VHS: High fidelity audio you didn't expect (Part 1) 

In the 90’s I recorded a lot of music using CDs as a source and recorded on VHS. The sound was surprisingly excellent

VHS Hi-Fi is the ultimate analog audio format, accessible to all. No calibration needed, no bias adjustments, no noise reduction debates, no azimuth blues and absolutely no wow&flutter... Just high quality analog 20-20KHz bliss, and that's Hi-Fi! For vinyl recordings archive, home studio rehearsals, long play streaming selectas, or even as mixtapes masters. VHS-Hi-Fi is so good and soooo cheap today... Really sounds astonishing, great dinamics (>90db). An experience that any real tape head must enjoy. Cheers 🇵🇹

A friend of my dad's used to record all his vinyl on hi fi VHS, and then store the LPs to avoid wearing them... He listened to music using the video Cassette on his living room, and the sound was amazing!

Brings back memories of the 80s when I used to record mix tapes onto VHS. An engineering school friend in college tipped me off to this, and we used it for good effect in our dorm room basement parties.

When I was young, in the 90s, I used to record music on the TV and I remember that the sound quality was amazingly good! Now I understand why! I was recording at the best speed and had a very good Hitashi VCR plugged in a mid-range Sony amplifier. The loudness and clarity I could get out of my TV recorded music were very high.

Belive me when I say that just a few hours ago I was filing some old VHS. Incredible that today AnaDialog published this video. ... and I also remember that during 90s our radio Director used a VHS to record broadcasted audio signal. All VHS are still here in the radio archive!

I’ve always been a believer in VHS hifi... not just SVHS. It was the DAT in hiding. Great video.

Wow, thanks for bringing back memories of recording jazz & rock onto VHS!

So back when I started in studios in the mid-90s most local bands would store their mix-downs to VHS (not ADAT) since it was the most common hi-fidelity long form storage available and the cost of a single 1/4 inch mix down reel was about 50 times the cost of 1 VHS cassette. So small bands or artists who were paying for their own studio time couldn't afford the high cost of analog tape even back then. So we came up with a solution. We used a S-VHS ET (Super-VHS Expansion Technology). We used a Panasonic 4-Head S-VHS VCR for mix-downs which we converted to balanced ins and outs to reduce interference. The S-VHS tapes were less prone to drop-outs and had a little more head room compared to VHS. We ran 2 recording rooms the big room ran 2 MCI 2 inch 24 track JH-24 machines sync'ed . We also used 4 ADATs in our smaller room so we had S-VHS for those machines but they were digital for multitrack recording, so we weren't really adding to our overall cost. S-VHS would be something to look into if you want the best audio quality in an analog medium that is as close as you would get to studio reels on a budget. Cheers!!

I purchased my first Hi-fi VCR on Okinawa in 1987. I was overjoyed. MUCH better fidelity than before, and you COULD use a PCM to encode using the video write head.

I still have my VCR, seems like it's the time to unveil it again. Thanks for reminder.

I was really into this back in the early nineties. I recorded several records to VHS on my Sony 3-head HiFi VCR. The sound quality was stunning.

Hi. Again thank you for toughing all topics one by one. very important topics. Regarding HI FI VHS recording: 1) Standard VHS recording: The regular VHS Audio recording is done by use of a statutory head (like on a regular cassette) which is placed right after the Statutory erase head and records on the whole VHS tape width. The audio head records mono audio information and since the VHS tape speed is very slow, the result audio is low frequency response and high audio noise. this is the reason why people overlooked VHS machine as option for hi quality audio reproduction. The Audio frequency is so low compared to the video signal recorded on top of it so one do not interfere with the other. 2) Hi Fi Stereo: The rotating heads are capable of recording very high frequency (MHz) but cannot record or read lower then few 100 KHz signals. So how Hi Fi stereo audio is recorded? the method is modulating the audio on Hi MHz carrier Frequency. I am not sure if the modulation is FM or AM I believe it is done like FM Stereo Technic which require higher bandwidth than just AM modulation. The Mono Stationary head still records the poor mono quality audio, and it is used as a backup for parts where the tape has some flow (when you see problems on the picture) the machine switches automatically to the mono reproduction so the listener don't suffer from an interrupted audio, 3) Number of heads: 2 Heads will provide a standard video one head records the odd lines ans other records the even lines. 4 Heads: Same as two heads, but this structures allow the video machine to provide a still picture while the machine is paused. 6 Heads: the additional 2 heads are for recording the Hi-Fi Stereo Audio Track. 8 Heads: This is done for SVHS recording which Records Twice the bandwidth for the Black and wight signal, and records Separately (via the added 2 heads) a video signal for the color information . On SVHS the Video signal and the color signal are separated all the way into the machine, on the tape and out of the machine. This is the reason why SVHS recorders has an additional (to the yellow RCA video Jack) a 5 pin DIN type connector for video input and output. The Higher video quality is obtained only on the DIN Connector! 4) Video Signal Must be Present! There is an important information related to Hi Fi Recording on VHS tape: it can be done only when a video signal is also present, other wise the machine will not record and will not play back! this is another reason why it is not used a stand alone audio recording machine.

OMG! Thank you for doing this!! Because this was so much fun when I was a kid I really got into recording indexed albums on vhs and even 8mm Hi-FI audio. It was the cheapest best sound for a long long time. In the early 90's, $2.50 VHS tape for 6 hours of great sound.

I have a Panasonic Hi Fi VHS player, I still run mine through a DBx 224 encode/decoder and the sonic quality is unreal given its format.. not to mention up to 8hrs of playing time.

I recorded a song from my tablet to VHS tape using a cable (Sony SLV-ED6 VHS Recorder) . Now I am listening it on my hi fi system.I couldn't believed in my ears. Incredible.. Wonderful. Thank you very much for this data.

I used to use VHS tapes to record the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts off the radio. It was perfect for recording 4+ uninterrupted hours of high fidelity music. Eventually I digitised them before I abandoned the format completely many years ago, but now after watching this, I kinda wish I had kept them

In 1988 I started recording audio onto VHS tape (at the SP speed) using my parents new $1,000 Curtis Mathes "Digital" Hi-Fi VCR. It sounded so good it seemed like a "Digital" copy. Actually the word "Digital" meant the machine displayed a "Digital" video image (no shake) when you paused the videotape.

An interesting thing to note here, is that where VHS uses separate audio heads on the rotary head, beta uses the same heads for video and audio, ( the audio signal is buried in the same track space as the video signal ) so most beta decks that were Hi-Fi had only two heads. Back in the day I was a strong supporter of beta, but when it came to audio VHS was better. If you listen carefully to Beta hi-fi there's a funny noise that comes from the system when the heads switch electronically every 1/2 revolution. I've had 3 beta Hi-Fi machines and all three of them exhibit the same audio symptoms, but you have to have the volume turned way up.

I used to use a Sony sl-hf750 Super Beta Hi-Fi to record CD’s.. it had a unique loading mechanism that had a drawer.. you could keep it open to watch the tape turn.. it was awesome. Sony was king during the 80’s

How cool this is. A college offered me his old JVC S-VHS recorder and I remembered how we used to have a Philips Matchline stereo video you could use as a cassette deck. And I wondered whether this thing could. Pity I got rid of all my VHS cassettes during our last two moves though. I had 300+ original movies and 30 or so normal tapes, but hey.. Still, really interesting. Going to try this out!

My old band always wanted to record onto 1/4" tape to get a vintage sound. Reel to Reels were very expensive, and we figured out if we could find a stereo VCR we could use the VCR as a master tape in our recording setup.

I worked for a company that recorded event audio to VHS in the 90's. I have been archiving jam sessions (guitar left, bass right) to VHS ever since.

Cool! Back in 2000s I volunteered at a campus radio and we used VHS for recording the broadcast output, it had to be monitored for regulatory compliance reasons. The cassette on long play could take a good few hours of audio.

Back in the day our band used it to record demo's, because as we used to say, "You'd be surprised but it's 'Studio Quality'"

I first tried recording on VHS in 94.i could not believe how it sounded vs cd player. When I played back VHS. And did comparison. I couldn't tell the difference . Plus you could fit lots of music on them..with the sp and lp modes.i always recorded in I think sp(better quality).used more tape per recording. I Used an 4head hi fi player.

1st time it crossed my mind to record music from CDp & Tt to my video recorder the Panasonic NV-HD660 it ws back in 1997 the year of buy in summer -June of this year I said to my self < Hey Nick why don't you try this ? > an' i did .......man i was speechless the quality of a hi-fi Vhs - SVhs machine is amazing :

I remember my first Hi-Fi VHS, and even making a few audio-only Hi-Fi VHS tapes back in the day. I know now that those recordings are frequency modulated, but for a long time I always thought it was a digital recording.

I recorded so much music on vhs hi-fi, excellent quality.

I think you have triggered something here. incredible upload and presentation. In the UK you cannot give away VCRs and VHS tapes. But I am collecting ALL OF THEM. But only the old films and TV programmes. Anyone can do this and in effect you are creating a unique and valuable time capsule, valuable historically and socially. Then you introduce the HI Fi possibilities of VHS to me. What can I say? SUBBED.

I actually just played a 6hr EP recording i made many years ago today, even on EP speeds you cannot hear the difference from the 320kbps MP3s it was created from. The thing that blows my mind in general is how a helical scan transport can spin heads that fast over slow moving tape and not tear it to shreds.

Must be 20 plus years ago I saw where a company was thinking about coming out with an 8 track Hi- Fi VHS recorder . Like an ADAT but analog. Never saw the article again. Thanks for you article . You are so right HI-Fi VHS.

Cool, I just bought a Hi-Fi Stereo VCR at a garage sale with the remote for $5!

One more tip, & I remember Nicam Stereo coming out, is don't be shy of using your machine. That's healthier than letting it sit, because the belts will sit in one position. Keep using it. FF & rewind the tape a few times to begin as well.

This brings back memories of when a radio station in the Netherlands (where I lived) had all-night non-stop dance music that I liked. European VHS runs slower than American VHS (because PAL is 25 frames per second and NTSC is 30 frames per second) so even though there was never an SLP mode in Europe, you could get E300 tapes that would hold a maximum of 10 hours of hifi non-stop music in LP mode. I still have some! There was one minor problem with my particular VCR (a JVC): you couldn't record hifi audio without video because it didn't make its own synchronization signal out of nothing. So I had to put my VCR in Simulcast mode and record e.g. MTV or some other channel on the video and the static mono track, and the radio would be recorded on the hifi track. I also have a tape somewhere that I used to record CD's from my dad, and I used my Amiga as video source, running the CDTV program. That made it easy to locate tunes within the CD recording too (just turn on the TV and look at the CD track number and time on the screen).

I remember back in the early 90s or so, I bought a music video! The music on that video sounded 3 dimensional and live, like a master reel to reel tape or high quality record! Then in the late 2000s I bought the same video on DVD, and it sounded flat two dimensional like a CD! All hi-fi VCRs are four head machines!

I had a JVC a expensive one. It was as a good as the CD. You could not here the different between CD or the VHS.

The other general thing is that with tape of any kind, not just vhs but with others as well, as long as you keep everything clean, the heads and the pinch roller/kapstan but everywhere that the tape comes into contact with, as long as you keep all the clean on a regular basis, say atleast monthly, more if you use the item more, this helps to keep the tape from degrading and lasting for years.

I bought my first VCR on Dec. 24, 1986. It is a JCPenney 686-5075 --- a HiFi model, and I got it partly so I could use it as an audio recorder. It even has a mode specifically for that purpose.

HI, Just a small remark: Sony's Betamax came before JVC's VHS, and Sony invented the Hi-Fi stereo so Betamax was the first to implement Hi-Fi stereo. The first Betamax Hi-Fi came out in 1980.

I used many VHS cassettes to record many of my vinyl collection back in the '90s. I had a Teac Hi-Fi recorder player that had a switch to record audio track only. Made great recordings.

I still have a Hi-Fi VHS (Panasonic) connected to my stereo that can bee used as a tape deck and perhaps 15 cassettes with CD and LP music. 15 x 3 hours x2 = Aronud 90 hours music totally, I guess. I've been using Hi-Fi VHS as a tape deck since 1989, 30 years.

Long time no hear (need to catch up with your videos ) VHS what a format misunderstood the HIFI VHS was stunningly good I still have my Mitsubishi 4head and are available still at goodwill etc also their easy to repair ( belts/elastic bands ) I was listening to the movie BIRDY in HIFI VHS awesome THANKS FOR THE Memory

I remember getting my first VCR and VHS tapes when I was 8 in 2005. I collected more VHS tapes until about 2008 the DVDs took over the Romania market. I have almost 60 tapes which are still alive and work fine. All have HI-FI too! :)

Yes. In the 80's you cuold buy a commercial movie in VHS. If in the box it appeared "Hi-Fi Stereo" or the like, it was surprising how far better was the sound than the image. Once you learned the basics about how the tape was readed by the multihead block, it becames evident why the sound was so good. I had a Grundig machine (don't know where it can be now, after a few moves from here to there) and used it sometimes to record just sound. The closer to a professional open reel results I had ever! (Besides: I advised to some friends who had medium range cassette decks and also hi-fi video recorders to try this. All of them looked at me as I was a martian and none of them paid any attention to me).

I still have my Super VHS VCR. I remember a long time ago I used to record music onto VHS as the quality was so good. When it came to recording TV shows though, it didn't look any better than normal VHS evemn though I was using SVHS tapes.

I spin music and my masters are on VHS tapes,and had started doing this,over 20 years ago.I experimented with different brands,and even used a JC Penny VCR first,then ended u with Sony/JVC.I now have Sony semipro decks,which have a jog wheel,which enables me to pinpoint my recording spots.Here in NYC,you can get stuff for free,like I got a Sony deck and monitor.He is right,because you do need a HiFi deck,and it's better to not use the same deck to watch tapes,dedicating your audio to certain machines.Then you store the tapes in the jackets,in a dark/cool place,nowhere near any magnetic/EMF fields.You can also hook the deck up to a tv or dedicated monitor,and keep track of your run time.

I use audio VHS for years, 12 hours of brilliant Sound 📼 👍

This worked well. I had a fisher unit that let you manually adjust recording levels, very unusual. Sounded great, but searching was impossible.

So I just recorded onto hifi VHS using a Panasonic Omnivision, using audacity I synced the original digital source with the VHS recording so I could go back and forth between them, I also gave them equal volumes, and to my ears it is a perfect duplicate. I mean perfect, I'm amazed. At first I even thought there was literally no floor noise, you can only notice it if you turn the volume up as loud as it gets, and that's with headphones (just don't do that when music is playing!). This is far less floor noise than you get even from reel to reel by an order of magnitude. And the frequency response, as I said, it's perfect. I tried sometime ago with a different hifi vcr and it had floor noise (a buzz), this one has virtually none, for all intents and purposes it might as well be NO floor noise. I'm baffled how this went unnoticed, people could have had what amounts to cd quality sound back in early 80s.

Deutsch, German, 1987 habe ich einen Panasonic HiFi Stereo VHS dazu benutzt, um drei Stunden Musik für eine große Party aufzunehmen. Alles per Mischpult schön vor der Feier aufgespielt auf das Band‼️ Hat alles auf der Feier mit 100 Leuten super funktioniert. 1x zurück spulen, und sechs Stunden Lala waren gesichert... Das VHS - Band habe ich noch heute im Jahr 2023.. Remember, schön war es damals.. ❤❤

Yep i used that in the early 90s already to record live dj radio sets from radio to 4 Hour VHS tapes... Even a 4 hour tape sounded way better than a normal music cassette. Also every 4 or 6 head VCR is HIFI stereo. Just look for 6 head with both audio jacks.. you get them for a few bucks... My father always thought im joking when i recorded to VHS and he had his expensive reel to reel and was out of his mind as i showed him how good it sounded when you recorded a CD to VHS. haha.

I have tons of VHS with hours of music on them, I miss making tapes

Excellent video, I still use VHS for recording audio, excellent sound quality👍

Love it. Full helical deep layer pure analogue fm hifi.

I have to admit, Hi-Fi audio is really great, isn't it? I remember in 2003 when I got a children's sing-along VHS from 1985 off eBay and transferred the Hi-Fi Stereo audio onto a CD so the music would last forever.

I remember owning an Hitachi VCR which had adjustable record levels and an editing suite. One day I recorded some music direct from CD for a video I was compiling and played the music back through a decent hifi I had at the time, and wow, the sound was amazing and so powerful too. The Bass was phenomenal and no hiss at all. after that I made lots of compilations that lasted hours on end even on normal speed which I used all the time as it sounded the best to my ears. I've still got some of those old TDK VHS tapes but sadly the Hitachi player has well gone. I do have an old Panasonic VCR so maybe ill dig those old tapes out 😎Great Video Sir, and greetings from Liverpool, England UK.👍

I always recorded audio on my VCR. Had the Electrohome SVHS HIFI (Cant remember the model but it was second from top of the line) And this recorded also in PCM. Great sounding unit while It lasted. Looking for another one.

I always remember the VHS tapes back in the late 1990s when I was 2 to 4 years old, that is until my parents buy VCDs in the early to mid 2000s.

I used to record 8 hrs on a vhs tape with a philips matchline vcr. It was very convenient for parties. I still have the tapes, not the recorder though.

Yes I remember the VHS tapes and video players/recorders and I already know what you are talking about you are talking about the audio VHS witch are prerecorded audio video cassettes but without the video part!!!

When my family got satellite in the early 2000s, I recorded the music channels onto tape and used those to make cassettes with. Always sounded amazing. I had to stop because my mom claimed I was wasting tapes. Apparently S-VHS had a native PCM track that was recorded to the tape on the drum rather than the linear audio head like with a hi-fi VHS.

I was using this in the late 80:is to record CD and vinyl

If you wanna watch vhs tapes (that were kept in excellent condition) it's best to watch them using a smaller CRT TV, specifically a Trinitron. I have a 10" Trinitron and it hides the imperfections of VHS video very well. Any modern TV will really do the picture quality major injustice. But yeah VHS HiFi sounds great as long as you play them back a limited amount of times, store them well, and use the same machine to play them back. The latter isn't always necessary but sometimes it is.

For people wanting to go to analog tape, VHS may be easier to find than cassette. The fact that it's much higher quality is an even more compelling reason to dig up a good old VHS deck and start making tapes!

It is amazing. Panasonic super drive over 92 dB. I've tested and fixed a few. The helical hi-fi track is mechanal electro digital control. More power than the space shuttle. Best tapes... Scotch 3m, maxell, jvc. You have old stock and new stock. New stock isn't as good. The sound is incredible.

My brother's best mate's uncle had his own little studio and recorded everything on a 4-track system that ran on VHS tapes. People have known about this for a long time.

April 3, 1987, I got a Mitsubishi HS-421UR Hi-Fi VCR and on the stereo system I had then, I could not hear the difference in the source and the tape. It was far superior to even the best compact cassette recordings, to me. I loved that machine, which had music search. Later, I got a Mitsubishi HS-413UR which had a real-time counter and I could directly search to the beginning of a song in a different way by going straight to the time index.

I have a Mitsubishi HS U52 I bought brand new at Circuit City in the early 90s for 500 bones. The salesman sold it to me on its audio prowess alone, Said audiophiles were using them to record long playing hi fidelity tapes. Man Jurassic Park ( I still have) sounded amazing and I mean to me it is better than DVD. I religiously kept the heads clean with the nicest cleaning tape I could get. Played maybe 20 or 30 movies through it and retired it. It’s in perfect shape.. I need to break it out and hook it up:)

Thank you for the two nice videos, Guido. I really like your videos because I can see your passion. As I understand you live in Italy but your English really sounds as if you are from the States. Anyway when DVD came out (I was a teenager) I as a film buff was, of course, extremey impressed by the excellent picture quality (compared to VHS at the time of course) however one thing that I also realised is that Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo/Dolby Surround on DVD didn't sound nearly as good as VHS Hi-Fi sound. Some of the films released on commercial VHS tapes here in Germany sounded fantastic. It would be nice to maybe compile a list of great sounding music VHS tapes. There were so many of those and I am certain that some / many of these tapes sound great !

Wow I was wondering if I was crazy when I thought my HIFI VCR sounded better than my CD player.

Yes I have a special DBX VHS hi-fi I do mastering with. It doesn't have to be S-VHS. Other names to look for are Mitsubishi.

You mention that a lot of people didn’t know this because they used their VCRs primarily for video. There were a couple other reasons as well that go along with this I think. In the hay day of VHS and even Betamax, most people didn’t have Hi-Fi capable machines and were just fine using their boring TV speakers for sound anyway. These models were considerably more expensive than their linear only audio counterparts. In the early days of Hi-Fi Betamax, Sony even marketed some machines as being “Hi-Fi Ready”. These machines had a port in the back which allowed you to “upgrade” them later on with a separate Hi-Fi processor.

I used to multi track with a VCR and mini disc back before I had a computer. Record a track onto the VCR, play it back through a channel on the desk while overdubbing the next track onto the minidisc, and then repeat. Have to record the brighter instruments last to allow for the natural compression. The thing I found made the biggest difference was the quality of tape. The cheap blank ones were nothing on the expensive master quality ones. I've just bought my first VCR since those days and a handful of master quality tapes (nos) to go in my home studio. I loved the process of recording on those machines and having to do a whole pass of the track at once. So much more challenging and enjoyable than having hundreds of little clips copy/pasted on pro tools. I also have some great old videos (parents wedding etc) that I want to archive on digital format.

The video dropout causes audio dropout as well, on SLP speed it can be really bad after a dozen plays or so, none the less I used to make 6 and eight-hour mixtapes on VHS all the time, I still have a bunch of them- it's an excellent sounding way to get a lot of music on a tape although if you recorded on SP speed it kind of defeats the purpose as you can just use a Chrome compact cassette and have roughly the same fidelity. Sp speed does prevent the dropouts mostly.

Hey i had a Fisher Av 7600 hifi vhs deck that would encode black video for audio recording...i made 180 tapes of Floyd,Parsons,catalogs...wonderful clean cd quality...loved it

Have been using it for a while Great quality

I use two JVC HR-J935EK machines for audio recording. These machines have a tilting head drum, and much more importantly....manual audio recording level control. This feature is vital for excellent recording quality. If possible, your machine should also have RCA Phono inputs and outputs for easy interconnection. I've been recording audio onto VHS since the late 80s. Ever wondered why a DAT mechanism looks so much like a shrunken VHS or maybe VHS-C ? Anyway, great video as usual.

I remember it was popular in certain circles HiFi enthusiasts with peak around 1992-1993

The cool thing was,i could even push the incoming levels,running sources thru my yamaha mixer...the Fisher's autolevel accepted it heartily, and the quality was clear and flawless...and being the deck was servo direct drive,any casettes made had no generational issues

You are right. Something about it that made the recording sound better than the original sometimes, dynamically, especialIy in the low spectrum. And without the noise in all other magnetic tapes. I really miss the way they sounded, now I've gotten used to mp3, but I still remember how crappy a CD sounded in comparison when I had both on the same speakers-. Shit maybe I will get one good ole JVC again, they must cost peanuts now - they were expensive in the 80's

You forgot to mention that hifi audio in VHS and all that dynamic range is attained by two frequency modulated carriers. One for each channel.

IIRC HiFiVHS had a dynamic range of 90dB, compared to CD 100dB and Cassettes average 70dB! I used to record an Overnight blues show by hooking my HiFI VCR to the Technics amp. Programed it for Saturday 1155 to Sunday 505am, channel 00 was the Aux in. Then listened through the week!

I think I should check MY VHS Recorder after this. It was reserved for backup purpose.

Note that the first VHSs were not stereo. They only had a fixed mono audio head, as in a deck cassette, with a slightly lower speed than the audio tape, therefore, with an even lower quality than the audio tape. What revolutionized audio on VHS was the implementation of Hifi audio, with the audio heads on the rotating cylinder, which first came on the Betamax model and, in 1984 on a VHS. The JVC HR-D725U model was the first Hifi VHS from this manufacturer to be marketed in 1984, for about $ 1,400. Since then, virtually all manufacturers have launched VHS Hifi. In 1987 the S-VHS would appear, to compete with the U-Matic of the TV stations. Sony's hidden and silent Betacam project ended the S-VHS dream.

Hello. I have appreciated this video. Do you think that automatic gain control is an issue? Most HiFi VCRs came with AGC and it's much easier that we have one of those, instead of an high-end VCR with manual controls and vu meters.

You're so right. I used it in the 90ies vety much for long programs. Recording of complete radioshows and master tapes for own mixing. My problem with it after all this years: VCRs and cassettes are not staiing best. As you say, very amazing technology with complicated mechanism and tiny tiny heads and minimal ttack widths. So I have reading errors and tracking problems with all of my vhs tapes on all recorders I can find. My original Panasonic NV FS 90 S-VHS from 1991 is still there but completely worn out. I used it also very much for video editing and has it's head drum replaced two times till 2004. Now I try to find a recorder for transferring my recordings properly to reel tape or digital to save them. Normal tapes are much more reliable I have learned. Tracking can be corrected and little faults are only partly. My VHS HiFi is completely loaded with tracking rattling noises of one head missing the track more or less. No pleasure to listen to... can't listen to it. But in fact it was really great when it worked an pure analog. Great Info Video. Thank you.

It is fantastic!! Still use it, AND it's analog!!😍😍😍😍😍😎😎

I really like your videos and appreciate your service to the hobby. Your flair for picking topics of great interest is amazing. I would encourage you to increase your video production through small adjustments starting with your camera location and chair height. You have a great backdrop so don't be afraid to lite it up. And remember, don't talk with your hands when holding the product being studied. Sorry to be such a critic and keep up the good work.

Missed opportunity by the sounds of things. Looking forward to part 2. I suspect the ease of splice editting was what won reel to reel over. I may be wrong of course

very interesting findings !!! :P

I have some rare DJ mixes from 1988 and 1990 and they were recorded on T120 VHS Tapes. Some sound fine others sound static like (tracking audio problems). I am buying a different VHS play back unit and hope it can fox it.

I used to make recording from NV-FS90 to Technics RS-M95.

For years I recorded music on VHS HIFI machine. It is correct that VHS HIFI is a great medium for recording. Beta HIFI was also excellent for recording and actually IMO was a bit better because the tape was thicker and held up better over repeated plays. However, even at the slower speeds, VHS HIFI (the subject of this video) gave excellent results. I would bring in a T-120 tape and record a 6 hour live set at the club and bring it home and play it at parties - just like being there with no audio loss.

Yes yes. Spread the word.

I also recorded sound on hifi, it was incredible! Ofc. with adjustable level, not that automatic recording level, Ewwwwwwww! I actually sold my r2r bcos of the sound quality on the hifi video machines. And it's 100% analogue. I have to mention though, there IS problems with the tracking, so be sure to have your machine clean at all times, and perfectly adjusted.

Like many others I used vhs for soundrecording back in the 90's, and the soundquality was incredible. The only problem was that it wasn't lasting. I was renting the videomachines (Panasonics) at the time, and changed to the latest models every year. Therefore they never got worn out. For that reason I think it's safe to say that the tapes was the problem. I used several brands of tapes, but never the cheap ones. The problem appeared on all brands. Right after recording the soundquality was great, but after playing the tapes a while (maybe a month or so) I would get a kinda buzzing fluttery sound on top of the music, which after a couple of years made me give up the format for music. Though specs for the format is awesome, I think it's fair to warn people not to record stuff for long lasting purpose.

I still watch vhs on my mixed old/ newish system. Remastered vhs like star wars... is clearly a big difference and wow factor.

I used to record my favorite FM stn and Vinyl on to VHS tapes through a 4head Panasonic HiFi VHS recorder with excellent SQ compared to Mini Disc and CDs

Hmmm, I started with SuperBeta in audio recording for fun, then I went over to SVHS....... only because the world ditched Beta in general.......