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INDEX SONY EL-4 SONY EL-5 SONY EL-7 MAINTENANCE MODS CONCLUSION
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CONCLUSION: It has come as quite a rude awakening to find out that a large number of audio and video companies are quickly removing all tape based recording media from society and replacing them with hard drive devices. Gone are the open reel recorders and VCR's and in their place the CD and DVD. Now don't get me wrong, both are extremely well received inventions but does this mean that all tape based recorders are inadequate? It would incorrectly seem so. The fact is that tape and tape based recorders are looked upon as worthless dinosaurs that must be eradicated from society at all cost in favor of the ipod, MP3 players, music downloading programs and the like. Regular pro audio shops no longer carry tape and it is increasingly becoming more and more difficult to find any shops that do. Does this mean that all tape based media are obsolete? I'm afraid so! Recorders manufactured only a few years ago from such reputable manufacturers as Tascam and Studer/Revox are suddenly without available soft wear. Recently while working on a remastering project I was in need of open reel tape stock 456 as well as DAT cassettes. Having no luck here in the central Fraser Valley in finding such soft wear I turned to Alberta (on vacation) for which I've had great dealings with in the past for the bulk of my tape. Would you believe that no where was tape to be found? Devastated at the thought my entire system has just become obsolete over night- literally, I turned to the only hope I had available to me- the internet. There I found what I needed- at a price. It begs the question: Where is the future of audio heading? In my opinion down the toilet. As I have alluded to earlier, tape based recorders are essential in capturing sound waves as high as 40kHz or more. This is something that digital will never be able to match. Why? It's quite simple really. Here we have the advent of the compact disc for starters. Introduced to consumers around 1983 it has established a market place and probably will never be upgraded to anything past 22kHz. Now we have computers for all our music but mostly downloading onto MP3 players or ipods. This is not recording- it's downloading. These digital music devices will never capture the true realism of music the way it was intended to be listened to. Audio systems are fast being replaced with audio/video systems with the emphasis on video and deep unrealistic bass. This is all well and good for DVD's but for one small flaw- DVD's do not operate in regular CD players and so we are forced to listen to our CD's in the DVD player- all limited to a maximum of 22kHz. We certainly have the technology to include these high frequency overtones on the DVD- but wait, DVD's operate on a little thing called "compression" which also destroys musicality. As I write this conclusion I am also thinking about all those audiophile geeks and what they will be left with to tinker on. Remember if it wasn't for these true audio pioneers we would still be listening to the 8-track cartridge. We would know nothing about the audible over tones that before were regarded as inaudible and no way to capture them naturally. With no ability to experiment on and perfect these new hard drive recorders that have replaced analogue, we are effectively prevented from climbing the ladder of betterment. Looking back at the history of recorded sound we can certainly appreciate the advents in technology from cylinder records to the phonograph, or wire recorders to multi-track tape recorders, and from there the DAT- a perfect hybrid of both analogue tape and digital that have shaped our society towards the ultimate in musical quality. All these inventions have so far escalated to perfection. Even the leap from the phonograph to the digital CD was considered by many to be an improvement in sound. My question to Philips then would be - why limit the CD frequency to 22kHz? The answer you're likely to receive would be "limited available space". What is so wrong with tape based recorders? Why must they be eliminated from society like a plague- and so quickly? Over the last one hundred years we have slowly risen to perfection in sound and now we are suddenly falling in the opposite direction - towards low-fi. This is not progression- it's degradation. This new generation of young adults does not understand the concept of recording- theirs is called downloading. Terms such as head alignment, record EQ and bias are meaningless. The day is fast approaching when listenable audio will comprise of congregating in front of a computer screen- mouse in hand. Gone are the days of recorder alignments and tweeking to perfection. Gone are the hands on approach to finely tuning a record level or properly setting up a mixer and microphone for live performance recording. The future of audio engineering will remain strictly in recording studios, but now out of public view and into the circuitry of MP3's and ipods- complete with compression and high frequency elimination.
Geraint Tuck
References : - Akai GX-Head: Glass and X-Tal Ferrite Head circular - Sony Elcaset Owner's/Service Manuals: Elcaset EL-4 1977 Elcaset EL-5 1976 Elcaset EL-7 1976 - Sound and Vision magazine Audio/Video preview '86 (September 1985) - Stereo Review Magazine (October 1976) - Tascam- Series 30 Recorder/Reproducers circular - Tascam- Teac Professional Division: BR-20 series operation/maintenance manual - Teac Stereo Open Reel Decks: X-2000 series circular |
INDEX SONY EL-4 SONY EL-5 SONY EL-7 MAINTENANCE MODS CONCLUSION