Cassette Tapes..Dolby B or C?

Definitely B.

But Dolby C, on a good deck, with a good tape, was a real treat.

The question about whether the commercially available tapes were Dolby B or C encoded has already been answered correctly by many on the thread.

In my opinion the best way of getting the benefit from the dolby encoded disks was to record and listen on the same deck especially when it is precisely caliberated for playback and recording. The commercial tapes had variations, some sounded really good and some not really so.

I still have about 100 or so left with me from long time ago, and some sound pretty good. The TDK SA (High bias CrO2) and AD (Normal bias Fe) were the best in my opinion not only for the time but in terms of longivity. The SA and AD were my preference always.

I still have the Nakamichi 700 with me but it needs a bit of cleaning as I have had no time to do that.

I used the Nakamichi 700 Tri-Tracer for a very long time, my friend had the legendary 1000, it was good old days I must say the best times I spent really enjoying music with almost no resposibilities or worries.

Thank you for creating this thread, it sure brought back memories of the good times :-)

Everyone gets bent out of shape about copy protection which prevents the making of digital copies. The easy way around this is a good analog recorder of some kind, or even a digital recorder which accepts analog inputs.

Eldartford

Further to that point, I always found it curious - as an audiophile - to think that in the late '70s to early 80's, tape decks could make great recordings that were virtually indistinguishable to the original. (At least for laymans', if not golden ears.)

But it was "digital", which didnt even sound as good, that drove paranoia and copy protection to new, ridiculous heights.

I guess the Napster police have never heard of Nakamichi?

I own a Yamaha cassette deck with Dolby B&C, which I purchased in the mid eighties. It's a mid-fi deck...certainly not high end, but also a step above consumer (I think...).

I used primarily TDK SA tape, with an occasional Maxell thrown in.

Talk about making digital sound like analog! Good Dolby C cassette recordings of CDs still sound wonderful, in my opinion.