here in North Carolina, but they sure looked good. Guess most of the retailers here stuck with Sony, Maxell, and TDK with a very few carrying BASF back in the day. (And the ubiquitous Radio Shack was in their stores). Tough To The Bone is cool.
G'day Tony, Thanks for testing the Aussie Philips tape and appreciating its performance. I remember watching your video on basics of the 2 and 3 head decks and explaining bias and level. This Philips was in the TDK league where you had to + bias and reduce the level Cheers from Sydney Australia Simon
Though i’m from the Netherlands, i never saw those back then, definitely would have bought them, very cool looking. But in those pre internet days it was very simple: if the shop in my village didn’t have them, i would never know they existed. The shop only had sony, tdk, maxell and later fuji.
It's kind of sad. Because in these just pre-internet times, we had long been passed the salespeople who know what they are talking about and got teenagers as salespeople. But some shops had not yet moved to that model and had real adults getting paid real salaries and who had actual knowledge. Some dumb 16 year old working their first job is just going to point you to the "coolest looking" tape they had. Didn't know jack squat.
I'm not even convinced they're genuine Philips cassettes as they're far from being a bona fide Type II tape if the bias level needs cranking that far from default... unless this cassette deck is in serious need of recalibrating.
I hope the next video will be the BASF Special Edition High Performance II cassette which will be the “Looney Tunes” one and it’s one of several BASF Special Edition cassettes in the series, and it will be a collector’s piece.
Right around when I feel disillusioned about tapes (mainly the prices of blanks), watching your videos propels me to turn on my deck, pop in a tape and listen. At that moment, the joy and fun rushes over me and my passion re-energised (even if just for a little while) So thank you Tony for continuing to make videos for all us other enthuasiasts to enjoy - I look forward to watching your videos until you the day you're out of tapes to review!
I have a little stash of these but the shell is different (mostly clear with the logo in the middle - will provide some photos later). About sound: they sound wonderful!
Sounds fantastic. I love those Looney Tunes ones as well. Have you ever considered crowdfunding your film? I was talking to Peter Purves of Doctor Who and Blue Peter fame recently, and he is involved in a new comedy drama that is currently being crowd funded. There were a good few names involved. Seems like a good option. I'm dabbling in it myself for a short film I'm shooting on Super 8
Hello. Out of curiosity, approximately how many cassette tapes do you own or know of anybody that owns thousands of cassette tapes? I ask because I know someone that loves your RU-vid channel and has thousands. He's a cassette tape collector and appreciates your channel for the content you produce. If you'd please be so kind as to let me know at your convenience. Thank you.
Ive just got a new Marantz deck on its way. Do you have any vids on tuning and maintenance? The service manual talks about using 3khz tones to set levels and azimuth etc but the source of this tape also eludes me. Its supposed to be precision recorded right ?
Hi The Philips cassette is made by "Forward" China, Tape Australia, GreenCorp. There is talk on internet forums about real chromdioxide, but there is little information on this. I have Philips CD Extra and CD Master cassettes with Australian tape, both look like chromdioxide, the tape has matching colour and some characteristics. The aroma is not there as the smell is caused by specific binder ingredients, they may not be present in the Australian binder formulation, although chromdioxide does, it is odourless. My cassettes play well, but the precision of detail and intensity can't compare to the big manufacturers. I don't think Philips put enough prestige into the production of their audio cassettes, they always sold it just to have something under their brand name in the market, and this line was the penultimate line before Philips significantly reduced or discontinued it. A big problem for Phlips was the frequent use of third-party OEM products. In the beginning it was produced in cooperation with Dupont, had a factory in Belgium and the Netherlands, then switched to OEM ICM Switzerland, Basf, later General Magnetics Singapore, SKC, GoldStar, Forward, Dessau, ... The big problem was if you bought larger quantities of one model and vintage of Philips, you could have 3-4 audio cassette manufacturers as well. This particular CD Master is only known in one design Forward-GreenCorp, but such a CD Extra could have been Forward-GreenCorp, Emtec, Dessau. Always a different shell, always a different tape. Sincerely EZ
Yeah, Phillips aren't consistent and on the whole not one of my favourite brands. They are very "workmanlike" to me, decent but not endearing. If this is a pure chrome, it takes level very well, hence why I think it may be ferro cobalt. But like you say, who knows what's in it...
Nice review, thank you! The almost identical looking CD Extra has pure chrome tape - Greencorp made both kinds of type II tape, CrO2 and FeCo. It's a pity that the CD Master is really hard to find, while the CD Extra was a quite common thing in Germany, because one of the big discount supermarket chains (Norma?) was selling them as their only cassette offering for a few years. But you could also be less lucky and get the version made in Dessau, which had the same package desgn, but only boring clear shells with standard one colour print.
Tengo un cassette similar pero de 60 minutos, hice un mixTape el año 1996 que desde luego usé otros cassette como fuente, debo decir que la grabación quedó horrible, pero después de muchos pensarlo después de 25 años lo volví a regrabar con un deck de 3 cabezales y utilicé Tidal como fuente de música
I love your channel, always fascinating thanks (and your music!). I am in Sydney, Australia and I wondered if you have seen blank tapes called "ICM Professional 90 HiFi Superchrom". It also says, "CrO2 high bias II Equalization Cr02 70 us". Also "SWITZERLAND". But they seem to be available fairly easily here right now. The tape itself is a pretty dark colour. I am waiting for my deck to arrive, so I haven't used these tapes yet. Cheers!
The case, J card, shell... Do not look premium at all (the shell printing is fantastic from a 90's aesthetic point of view, though). However, it sure performs very well. It would be interesting to know how much these sold for back in their day to put everything in context. The new track and the film story were such an excellent bonus. I have enjoyed this one very much.
3,99 DM (German Marks) for a 2-pack of Philips CD Extra, which is about 1 EUR or GBP per cassette. I guess the CD Master was not much more expensive, but very hard to find at all. 3,99 DM was the standard price for a 2-pack of type II C-90 at the big German discount stores, when Aldi had TDK SA, Lidl had BASF CSQ, Penny had Fuji K2 and Norma had sometimes Raks SD-X, sometimes these Philips.
I know I've said it before, but why not a start a Patreon. I know I'd be happy to subscribe to that. £3/£5 option maybe. Collectively we could achieve a lot. Edit: VR track is really good👍
That's likely not a Type II tape. The standards for what defines a "Type" are rigidly defined by IEC standards, ie, a Type I is IEC I, a Type II is IEC II, etc. Amongst other things, the IEC standards define the required bias level. If you need to adjust far away from the default bias level to get the tape to perform correctly then it's either an out-of-spec tape (ie, a Type 0), or your cassette deck is badly in need of attention. The latter seems possible as I have an accurately calibrated and blueprinted Teac V-1050 and seldom need to swing the bias control by more than +/-0.5% to get a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz within 1dB at -20dB with almost any decent Type I or Type II compliant tape. I wouldn't expect any mass production decks to come anywhere near this level of performance and none do. I'm merely giving it as an example of the incredibly tight tolerances a genuinely standards compliant tape is manufactured to, or at least used to be. The vast majority of people don't have a bias control to play with anyway, so the only fair way to show others how these genuinely sound is on a recently calibrated deck with default settings. FYI, the IEC standards were originally set nearly 45 years ago and they've not changed since. I know because I've designed around them. I'm not having a dig. I'm just telling you how it is. 🤷♂
If the standards were stuck to so rigidly, then why did manufacturers feel the need to create decks that could calibrate to get the best out of the tape formulations? What you're saying is, rather than trying to show how you can make a cassette sound as good as possible, by investing in a good deck with calibration facilities, I should use a cheap deck and say "This is sticking to the standards" like ISO...which means it doesn't matter how bad your procedures are, as long as they're well documented and used consistently. That's doing the cassette a disservice. Ultimately cassettes are for listening. Once they've been recorded well, then any functioning deck can reproduce the sound to the best of its abilities. Why have a bunch of bad sounding cassettes if you don't have to...
@@CassetteComeback The ability to adjust recording bias level is intended for tweaking out minor deviation from the standards in the tape and the deck. They're bound to happen as no manufacturing process is perfect. If you need to whack the bias control against an end-stop then something is seriously awry with either the tape or the cassette deck as a typical end-to-end adjustment range is often +/-3dB. Why the large range if it's not needed? Because it is needed for people who use out-of-spec tapes and/or never get their cassette decks professionally calibrated. There were a few Type IV tapes manufactured that were out-of-spec in terms of required bias level but excelled in all other areas so were still allowed to be called Type IV although, technically, they weren't, so they were a rare exception to the rules. Of course, all bets are off when it comes to no-name and knock-off brands as they're beholden to no-one so may not meet any standards except by accident. Calibration features on any cassette deck are only as good as the person who originally designed them and the last person who internally calibrated them. Unless you're having a cassette deck professionally calibrated on a fairly regular basis, the zero point reference is likely wrong as electronics drift with age and heads wear. I've been calibrating cassette decks for decades and they all do this to some degree. You've not documented anything so we have no way of knowing what the actual bias level offset is compared to the reference level, how far the tape strays from the IEC standard, or how close to a flat frequency response the final result was. At the very least, a frequency response sweep at -20dB with the Audio Tester PC software you've used before would be useful as it would give tangible results for comparisons. Incidentally, many professionals who repair and calibrate cassette decks for a living or paid hobby use that software, so there's no sensible reason to not use it. Dismissing the results of actual testing leaves you wide open to the placebo effect which is very strong when you have a reputable brand name on a product. A poorly maintained and calibrated TOTL deck can and often does perform far worse than a well maintained and correctly calibrated MOTL deck. Both measurements and controlled listening tests can easily prove this if actual performance matters to you. Any deck that only has level trim and bias trim for recording is a compromise as you ideally need access to recording EQ as well, otherwise you're relying on using the bias trim as a combined distortion level control and treble control which will nearly always lead to a compromise, particularly with out-of-spec tapes. Ideally, it should only ever be used for the former and never the latter for optimum tape performance. One technically correct method to extract great performance from almost any cassette tape is to set the bias for maximum output level at 400Hz first (this also gives minimum distortion), then adjust recording sensitivity level for 0dB out for 0dB in at 3kHz, then dial in the recording EQ so the output level at 12 or 15kHz matches that at 3kHz for a -20dB recording level. This has been known since at least the inception of the IEC standards in 1979. As you quite rightly say, once a tape has been recorded well, any functioning deck can reproduce the sound to the best of its abilities. That's what gives Pioneer's Super Auto BLE the edge as it takes the guesswork out of the equation by doing exactly as described above, assuming the deck is accurately internally calibrated. Simply trimming the sensitivity and bias levels may help, but it won't provide optimal performance except in rare cases. Suggesting that it does is doing the cassette standard a great disservice as it's capable of truly amazing levels of performance on a decent deck with decent tapes when dialled in correctly. Sadly, only a few of the older top-tier cassette decks had the calibration capabilities to do this which makes many of them decidedly not so TOTL when compared to many cheaper MOTL decks that followed with correctly implemented auto-calibration. There's no magic involved here. Tape recording is not an art, it's a science. If it wasn't, there'd be no need to internally calibrate a cassette deck in the first place. I'm sorry if this all comes across as harsh criticism because it's really not, but there are many facts regarding tape recording that are set in stone and not open to personal opinion. I've expressed zero personal opinion above and only given you facts. If you're as interested as I think you are, please educate yourself. It's a fascinating subject and there are many reliable references available for free on the Internet on this subject.
Hey Tony, bit of a video idea I know you made a video about the metal tapes but there's one in particular that's been neglected you only briefly mentioned there as an entry level cassette the Sony Metal XR, I've had quite a few I opened sealed that seem to be prone to dropouts and some I bought used with random creases not sure what that's about when they work they seem to be great metals specially my WM-D6C loves it not having calibration for the recording side, and still somewhat out there available to buy more, was wondering if you could make a video on these too sometime and one about cassette degradation thanks :)
Hry tony, I found some tapes that id be interested if you'd want to review. Found a bunch of sealed "Spartan by hi tech" tapes sealed at a goodwill and I cant find much info on em
Back in the nineties I always found that on any tape type except metal, no matter how good it sounded when recorded, after half a year or so the highs became muddy / rolled off. Somehow I never see that mentioned anywhere. I wonder if others experience the same?
Very nice test , though I never saw one of those here in Florida. I think a very important aspect I found in picking a tape was long term durability in the field , you know car, beach, party, etc. I still have high position Maxells XLii & TDKsa from the 80s that operate very well. Most of the BASF and other brand started squeealing and binding up in the 90s.
My dear friend I have to notice some thinks If you have a such good casette tape player/recorder the only serious way to make a tape test, is to connect an udio generator in the input and an audio spectrum analyzer at the ouput!!! Except if you bvelieve that your ears are capable to do this measurements and spectrum analysis!!! With a noisy, wild and beatie song as a source to record on the tape, you can't call it "tape quality test"!!! If you have not an audio signal and functions genarator + an audio spectrum analyser, you can use your personal computer and a proper application for both (as source and measurment in real time)!!! Good luck!!!
This channel is about enjoying the cassettes for what they are. I'm not interested in dissecting a dead format in boring detail. If it sounds good, it is, and that's all I care about.
@@CassetteComeback that I was told you my dear... The sound I heard was terrible, wild and your conclusion was wrong!!! I am working on the analog sound devices for decades and believe me, I know as a specialist (thechnician) when a device or a product is (re)producing simply well or nearly perfecltly! On the other hand, the digital technology today, gives amazing results very far superior than analog!!! So, have a good time and thanks for your relpy!!!
