1972 Cassette Playback & Recording Hints and Tips
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- Опубликовано: 21 июн 2023
- 1972 Bib Hi-Fi Stereo Test Cassette from the UK: How to get the best stereo and mono reproduction and recording. Unfortunately they didn't follow their own advice about setting the recording level properly, so the sound is rather sibilant, although the Digital NR of my Pioneer T-D7 deck does an exceptional job of eradicating any trace of tape hiss, without muffling the sound.
Time flow:
0:27 Channel identification
1:29 Balance control
5:12 Speaker phasing
9:55 Spartacus
13:34 Individual instruments
15:49 Wow & flutter
16:52 Vivaldi's Four Seasons
18:33 H.M.S. Pinafore
23:00 Blue Danube Waltz
26:01 Recording from radio
28:46 Adjusting recording level
35:13 Cleaning tape heads
37:23 Eliminating hum
38:38 Cassette accessories
39:22 Recording from microphones
41:16 Symphonie Fantastique
44:28 Don Quixote
45:55 Rigoletto
49:03 1812 Overture
Includes narration by David Gell and Maroussia Frank and musical excerpts from a Jazz trio featuring Max Harris (piano), Jeff Clyne (bass), and Jack Cummings (drums and percussion).
#cassette #recording #tips 
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Thanks to this sound test, I found out that some PC speakers were physically on the wrong sides. Who knew that such a sound test would be so handy half a century later on equipment it wasn't designed for?
Me too 😄
Yeah same here LOL
My computer speakers turned out to be on the wrong side, but I set them up based on cord lengths, reaching the wall socket and computer jacks without extensions. As long as the sound is coming out correctly, I'm not bothered about being reversed.
Me three!
If you buying chinese RCA cable this tape could detect their faulty QC too
Reminds me of the test tape of Techmoan. LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT
And they do sound like David and Mary, too!
I was thinking the same thing. Pretty sure it is David and mary
I do love the Received Pronunciation (RP) English on this tape, especially Mary.
I love how they talk about recoding quality even though this tape is full of sibilance and other distortion. Then they talk about “center position”, when one channel is at least 2db lower than the other. The level is also quite high on the music passages for a normal bias tape. HX Pro wouldn’t be around for a few more years, either.
Reminds me of the copy I have of the Hi-Fi News track-ability test record which has tones on it which are supposed to be stable, and yet the record was pressed off-center lol
They should rename this cassette 'How to stretch a 30 second idea to 3- minutes.'
It does have plenty of useful sound samples and advice, but the part about speaker phasing carries on way too long. "We don't want to make it too complicated"... sorry, Mary, you already did!
@@vwestlife Thank the Lord they didn't do a 5.1 or 9.1 surround sound version; probably would have gone on for about 2 days and poor David and Mary would have covered about 50 miles of walking around with their metronome.
Perfect test cassette stil relevant in 2023
Adjusted my pc speakers...
Not a metronome. Mary was just spanking David.
Microphone proximity is audible, and the sound of David, Mary, the metronome, and the footsteps did not change, even when they were "in the center". I imagined an engineer turning a pan knob when they were acting out this demonstration. The T-D7 digital NR is impressive, and even made a difference when they played a musical segment with intentional bed of hiss to simulate low recording levels. Audacity has a hiss filter, but introduces audible artifacts that I did not hear on this transfer. Nice find. Thanks for sharing.
I noticed a slight change but not a good example of stereo field demonstration. It was cool how she walked at the off beat of the metronome - yes tons of Proximty low end
I am very impressed with your T-D7. Cassette players reached it pinnacle with Digital (Flex) technology and Dolby.
T-D7 is very nice deck. I have CT-S740S and it sounds great.
Stunning recording quality, but then again, in 1982 at 13-14 years of age I made vinyl recordings from a Beogram 1000, through a National Panasonic RE-7670B receiver and into an undefined cassette recorder which I fail to remember. Tapes were BASF Chromdioxid II Super, TDK SA-X and Maxell XLI-S and XLII-S.
It happened so I could listen to these tapes on a Studer A721 and they impressed me. It only goes to show, that the electronic chain had the fidelity, despite being low-midrange equipment and the speakers at all times are the culprit.
Of course you need high end stuff to deal with the margins, where some naturally have higher priority than others, but in everyday life, you can do with almost anything, if you make your choice of speakers your highest priority.
If money are of concern, then use the majority on the speakers, not on high end tapedecks. Then you're in for a satisfying surprise.
This sounds amazing in my headphones.
same
Same, Thanks
Bib still exists as a brand of ‘b-tech international group’ who make AV mounting brackets based in Daventry just outside London, U.K.. They used to make all kinds of cassette, vhs & cd cleaners that used to be sold at Woolworths and Argos, along with vinyl record brushes etc.
And genuine LOL at David Murray around 15:47 😂😂
oh i got a vhs cleaner of them
Yep very well known in the UK
Thanks for that, it brought back a lot of nice memories of me and my dad setting up his stereo system: a wonderful old Marantz quadraphonic amp, Jerrold turntable, and Akai X-head reel-to-reel. Who knows how many of their example sounds, like "striking a match" or "tearing a newspaper" will be completely unknown to future generations? Those items are quite uncommon nowadays. Ah, the memories... Cheers!
Would be funny if this gets a DMCA strike.
Lol 😂 I was thinking that too. But I’m betting that he did his due diligence on that, but yeah that would be so wacky (and kinda sad really) if the automated system did that 🤦♀️
This video got plenty of copyright claims for the music featured on the tape. Actual DMCA takedowns on RUclips are rare these days except for people like Don Henley of the Eagles who don't recognize the benefit if fans were able to share their appreciation of his music, as Rick Beato has talked about in his videos.
I seen a copyright strike take down of a video comparing a toot to a classical music piece. The strike was done on both the toot and classical music.
@@vwestlifeMost of the time you just get a copyright claim where the revenue go towards the band/artist, but some like The Beatles would block videos that contain their songs. They should let us upload vinyl rips of their albums so we can hear the mono mixes as they are not available on streaming services.
@@vwestlifefor some new decks with no dolby what about an external unit I just picked one up cause I got a bogen pa cassette player with out nr and how do you find this cassette I want one just like it
Actually you know, this tape is much more realistic and helpful than some of those contemporary sound channel test videos. Even does panning. Nice 👍
Cool 😎
The conversation between them seems reminiscent of the background gags in the movie Airplane! where the two got into an argument…
“The white zone is for…”
How wild, I was just reading that wikipedia page today. They used the very same LAX announcers
And what an awesome tape deck too. As a kid I couldn’t afford anything like that back in the day but when I’d visit the electronics section with my Dad in any good department store (back when they carried stuff like this), I’d drool over the full logic mechanism and the VFD counter _and_ VU bar graphs. Omg wonderful!
Pioneer VFDs didn't stand the test of time - at some point they inevitably lose brightness. Old-school VU needles all the way!
@@jmi5969 This one lets you turn the display off -- but when you do, a "DISP. OFF" indicator remains lit, so the VFD filaments are still energized, and those are what wear out and go dim over time, so it doesn't help.
@@vwestlife. Wow. What an impressive deck! It makes that 50+ year old tape sound brand new.
I'm not familiar with the T-D7 deck. Is that made for the US market or did you have to import it from Japan? Thanks.
@@vwestlifeMy Yamaha decks from 85 on all still have nice bright fluorescent displays. The one on my VCR has a dimmer button but I keep it up and keep the meters dancing for my analog tv inputs. I should do a video on her before she dies. I wish a had a VHS hifi test tape 😁
@@spd1214 Yes, the T-D7 was only sold in Japan. Europe got a similar model, the CT-S670D, which is black instead of champagne silver and lacks the digital input on the front, but that model wasn't sold in North America, either.
Gorgeous tape deck.
Found your channel the other day and it has quickly become one of my favorites!
The voices are so cultured and sophisticated and posh, clearly effort was made with this recording.
That's the standard "Received Pronunciation" accent which all British announcers of the era were expected to use.
@@vwestlife Yeah, it's definitely RP, especially Mary. Which is sometimes called "BBC English". Of course these days you'll almost never hear RP on the BBC now, either TV or radio.
@@michaelturner4457 David Gell is actually from Canada, but he worked for the BBC in the '60s and '70s, so I'm sure he did his best to pick up the accent as well.
@@vwestlife I honestly thought he was Irish, as it's pretty much how Irish radio DJs and TV presenters talked in the '70s. Not quite RP, but close. Especially his Rs and Ts are not typical for an English accent. The way he says some words like "walk" are unfamiliar though.
The year of my birth. This cassette aged better 😅
The mention of VHF radio. It took a long time for the FM term to be adopted for it in the UK.
Also AM and kHz, rather than medium wave and metres (probably because of long wave also being used).
Is the T-D7 going to get its own video?
Probably.
The full technical title has always been "VHF/FM" radio. Many radios during the 60s and 70s, especially British made ones such as Roberts, did state "VHF" on their dials.
It’s today that I learn that my iPad pro (1st gen) has stereo speaker and have decent separation between them. I own this device for 5++ years…
Your uploads mean so much to me
sounds awesome! & especially for being over 50 years old-thanks for sharing!
yo!! A cassette related video just for my bday you rules Kevin thanks
Happy Birthday!🥂
@@dwarf365 thanks u
My dad had this test tape. As soon as David started speaking I was whisked back to being 8 years old. Amazing.
Serious plot hole: he took the metronome with him to the right side at 4:20 (no pun intended) but suddenly she was able to take it from the left side she was occupying to the center at 5:25. There was neither a mention of a second metronome (potential plot twist in a sequel?) nor a sound of a metronome being tossed by him to her across my stereo soundstage. Killed my suspension of disbelief right there and took me out of the immersion. Unsubscribing.
Hold on there, they were in a big fight because Mary wouldn't do it with David the night before so Mary was screwing up the demonstration on purpose to get back at limp dick David.
Also when he walked across the room to the center he wore her shoes... 🤔
Probably the best test cassette I've ever heard 👌
Tape hiss is eliminated with Dolby? LOL maybe reduced.
'As a housewife, perhaps i could offer some advice on cleaning"....lol, couldn't get away with that nowadays.
Bib 😲 there's a name I'd forgotten. Excellent as always 👍
Back in the day. Along time ago. I had a copy of this cassette. Which if remember I used quite a lot……..for some reason. Thanks for the nostalgia trip 😊
What a fun post. Thank you for sharing!
It's amazing how good the sound is on your video's. 👍
Thank you very much for the video 😀
I've noticed that, too. The audio in his videos always sound incredible. He should have been a sound engineer.
What a lovely video!
I bought a Dolby B add on device for
noise reduction in 1972, which worked
up to about 12 k back then.
One of the best test tape around
Hi thanks for shareing never heard that tape before i have a simalir thest record but i do remember Bib products ie cassette head cleaning tape & record cleaner cloths we had had them here in the UK till round about the mid 80s when Tandy & realistic took over Thanks for reminding me about Bib i had forgotten about them
I do still have a copy of this tape with just the pressure pad repaired here and the EMI "The Enjoyment of Stereo" test record with a similar program. They're not perfect but are a good start point for checking everything is correctly set up.
Even in the late 1970's we were expected for our English Language examinations to be be tested on speaking in "standard english" by accent and vocabuary which if like me you speak with a strong Staffordshire accent with dialect at home and in everyday transactions was something of challenge.
oh man this is great. beauty deck as well :)
Levels on that recording are HUGE! Maybe why its sibilant... Regards from Portugal!!!!
Yeah, +7 dB is really pushing it for a standard ferric tape from 1972!
My YT meanderings today included this welcome touch of joy- what a great bit of tech nostalgia! Oh, and…. do you think *I* too could be the captain of the Queen’s navy?? Maybe, one day…?
This is a good stereo test. I will keep this video as a good reference tool compared to other videos don't do well with stereo tests. Along with music you heard on NPR. Also Halloween Radio's classical favorite, Phantom of the Opera, and also heard music from a movie soundtrack.
Ohhh i thought it was you giving tips xD
Anyway, thanks for sharing !
I use a D cell battery to check for proper polarity of the speaker terminals. Plus to plus and Minus to minus. The speaker cones must move in the same direction when tapping the wire on the battery!
Can you give further detail on how you go about this and what what to extrapolate from such a test for us layman’s?
Pioneer TD-7 very nice
No, T-D7.
Nice, Pioneer T-D7 straight from Japan!
It would be interesting to make a presentation video of your Pioneer T-D7 cassette deck, it's the real star of this video.
With information on any repairs made to it (change of belt, capacitors).
Unless I'm mistaken, as I could see it for a fraction of a second when inserting the cassette in the player, it's the basic brown oxyde (peanut butter color:) from that era, Type 1 or perhaps ~0. But still, for 50 years old tape, it's quite good except for some parts when the recording seems to have saturated the tape.
Yes, it's a standard ferric oxide tape.
i got some cheap stereo office speakers and just found out they were set up reversed. So the tape has already proven itself to be useful. ^^
seems so simple, but it's amazing how many people with spring terminal connectors do have their speakers connected out of phase, so the cone is literally moving the opposite direction: in, instead of out, out instead of in, etc.
You mean having the wires crossed, like black to red?
Got my speakers in phase..
THANK YOU
This 'british' test tape is uncanniky like the DECCA album _How To Give Yourself A Stereo Checkout_ Wording is just slightly changed... Interesting...
Nice!
I'm really impressed with the audio quality on that tape with your deck, sounds to my ears as good as any recording I've made on ferric tape, if not better. I'm assuming this one is ferric?
I guess many viewers of your videos are listening through decent stereo systems or at least good headphones.
so cool
This is great, as it showed that my system is set up perfectly.
My disappointment was 15:35 and 51:17. You showed that gun freak. I withdrew from his channel when I found out what he was like. You should do the same.
New Jersey Represent 🎉🎉💋💋💋
Should have titled it "Sound Advice"
Interesting tape. Now I have to wonder about the 1973 instrumental album Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. And how the last few minutes of side one of his record uses the same sort of announcement thing going on that this tape does from 14-16 minutes in. Was there a connection or just parallel evolution going on?
sibilant - that's a new word for me. :-)
Wonder if they ever made one for the 8 track tape or the Victrola.
@techmoan /@vwestlife … please track down a Bib Cassette Re-Record Kit 😂
I think I know what this is - clear plastic lugs that could be inserted in the recesses on the top of the tape, and a tool for prising them back out. The other end of the tool could be used as a tape tensioner.
this was great, i was waiting for the 3000khz tone to start at the wow and flutter part lol, anyway will we get are part 2 on the cassette decks for dummy's?
16:44 If they wanted to stick with the orchestral theme, they could have put in an orchestra tuning their instruments here; that would've been a good example of Concert A (440Hz).
Idk why but imagining the 2 walking around carrying a metronome everytime would look funny
I have Dennon CD that also has a lot of this same stuff on it that I use !
I'm listening to this with headphones on and I am hearing some odd 'echoing' going on, sometimes when the speakers speak in either of the channels, I hear their voice reflected in the opposite channel, I really noticed this artefact when the metronomes were being used and were panning from one channel to the other. I don't quite know the technical term for the phenomenon I was hearing.
it's just bleed-through (the other channel microphone picking up the sound in the background).
there's a video of a The Beatles album with the bass track solo'd, and you can still faintly hear the drums in the background bleeding into the bass amp mic.
Do you use a voltage adapter with the T-D7? I ended up getting the CT-S670D and have to use a converter.
I did use it with a 100 volt stepdown transformer for this video, but even at 120 volts it's fine. The only noticeable difference is that the voltage regulators run a bit hotter and the display is brighter.
They had recorded the tape a little too loud (with VU meters going into the red), which resulted in a bit of saturation. They should care about this as this tape is used to test audio systems.
The grand piano W&F test sounds normal, but the pipe organ in a previous excerpt does sound wobbly. I think pipe organ is absolutely the most difficult instruments to play from a cassette,.
Next do something they did in 1973! Talk about Abba's first hits & stuff!
My name is John and I will now pass the dutchie on the left hand side.
So the cassette teaches you how to get good sound with your cassette player? And sorry I keep saying questions about the banpa stylus because I don’t want to screw up like connecting the wrong wire. But I do have a question, is the 78s stylus that comes with the banpa can play 78s and won’t damage the 78s record
The "78" stylus the Banpa comes with is actually a 1 mil LP stylus. It can safely play 78s, it just won't sound as good (usually) as a proper 3 mil 78 RPM stylus.
The waveform graphs of the content of that tape would actually look interesting
Is this a type 1 cassette? Looks like they drove the audio level to +6 db. A bit excessive for Dolby B NR, let alone type 1 cassette.
Yes, it's a standard ferric tape.
can you explain what the FLEX is all about? Greetings from Greece and merry Christmas holidays.
Maybe I've missed it (I've been subscribed to this channel for at least a year), but I'd love to see a video on the Pioneer T-D7 because I've never seen a cassette deck with optical digital input / output before. (Is that SPDIF?) If you haven't yet, please consider making one.
The optical output is unfortunately only a passthrough from the optical input. It can record from the optical input to tape, but the tape does not play through the optical output.
That Pioneer deck looks very ahead of its time, but I’m wondering what happened to the Teac one that’s in lot of your recent videos?
I still have it.
@@vwestlife Thank U, so you have a large collection of cassette decks, and you use a different one in every new video?
Did Mary used to do the IBA announcements ? or am I showing my age ( while wearing my anorak )
its possible to make this tape in 2 archives mp3 side A and side B and put on google drive or other to download ? iam search of this tape to buy and.not found or make a exact copy and sell tape to me ?
Apparently the loudness war started in 1972.
At least a decade before then, actually. Many 45s from the 1960s were cut so loud that they're similarly distorted.
Actually it started in the early 1960s, especially with recordings from Motown in Detroit, the motor city.. Apparently Berry Gordy himself did say, my records are intended to sound good in a car.
this would make a nice base for a remix
turned out to be a part time sound effects tape - imagine if they had nails on the chalkboard sound on that tape - 😅 @42:35 sounds 'almost' over modulated those peaks. Good sound overall though
Ha, Bib.
What does the "flex" indicator signify?
FLEX = Frequency Lever EXpander. See my video about "A cassette deck which eliminates tape hiss".
I love you VWestlife
Hey i have a question i have a jvc boombox when i record songs on cassette’s the sound of the recording is distorted if anyone knows anything please tell me in da comments
Google is wondering why so many people are looking for the meaning of sabilant.
Very nice, and I have Dolby on my tablet. Lenovo / IBM does a great job on separation for stereo.
That's a different sort of Dolby! This one is for removing tape hiss...
So would it be an idea to capture this audio from my iPhone onto a cassette to dub it? Or is that just craziness?! 🧐
Craziness.
Can you connect a cassette deck only through speakers or guitar amp
Yes if they're active speakers and have RCA inputs. No if they're the passive speakers.
I wonder what Mary and David are doing today.
Both are still alive. Maroussia Frank (Mary) is now 83 and David Gell is 93.
@@vwestlife 😃
Did people really talk all resonant and dramatic like this still in 1972? This sounds like something that was transferred from a much earlier time, maybe from a quarter inch tape system. Then again, there was dialogue like this in Kubrik’s 2001, and that came out in 1968. Interesting either way.
So, a bib for your stereo system?🤔😄
Without test tones or sections with pink noise, I wouldn't find this to be a very useful test tape. Also, I noticed a lot of sibilant distortion in the spoken parts. I wonder if that has something to do with the Dolby noise reduction.
They had the recording level set too high when duplicating the tape. Dolby NR actually helps to reduce siblance, rather than increase it.
@@vwestlife Would it help to have the FLEX turned off?
@@purpleghost4083 That would only mask it a bit by reducing all high frequencies.
Easiest video production ever on this channel.
3:45 - British accents don't make people sound smarter, clarity does. The two speakers on that tape are exceptionally clear in every vowel, consonant, and syllable they utter. Boorish Johnson, ex-PM of England, could lose an argument to a brain damaged organutang, but people take him seriously because of his spoken voice. Or if you want to compare americans, John Cusack and Harrison Ford were born in Evanston and Chicago, cities 20km apart. Who sounds more intelligent in interviews, Cusack's clear, defined words or Ford's voice bordering on a mumble? (No insult to Ford.)
David Gell (the "David" on this tape) is actually from Canada, but he worked for the BBC in the '60s and '70s and thus had to adopt their standard "posh announcer" accent.
15:39 :D 37:46 :D