I have quite a number of old cassettes that I would like to convert to a digital format. Some of them are from as long ago as the 1940s (most likely copied to cassette from other formats cause I don't think std. cassettes were around back then - don't know when they came out though).
I have fairly recently (within the past several months) done some temporary digitizing of several cassettes (so I can put them on an mp3 CD player for personal listening) by putting them one at a time into a portable cassette player, plugging them into an mp3 player with direct line-in encoding, and recording at about 128kbps (which was ok for what I was using the mp3 files for). However, I'd like to redo those (and also add several hundred (if I counted correctly - could be in the thousands) tapes to the project) in as good of a quality as is possible. Especially for the older tapes that may have degraded some (and may not play as well as may be possible on the cheap portable player I was using), I'd like to get as good of a quality as I can out of them.

So.... what are some recommendations for a good cassette deck? I'd like as good of an audio quality as possible, and I also want the playback speed to be calibrated properly. At the minimum, I want a single-well deck, preferably with auto-reverse (configurable so I can have it play side A, then reverse and play side B, then stop). Ideally, I'd like a dual (or more) well player that will allow me to play back at high speed (in multiples of 2x preferably), with the capability of outputting the sound at high enough frequency to get all the info (for example, if it would have output 44.1kHz at 1x speed, it would output 176.4kHz at 4x speed. (Of course, if I go for high-speed playback, then I would definitely need a higher end sound card on the computer. Speaking of which, I probably need to buy a whole new computer for what I'm planning to do - my dad's computer that I'm using right now only has a 1.4GHz CPU, a couple 7200rpm HDs that ultimately won't have nearly enough space for the data I'll be putting on, 256MB RAM, Windows 2000, and on-board sound (a few years old).)
While I'm at it, since I'll need to get a new(er) computer to do this efficiently (which seems to be turning my project from a $100+ project into a $4000+ project!), what would be some things you guys would recommend? I'm thinking a fairly fast Core 2 Duo (or AMD equivalent) at least, minimum 2GB RAM, plenty of HD space (at least 500GB), Windows XP (maybe Vista), etc. What would be some good sound cards that are capable of multiple inputs (if, say, for example, I decide to record 8 to 12 cassettes or more simultaneously), and very high sample rates (if for example I use cassette players (if they exist) that play back at high speed and output at high sample rates)?

Also, what would be a good codec to encode the masters (digital files) to? Obviously not MP3, cause it's lossy (although I could live with 128-160kbps mp3, maybe lower in some cases depending on the original source quality, for casual listening on a portable media player), but I do want it compressed (losslessly, of course). One thing I would like to keep in mind, is not to waste bits that aren't needed, for example if I was just recording straight to WAVE, I wouldn't sample a song at 44kHz stereo if the original was mono and the best quality I could get out of it was less than 10kHz. However, if it exists, I want it to be recorded. (I recently ran some tests on my ability to pick things out of the noise, and I was able to pick out a 2kHz sine wave buried 20-30dB UNDER white noise. I think around 40dB I lost track of it, or something like that.)

And since many of the older cassettes have probably degraded somewhat (although I was listening to some recently from the mid 1980s and was surprised how well they've held up sonically), what would be a good way to squeeze the best possible quality out of them? After digitizing the cassettes, the goal (I hope) is to be able to throw out the old physical tapes, and just keep the digital files as masters (of course I'll need some way to back them up for long-term (I'm hoping 70-100+ years so it'll outlast me) storage.

I haven't discussed price yet, cause I have no idea what to budget for this. So what would be a typical price range for each component that I would be looking at? I don't want to break the bank, though, for example pay $10k for something when one that's $250 would be just fine. Also getting good quality is more important than being able to record 16 tapes simultaneously at 8x speed each. Since there are hundreds if not thousands of cassettes, though, that I'd like to convert, I WOULD like to do it relatively quickly, and not have to take several months or a year or more for the project. (of course I'll need to take time to split the tracks, label them, create ID3 tags or whatever, etc.)

And, I know this is an audio forum, but I also have a bunch of VHS tapes, and my grandpa has some 8mm video tapes (I think at least hundreds), that I would like to convert to digital format to preserve them (and be able to chuck our VHS's out to save physical space). As with the audio, I'd like the masters to be losslessly encoded at maximum necessary quality. Obviously that would mean a TON of data, so what would be a good way to get a grasp on that project? And, while I'm at it with the media conversion, is there a recommended efficient way to scan dozens of albums of old photos (and if available, the negatives - I'd guess thousands if not tens of thousands of photos) taken with older film cameras of various types, and digitize them without any loss of info?

And, while I'm at it, what's a good mp3 / other format (Vorbis, WMA, ACC, whatever's good) portable media player to get that: will hold ALL the data (lossy compressed may be ok for a portable player, but needs to be transparent (at higher sample rates I typically step LAME 3.97b3 1-2 steps higher (bitrates) than the defaults (for example if 112kbps encodes 32kHz at full range, I encode at 160kbps) - haven't tested lower sample rates much yet though so I don't know where transparency is for, say, 11kHz sample rate), is built like a tank (for example can survive repeated multiple drops, etc, to hard floors while in operation, has lots of playback tweaking features, like parametric multi-band EQ, variable playback speed, variable forward/reverse scan speed, etc), and has other features, like direct line-in recording (preferably to mp3, with all the customization options that LAME has built into the player) for example? (I'm hoping to not pay more than $400-$800 for the player, although I'd be willing to add an extra hundred or so to allow for needing to buy a 500GB 7200rpm 16MB buffer 3.5" HD and putting it in the player.)

(lol... thought I was already getting long-winded, but just checked the post length and found that I'm only using 7150 characters out of an allowable 1,024,000 chars! So what WOULD someone post that's just plain text that would use all that available space per post, or does that count other things besides just plain text?

If you want quality, you do not want auto, or even manual, reverse. The tape head should be fixed in place for proper alignment; moment to moment alignment of moveable heads is unpredictable. You should adjust the azimuth individually for each cassette because alignment of the recorded material on the cassette is very frequently not according to ideal specs.

You cannot get optimum transfer at higher speeds. The deck mechanics would be very expensive and the cassette mechanics are uncontrollable. The quality of mass market music cassettes was always significantly less than could be obtained one on one with a good quality deck. Playback at higher speed just compounds the deficiencies.

The well cover should be easily removed for frequently cleaning of the tape path. Those little "automatic" devices do a poor job.

Dual capstans are a definite need for better quality results. They keep the tape in more consistent contact with the tape head.

The computer you describe is quite capable of recording without problems but you might want another hard drive for increased storage capacity. I personally would not want the trouble of simultaneously recording a number of unrelated cassettes, but I've read people's posts about recording at least eight simultaneous tracks (generally microphone input, not old cassettes) onto older notebooks with 5400 RPM drives. You would have to experiment with your setup to determine the maximum number of inputs it can reliably handle.

Multi-input soundcards are, of course, more expensive. Just about any modern non-gaming card will be miles ahead of cassette quality. For two inputs, the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 is hard to beat on price-quality.

Under Windows, record to WAV. Only compress when you are sure the file is finalized (no more corrections, trimmings, or changes of any kind). Windows Vista has audio problem with many soundcards; proper drivers do not yet exist. Where or not all the built-in DRM will be a continual headache is yet to be determined.

If you record a mono source in stereo (dual mono), and the tracks are reasonably well balanced, you will get a pleasing reduction in tape hiss and background noise by summing the recording to mono. Those cassettes that are not reasonably well balanced (alignment was poor) usually have one channel that is significantly better in audio quality than the other. It is generally easier to tell which channel you want after you have it on the computer.

It you have a decent audio editor, it is very easy (but obviously more time consuming) to resample to a lower sample rate after you determine what the material warrants. If converting to mp3, LAME can do this for you. If you want the material on an audio CD, it must be 44.1kHz.

The signal level from ALL my cassette transfers has been relatively low. This isn't fatal with a good 24 bit soundcard, but results may be improved by quality amplification in the analogue domain. This means a mixer or line-level preamp between the tape deck and soundcard.

Ok, so no reverse it is. (Also my dad was mentioning azimuth adjustment capability would be good to have, too.) So what would I need to do to find something with that?



Ok, so 1x speed it is. Maybe I should eventually purchase multiple players, when I eventually ever get around to getting a multi-input sound card.



Ok so I need to add periodic cleaning of the tape heads to my to-do list. That's fine. I just want as good of a quality as I can get.







Yes I will definitely want to get another HD. As far as multiple inputs go, are there any USB interface devices I could get to allow me to record at least 4 tapes at once (using 4 separate players), or considering that I think the computer's USB is 1.1 or 1.0 (it's very slow - takes several minutes to transfer data from <= 1GB flash memory cards off my digital camera), would I be bottlenecking the bandwidth?



I wonder if I should at least get SOMETHING besides the built-in card on the mobo? When I open the audio editor and plug the cheap 1/8" to 1/8" 6' patch cable into the computer from my portable cassette player, it's already picking up some noise. I can't hear it quite so much, but I DO see it on the monitor graph. A few months ago I was copying some tapes (which I'll copy again later to get better quality) so I could make a couple MP3 CDs (and was encoding them at 16kbps 12kHz mono to fit as much as possible on each disc), and I got MUCH better results by plugging the tape player into a flash memory player (using the same patch cord) and direct-encoding to mp3 (at 128kbps, then I downsampled it on the computer cause LAME on the computer is noticeably better than the encoder on the player, although it DOES do a fairly good job itself especially at higher bitrates).
So do I need a better sound card, or should I at least consider getting a better quality (Monster, for example?) patch cable?



My dad's computer is running Windows 2000 Pro. What about compressing to a lossless codec and using that for the masters (while saving some space)? Also what lossless codec would you recommend, and why?
Oh, and also, there is NO WAY I am going to have DRM on my audio!



I usually ALWAYS record in stereo. If the background noise is stereo but the content seems to be mono, I record stereo. If there's even a HINT of stereo separation (for example even if it's 1/60th of a degree), I wouldn't downmix to mono. I don't want to lose ANYTHING on the masters (although for casual portable listening when I copy it there I would be willing to make some minor sacrifices).



I usually record at 44kHz (although my hearing only goes up to 16kHz so 32kHz sample rate is fine for my ears). What would be a good way to determine how low I could resample?
Oh, and is there any such thing as a VBR lossless codec? For example, I want the max quality I can get, but don't want to waste space that's not needed.






Ok, one thing I'm curious about. I have a portable (walkman type, but not Sony brand) tape player - Panasonic RQ-SW10. Yesterday I put one of the old tapes I plan to copy in it (I think it's from the 1980s or so) and played it a little bit. While it was nowhere near perfect, it actually sounded fairly decent. (Although first time I played it a bit it was horribly garbled, but a quick rewind then play fixed that, for some reason.)
However, I tried it in some home decks in the house - a Sony TC-W550, a Technics RS-B11W, and another Sony (TC-FX420R), and they played HORRIBLY! After a second or two, they were fluttering somewhat, and were so badly muffled it was like running it through a 1kHz lowpass filter! Why on earth would a cheapie portable player like the Panasonic Shockwave completely BLOW AWAY the supposedly better quality home stereo cassette players??

Probably all cassette decks have adjustable azimuth, it is just harder to do on some than on others. The heads are attached with screws, often spring loaded. Adjustment is done by simply turning the screw (small amounts). Once the well cover is snapped off there is often a small hole, or a half moon cutout, for screwdriver access.

I have an otherwise good deck that has a threaded adjustment shaft with a spring loaded nut on the end. This is much harder because jeweler sized screw drivers are easy to come by but such a tiny nut driver is not.

Some people drill a hole in the well cover for easy immediate access. Some have replaced the adjustment screw with an extra long-shafted screw that can be easily manipulated without tools (or had this done by a competent shop).

USB 1 is a very limited bandwidth. I don't think there are any devices with more than two inputs. USB 2 and firewire are much better but the soundcards I've looked at are also full of extras for the recording professional, especially microphone preamps. Those extras don't come for free.

That thing built into the MB is a gaming card. The built-ins are often noisier than the PCI versions. If you want quality audio you will have to get something else.

M-Audio has 4 input (and more) cards that are widely used professionally. There are other, more expensive, cards with still better specs but they all so far exceed anything possible from cassette that you will never tell any difference between them.

If you have the PCI slots, it is possible to install several PCI audio cards. The Audiophile 2496 driver will support four cards at once. Most people recording multiple inputs need them in synch, which is possible with the Audiophile and many other cards, but since you are considering simultaneous recording of un-related sources, you don't have to get involved with that aspect. Each two-channel pair can operate independently.

I have two quite old computers, too slow for anything else, and too out-dated for anyone to buy for more than a dime, each with a decent soundcard. I use them for recording in various places, then bring them here and upload the recordings via ethernet, to process on this machine.

Monster cables are for the sucker trade. They are quite overpriced for what they are, even though there are others with higher price tags. Go to a professional music store (e.g. Guitars Unlimited, Sweetwater, etc.) and get something solid and not especially expensive, made for professional use.

DMR should not effect your own recordings, but the overhead in Vista is tremendous and complicated, allowing lots of possibilities for things to go wrong. This may be why so many soundcard companies don't have Vista drivers yet.

There are many lossless audio compressions. I use Monkey's Audio because it is free, easy to use, and works without fail. FLAC has been around a long time and is widely used. Several others are also quite popular. This is the forums to read about all of them. I can't comment further. I have no interest in using several different kinds, so I haven't bothered to learn all about them.

Stereo isn't a matter of hit and miss. Stereo recordings were made with two or more sources (i.e. two microphones properly placed to get a stereo image). Mono used one microphone (or was mixed to mono from multiple tracks). There is then NO stereo information in mono. Any imbalance on the tracks is due to the imperfect nature of the tape recording and playback mechanisms. It is not additional information, it is just a defect.

You will always get a superior product by going to mono. If the two channels are close enough to mix, you get the noise reduction. If you need to chose the better track, you throw away whatever is worst about the other track, playback quality is improved.

Sometimes with old cassettes, which are always at least a little bit deteriorated (beware playing those that need new pads on the central tension spring), there are dropouts. These are sometimes randomly scattered across the two tracks. The best results are then obtained by using one track with copy/paste of the corresponding part from the other track wherever it is better.

As far as wasting space, make the recording in WAV format and make any conversion/compression after you are certain you have the final product. If your audio editor has a spectral view or a frequency analysis function, those will show you what frequency bandwidth you have, thus to what you can resample.

You have to learn to interpret these tools properly, especially the frequency analysis graph, because there is always something at higher frequencies. Beyond a certain point that something will not be your source data, it is only background noise. Audition is good for this, as well as being among the very best audio editors. There are many freeware products but I don't know them.

I've transferred a few hundred hours or so of spoken material from cassette to digital. I've also done backup from spoken word CDs, mainly to make mp3 versions. I found that some could be resample to one space without audible deterioration, others could use a lower sample rate. After a while I standardized on resampling to 22kHz. This way I may use some extra storage space on some but I unconditionally know what everything is. Also, down sampling from 44.1kHz to 22kHz goes much faster than down sampling to something that isn't an integer multiple, such as 32kHz or 16kHz.

If you think about what it means, you will see the VBR and lossless cannot go together, or maybe it is more correct to say that lossless is always VBR, at least in the sense that the whole aim of the process is to store the data with a few bits as possible. It would never make any sense to pad the data with something irrelevant.

Step 1: rewinding cassettes on fast forward, to readjust the tension, is standard procedure for many people. I have no idea why you experienced what you did with the different decks -- if the cassette still played better on the portable after its experience on the other decks. If the pressure pad came off somewhere along the line, it would not play well anywhere until that was replaced. If its alignment was so bad as to give such bad results, the portable's alignment would have to be coincidently off and thus not suitable for more reasonable cassettes.

Ok, so what's the deal with my quote tags not working properly?



So what about adjustment on the fly (i.e. during playback?)



So at the least I should get some standard PCI card. Oh, and I may have failed to mention it earlier, but there IS some vinyl that I want to digitize and preserve its data.



So what cables would be good? I'd prefer to get them locally. (I have a Guitar Center near me.) And should I just go with whatever the outputs/inputs are on the source/destination, or convert to something else, like 1/4", RCA, XLR, etc for the main length of the trip from the cassette player to the computer?



About ones that need new pads - what do I do about those? (also I have some on which those pads are loose / badly misaligned (i.e. the average "just give me an ipod shuffle so I can easily listen to my music" person could EASILY tell that something was wrong))



I'm currently using a trial version of Goldwave 4.26, and a several-month-old version of Audacity.



Thing is, most other tapes play fine on the portable too. I wonder if it's not as cheaply made of a portable as I think? (it's a mid 1990s model, and was around $75 to $100 when new) And maybe the other tape decks need adjusting and head cleaning. I don't know if either of those things have EVER been done, and they WAY predate the portable.

Azimuth must be adjusted while listening to the cassette. You adjust for best output. This tends to be most noticeable in the higher frequencies. If you don't modify the snap-off well cover to allow access, you have to remove it to make the adjustment. Some professional decks may be designed to make that unnecessary, but I have not seen one of those.

Transferring from LPs is the same as transferring from cassettes, as far as the soundcard goes. PCI is good (my preference) but USB works well enough too. USB is more limited in some respects but those limitations are not really important for this task. Some USB cards that use the USB bus for power are rather noisy; an external power supply is generally better.

I don't get into cables much, I can't name brands. I've used Hosa brand; I've seen several others at music stores. Sometimes I make my own.

The main requirement is reliability. You need a solid, stable connection. You want good shielding. Most professional cables will meet these requirements at a reasonable price. Most professionals audio people could probably name a favorite brand or two. Home audio components dealers, on the other hand, tend to sell very expensive cables sure to satisfy your interior decorator.

Every connection is a little signal loss. You want the most direct connection possible. Going from one type of plug or jack to another without need makes no sense at all.

I've always had plenty of other cassettes I care nothing about. I use them for parts. Take the good pad out of one and put it into the cassette you want. When the shells have screws, it doesn't take long to become adapt at opening them for repair, then closing them again. You just have to learn to be careful -- an learn what to be careful about. I've transferred the entire innards of a fair number of cassettes with damaged shells to other shells, throwing out the unwanted tape.

When the shell is one of the newer welded together ones, it may not be salvageable. No matter what repair it needs, you will probably have to transfer the tape reels to another, screw together, shell. When cassettes were in vogue, it was easy to buy repair kits, but I doubt there is much of that trade left.

People use different editors and are happy with them. I think the software is quite important if you are going to be doing much work. Audition will pay for itself in increased facilities and reduced frustration. I've played a little with a couple other editors, but it isn't worth my time to fiddle very much with inferior products just so I can tell other people what they can't accomplish with them.

My one other recommendation is WaveRepair, a specialized program (not a general audio editor) for cleaning up LP recordings. It's abilities come at a high price in hand labor; I don't see that it would be especially useful for cassette transfers. There are also a few rather useful plug-ins that can be used to enhance Audition (or many other audio editors).

As AndyH-ha touched upon. I highly recommend fast forwarding the tapes and then rewinding them fulling before a recording session.

I wrote this Digitising cassette tapes guide. There are of course many changes to this that could be made, esp with equipment, but I use this method with pleasing results. Just remember: garbage in garbage out

Azimuth adjustment would be necessary to adjust to tapes recorded on another tape-deck.
If you do record/playback on the same deck, it is more or less pointless, unless it is
way off. But as AndyH-ha pointed out, all decks should have it anyway.
I would look for adjustable bias, so that you can tune the tape-deck to the tape(s), there
are automatic and manual versions around.
Apart from that, I wholeheartily agree: dual capstan, no auto-reverse etc.
Some nice old Nakamichi or Pioneer CT959 would do, I guess :-)

Bias adjustment has nothing to do with playback, it only effects recording.

Azimuth adjustment isn't necessary when playing back from the recording deck -- except that tape head alignment may well have changed from when the recording was done twenty years ago.

Also, if using a three head deck, playback head alignment is independent of record head alignment.

So what modifications are you talking about? (or does it depend on the construction of the specific player?)



Any suggestions on where to get screw-together shells (i.e. what brands / models have them currently)? The TDK's (and another brand or 2 - can't remember which) I've gotten in the last year or two are welded cases. I don't care about the quality of the tape, or if they even HAVE tape in them - I just want the shells, so I can transfer some other tapes (as necessary).




Thanks (both of you) for the suggestion. I'll try that on the next less-than-good-quality tape I come across.




Yes, I know I'm not going to get 44.1kHz, 120dB SNR, 0.01% THD, 4-channel, when the source is 2kHz, 0.5dB SNR, 150% THD, 1-channel! I just want, basically, recording off the tape to be EQUAL quality with what was on the tape when I recorded off of it, no worse. (And, if I could do something to the tape or in the recording process to come as close as possible to (preferably match) the quality the tape was when it was new, that'd be really nice.)




Approx. 99.9% of these tapes were not recorded on decks I own.
What about decks that are playback only? Or is it better to get a record/playback deck?
And what would be some things dual-capstan would help with? (Would it help with tape tensions that are not correct, or, as suggested earlier, would rewinding and fast-forwarding all the way through at least once take care of that?) edit: I see, reading through previous posts, that my tension question has already been answered.



See the reply above your quote.




{caps} ok, what's with my quote tags not working properly?!?!? {/caps}
I bolded my response(s) to make them easier 2 c.

The "modifications" are the things to make access easier that I've mentioned a few times, such as
drilling a hole in the snap off well cover so it does not have to be removed to use a screwdriver on the adjustment screw,
and
putting an extension on the screw so it can be adjusted without tools.
Generally not necessary but something that may be worthwhile from the ‘makes life easier' viewpoint.

I don't keep much track of the tape business. The last normal bias Maxell I bought were screwed together. It was always less expensive to buy blank cassettes in boxes of 15 or so, but not as inexpensive as buying in 100 unit lots. While it has been a few years, I've purchased many boxes of blank cassettes from local recording studios ("we make your demo and production tapes"). They made them up to specs on demand. Such a place may not be adverse to just selling empty shells.

I buy LPs from thrift stores. While I pay no attention to them, there always seem to be boxes of albums on cassette too. Possibly the price is low enough to make it worthwhile to examine some from the viewpoint of buying them just for the shells and parts (those having screw together shells, of course).

Organizations like churches and multi-level marketing companies put out tons of material on cassette. It might be possible to find someone with boxes fulls they would be happy to see go. Many cities have weekly, very cheap, classified ad publications.

Is playback-only made in anything other than walkman format? Those are not quality mechanisms.

The tape must be held at a constant tension against the tape head with the proper pressure and without random movements up, down, or side wise. That is, in part, the job of the capstans and pinch rollers. One on either side of the head does a better job than a single mechanism. Better quality decks were always dual capstan.

Of course you're right, temporarily forgot that the thread is about
digitizing tapes, so playback only....


Only thing I know about is DCC, which is playback only for Analog Tapes. May be cheap to get also, since DCC is definitely gone (actually has never been there)..

Your very first quote finished with a "quote" rather than "/quote".

If you have a single unclosed quote in your post, none of the quotes will display properly.


The reasonable (not top end) Nakamichi cassette decks are quite cheap on eBay in the UK. I keep meaning to buy one to play with.

If you're that bothered about quality and future use, you really should archive to lossless before processing.

Correct azimuth is the most important thing when playing back cassettes. Get this wrong, and you can forget the rest of this discussion. Correct levels (into digital), good cassette deck, clean heads etc are all important too. If your cassettes are carefully recorded Dolby C first generation recordings, then you should take care with the transfers to maximise quality. However, for most people, it's what's on the cassette itself that is the limiting quality factor.

Cheers,
David.

1963 in Europe, by Philips.



Be careful. Immediately stop playback if the sound is garbled. The played might be litterally chewing the tape away.
Have a look at the tape. A chewed tape looks, well, chewed.



Fluttering, espacially running too fast (around twice the normal speed) for very short times, is a very bad sign. It means that the tape is slipping over the rubber roll of the deck. In other words, the tape is dead.

Lucas Films reports having salvaged dead tapes from the first Star Wars by gently heating them up in an oven... But they have also melted some during their trials.

If you're lucky, maybe it's just the rubber roll that is so old and covered by tape waste that it doesn't drive tapes anymore. In this case a good cleaning with ethanol or isopropanol will take care of the problem.



Either you're trying to read the part that have been previously chewed away.

Either the tape was going sideway. Which means that either the tape case doesn't work properly (try to get the tape roll into another case, but never touch the recorded part with your fingers), either it means that the tape player is dead, and chews tapes away.

Actually, a dead player will drive the tape sideways. The sound going worse and worse until, after just several seconds, the tape crumples. That's why you must stop playback immediately when you hear treble completely going away one channel after the other. It means that the tape is no longer driven above the playback head.
Unfortunately, it happens even with high-end tape players when their mechanism get old. I even came across a brand new dual capstan player that was eating tapes. Thanks to its dual capstan mechanism, tapes were not crumpled, but just folded diagonally at regular intervals. Which was unrecoverable anyway.

Hope you guys don't mind me resurrecting my old topic....

Are there specific models of cassette decks I should look out for on ebay or craigslist, or are there any new ones, that are high enough quality to get as good of a signal as possible off the old tapes I have?

I guess another way to ask... is what's the equivalent for analog cassettes (and Vinyl LPs) for EAC?

For example, on my portable player (which is actually better than some of the home stereo decks I have access to) I can "adjust the azimuth" a little by holding the tape at a certain orientation with the head. It has dual capstans, but being an auto-reverse deck only 1 is engaged at a time. Also, sometimes after rewinding and playing back over a portion of music, it sounds a little better the second time I play over a specific part (but then another part that sounded good maybe has 3% less high-end frequency response. (But then, repeat AGAIN, and some OTHER part sounds good instead.)

Would a good deck have good enough transport / pickup / azimuth adjustment / etc as to be able to do the equivalent of a bit-for-bit copy of what was originally on the tape when it was first recorded?

Nakamichi DR-8

No longer made, and can get pricy.

For best cassette playback you would probably want the Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. It automatically adjusted azimuth on the fly, had superbly low wow & flutter, excellent heads, etc. Possibly the best cassette deck ever made (sic). It also has auto reverse, and because it dynamically adjusted azimuth on the fly performance was not degraded. And IIRC you could set it to play side A, then B and then stop.

Don't know how much they are online these days, but if I had a lot of cassettes I wanted to dub and I cared a lot about quality I would definitely go with the Dragon. Some of the other Nakamichis had a manual azimuth adjustment, but the auto adjust is definitely the most elegant way to go.

Good luck.

Eh? The DRM in Vista has never been an issue for playing or recording content. All it does is allow you to play content which is locked with DRM.

At no point in time has Vista's DRM features ever impeded playing or recording media of any type...The only issue (that I know of) has been with certain I/O tasks being slower because Microsoft implemented parts of their own PlaysForSure in kernel space.

The dragon seems to be about $1200-1500 on ebay (buy-it-now), which is about $1100-1400 more than I would like to pay for a deck... I guess I should either set my sights a little lower or start saving my pennies or look for a better deal.

edited & reposted below (due to the fact that this thread has likely fallen several pages down and no one would find it unless I posted a new reply)

So I've come up with several price tiers for tape decks that I'd be willling to consider. For the more expensive ones, I'd have to save my money longer, AND it'd be more likely that some other purchase would come up which would delay the cassette player purchase even longer.

<$40 (I don't expect to purchase anything this cheap but I put it here anyway just in case)
$75
$140
$250
$425
$750
$Nakamichi_Dragon - if I could afford one of these I'd snap it up. What's the best price I can reasonably expect for one in good working condition, or would it possibly be worth it to buy a cheap one in need of repair and have it repaired? (One possible option would be to have my father help me with the repair if necessary.)

What would be the best / most recommended player in each category? The most important criteria is accurate playback of the source audio, and good quality output (jacks) so I can record off it onto a digital device, like my computer or Zoom H2 (via its line-in port).
Also, for each tier, I'd like to know what I'd be sacrificing in a lower priced tier that I would have in a higher-priced tier.