22 Apr
2008
22 Apr
'08
2:37 p.m.
On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Jonas Otter <jonas at otter.se> wrote:
"John Floren" <slawmaster at
gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you; assuming the seller has treated the tapes and equipment
well (they certainly look well taken care of) and hasn't made a lot of
recordings, it sounds like those 6 tapes should last a long time.
Looking online gives me the impression that audio stored on the tapes,
if properly cared for, will stay at a high quality for decades, which
is pretty cool. I was thinking back to my experiences with cassette
tapes, which seemed to degrade after just a few uses.
I'll be returning to school in about a month and a half; I'm gonna bet
there's a bulk eraser somewhere that I could use. As for
demagnetizing... well, there's a couple recording studios on campus,
and I wouldn't be surprised if the campus radio station still had a
reel-to-reel rig.
Thanks to everyone for responding to my kinda off-topic question :)
John
--
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
So I'm looking at a Teac reel to reel deck
going for $25. It comes
with 6 tapes, which judging from the prices on ebay is a pretty good
deal. What I'm wondering is if anyone can tell me about the kind of
life I'd be getting out of these tapes. I don't plan to record too
much (I'm not in a band or anything) but my friends and I would
probably be making recordings from time to time and I expect that I
would eventually want to reuse some of the tapes; how many times can
you usually write to these before you start seeing a noticeable
degrading in sound quality?
John
Many times, probably hundreds, as long as the magnetic layer doesn't begin
to come off. Old tapes may be at risk of deteriorating. To get the best
recordings possible, use a bulk eraser to erase the tapes before reusing
them, and make sure that all parts of the deck that come into contact with
the tape, such as heads, tape guides, capstan etc are regularly
demagnetised.
Jonas