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From: phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: Wanted:  cassette deck advice!
Message-ID: <757@amdcad.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Mar-85 01:46:55 EST
Article-I.D.: amdcad.757
Posted: Fri Mar  1 01:46:55 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 21:26:49 EST
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> >> A salesman trying to put down the Nak mentioned that Nak aligns
> >> the heads on their decks different from most other decks, is this
> >> true? Isn`t there some kind of standard?

Isn't anyone else going to come up with the right answer? Here's
the way I understand it. There was a spec for the amount of flux
put on a tape. However, the only way you can measure the flux is
with a read head. Back when this first happened, the read heads
weren't too good and in fact lost a significant amount of signal.
The Europeans didn't seem to understand this and so cranked up
the flux that went in so what they measured appeared to be right.
What they measured seemed right but the flux on the tape was
above spec.

Nakamichi calculated the loss due to imperfect read heads and calibrated
according to that method. They equalized for the read head
after reading rather than by boosting the write signal above
the amount of flux called for by the standard.

I happen to believe that Nakamichi did it the right way. What's important
is the flux on the tape. That is the only way you can get an
interchange standard. If two systems have a difference in the
loss of their read heads and are calibrated the European way,
their tapes won't interchange. The deck whose read head was more
lossy will appear to have too much signal to the other deck
because the first one wrote extra flux. If you use the Nakamichi scheme,
the write heads all write the same amount of flux and the read heads
come out with the same signal too.

These days it does not matter as much because the technology is
there to make heads with very small gaps and the read loss is
much less now. But these nasty rumors that Nakamichi is nonstandard
still fly around.

I am sure that I will get flamed if I misunderstood this or if I
have said anything in an ambiguous way.
-- 
 Why, that's more useless than the left thumb of a touch typist!

 Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720
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