I thought it was common knowledge that bias is reauired to lower the
noise floor of the recorded signal, improve distortion, and extend
frequency response. It was long thought that it was simply out of
range for the tape to hold it, thus is disappeared effectively in the
playback. Until the PP processes!
So your logic is just a notch off - the heads need biaas to record
the tape better, which is synergistic! BOTH need it, and both suffer
without it. There is a simplistic description here:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_bias>
<L>
On Apr 29, 2010, at 1:49 PM, Shai Drori wrote:
> What I learned and maybe I got it wrong is that bias was applied in
> the recording process to eliminate head to tape distortion at the
> zero crossing point of the signal in the head. It was recorded on
> the tape because it was there but the tape is not what needed it,
> it was the heads. Reading your post I think I might have gotten it
> all wrong. In any case, the ATR recordings are not dead quiet, they
> have hiss etc. just not bias. Richard says that the Sony APR has
> high bias as well, I guess that's why as he says they also sound
> fantastic. I think it was in a conversation that i had with Mike
> Spitz from ATR service that this subject came up.
> Shai
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