Last weekend I was in a house music mood so I pulled some of my cassette tapes from the early 1990s and burned them onto CDs. In order to get the best sound possible for the recording, I played around with the Dolby switches. I like a lot of bass in my music but I also like a crisp clear sound so on my receiver, I have both the bass and treble knobs turned to the max. When I turned on the Dolby controls on my cassette deck to either A or B, it made the music sound muffled like maybe the treble knob had been turned down. Hell, to me, it sounded better with the Dolby off.

Do you guys hear a difference in Dolby Noise Reduction and if so, do you like it?

I never liked Dolby NR either...found it useless.

Same. I never turn that on. I prefer hearing cassettes clearly with tape hiss than no tape hiss and muffled.

Cassettes sure as hell do not age well at all either. When I was listening to them, the sound on several of them would drop lower and come back up. What confuses me is some of the tapes will be clear as a bell one one side of the tape and muffled all the way through on the other side of the tape.

sextonseven said:

that's exactly it

Back in the days I never used Dolby NR because of the muffled sound. Never really understood what it was good for.

How did you record from cassette to CD ? And how can I record from vinyl to CD ?

vainandy said:

are you using auto reverse?

I had a deck that would sound clear going forward and muffled going backward. But if you flipped the tape over manually it sounded fine.

I also think it makes the sound quality worse. It's amazing that the function survived and continued to make it on to so many tape players.

NDRU said:

the sponge thingie (under the tape) could be uneven. i used to always have to use a pin needle to pull the sucker out to balance the line.

sigh...cassettes were fun...trying to tape them back up when they would break....winding them back after your stereo chewed them up. good times...good times indeed.

It's not done with a computer CD burner. You have to buy a CD burner that is an actual stereo component and you have to have a component stereo system (a receiver that you plug multiple components in such as a turntable, CD player, tape deck, etc.).

You simply plug the CD burner into the receiver and record from whatever you want to from the stereo sytem just like you were recording a cassette tape. I even have my VCR and DVD player plugged in also. I don't know about computers but it seems like maybe you could plug your computer into the stereo and do the same thing....that is if computer CD burners will record manually at normal speed.....I don't know.

Anyway, there is a flaw though. With a CD burner that is a stereo component, you can't buy just any brand of blank CDs. You have to read the packages very carefully because a lot of them are compatible with computers only.....as far as recording goes.

It's not an auto reverse deck. I had one once and swore I would NEVER buy another one because after a while, you could hear side 2 playing in the background backwards while side 1 was playing.

vainandy said:

aight now...so where the f*ck does one go to buy a replacement cassette player nowadays?

They should still be in the appliance stores such as Rex, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. I hope so. I bought my last one in 2003.

vainandy said:

Aah, ok, a friend of mine has one by Philips...they hardly sell those things around here anymore. The last one I saw was at a second hand store, real cheap.
One of those things that died out, like Betamax VCRs or Sony Minidisc...I bought a MD recorder and it broke after the warranty time...now I have tons of MDs that I´ll never use again.

I bought a generic brand one called "Classic" in 2002 and there were several brands in the store back then. I wore the damn thing out by late 2003 and in late 2004 when I finally saved up enough money to buy another one, I searched the stores all over town and, if they even carried one, they all had only one brand...."Sony" and that damn thing was $299. The generic brand I had earlier was only $199.

I notice a difference, no trebly ambiences especially on sharp synth or drums sounds, which sounds awful.

sosgemini said:

I bought the one I use now online at Crutchfield.