New Project Underway...

BlazeES

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#43
Very nice. They're a pretty penny to buy, now.

Nando.
I know. Amazing where prices went in a span of only 10 - 12 years. Blows my mind. I'm just glad they held up. A real testament to how they were manufactured.
But I'll be honest. The HF-X's that came out round about the same time and then carried forward - - and out-lived the FeCr - - are just as good.
Much like the TDK AD-X.

The only tape in a 'base' Type I format that I think performs better is the Denon DX4.
 
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BlazeES

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#46
The BX-300 is a beast. The first Nak I've ran with that makes everything sound good. The K75 isn't really comparable but it's no slouch.

What the Nak does that no Sony I've ever owned could is to make pre-recorded tapes sound almost like home-brewed ones. And my library of Metal Master mix tapes, spanning efforts dating back to 1992, play back brilliantly on it as well and those are all recorded with Dolby C. I attribute that bit of magic to the work ESLabs did. It also makes tapes that play back on the 870ES perfectly. No other Nak has been able to do that. It got the reel motor replacement and associated electrical mod, the cam replaced, critical recapping + other discreet components ... along with all the normal transport refurbishment most places do that specialize in Nakamichi work.
I figure I'm set now with that deck for a very long time.

What I don't like about the Nak is the metering. I'm use to how Sony does it's average 'attack', the peak hold stuff and the massive benefit of the granularity of the LED segmentation. In that respect, the K75 beats the BX-300 hands-down.

I'll probably use the K75 to do a bunch of LP recording on non-Metal stock & without Dolby ... and then mainly play those tapes back on the other two decks.

*

In due time Lee. I want to do a video demo like Nando's done so well in the past ... but I need to make sure the audio recording part of that deal is up to snuff and sounds good.

And Hey ! At least I posted up that advertisement in the mean time... :p
 
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BlazeES

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#48
With good decks and tapes the noise reduction isn't needed.
I think that is highly subjective - but lean towards agreeing with that statement.
A lot of parts in a system will impact this though ... IMHO.

I think noise reduction is very beneficial when using headphones, when everything is dynamically compressed to the ear and you don't have benefit of distance. But a good system, when using speakers, can be very forgiving and make tape noise virtually inperceivable without NR... and that is what I am waking up to.
 
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J!m

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#49
I never really used it.

I mean, think about ALL the crap decks that were made. We focus on the upper echelon decks that wrung every last drop from these poor old dictation tapes these days. Stuff you only saw in magazines. But a crap deck with "Dolby" engaged, making a tape played back on an actually calibrated deck, is going to sound worse than two decks with no EQ curve added/subtracted in the chain.

So, I never used it. Pre-recorded tapes with Dolby generally were fine, again, on a properly calibrated deck. High-quality calibrated decks were out of my price range when new. Eventually I got high-quality non-calibrated decks, and finally, high quality calibrated ones.

I still don't bother with Dolby noise reduction...
 

BlazeES

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#50
Rendering the video ... should be posting up a link shortly. It'll will be around 600 MB in size. The Shure boom mic on the camera won't do the audio Full justice but you should at least get a good feel for the attack of the percussion above the lowest bass region ... along with the overall clarity of the recording, the absence of egregious tape hiss and the tonal balance of FeCr stock.

Recorded from from a CD
EQ left set to Type III on playback

No NR

( The Bias setting of Type II is remaining from me playing around with a SA-XG just today ... this Albert Collins was recorded in Type III mode a few days ago ... )
 
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BlazeES

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#52
Have to find the right tape to do it justice ... but I am going to do some Sphongle off vinyl on the next vid ...

and I'm going to throw-down for a stereo microphone.
 

BlazeES

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#53
Don't tell me that video cloud link didn't work ... :(
 
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BlazeES

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#57
Try this ...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eRsPTBIiv_bpjvkYZhYcNrOcI7dSSf46/view?usp=sharing

Google will warn about their inability to virus scan because of the file size. Not to worry. I have three layers of security on my end. The file is clean.
That probably explains why there hasn't been any responses. Peeps are too scared ... :cool: ... that or the initial download speed starts slow and can be perceived as hung. Especially if ones broadband speed is slow to begin with.
 
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Vintage 700b

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#59
Hello BlazeES,
Came through fine for me, and I am in the middle of nowhere, worst broadband in the country.
Sounds amazing !!!!
Thanks for sharing!
 
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