Hi Tyra:

I basically agree with Richard except that most microcassettes that I've encountered are just 
interview or memo stuff recorded with the attached mic and are decidedly low-fi, just not something 
worth a lot of precision effort, the only goal should be audibility. So I usually just use a 
well-working microcassette machine. I have a Panasonic and an Olympus, and both do a fine job. I 
take the earphone output thru an impedence-matching transformer into a line input. I usually apply 
EQ to improve audibility, but it's up to the client. Most clients don't opt for fidelity to a 
crappy-sounding source if they can have better audibility through modern tools.

My point is, you don't need to go spend a fortune to hunt down a Precision High Fidelity Playback 
system for a lowly microcassette, in 90+% of cases.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 5:19 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Microcassette players


> Tyra,
>
> There are professional units from JBR
> http://jbrtech.com/prod_ptu.html
>
> If the price of the above is beyond your budget, you might wish to consider two alternatives:
> (1) Find a portable or desk transcriber that works reasonably well, come out of the headphone jack 
> and capture that in the computer.
> (2) Take the tape out of the microcassette shell, load it into a standard cassette shell, and use 
> a high-end standard cassette player.
>
> For the relatively small volume of microcassette transfers I'm asked to do (maybe 10-20 per year), 
> I take option (2). The sound will be backwards and at 2x or 4x speed. So record at 96 ks/s and 
> then when you play it back at 48 ks/s, you'll still have full audio bandwidth in the digital 
> domain--the analog player will have cut off somewhere around 20 kHz or so, therefore you'll only 
> have 10 kHz of audio in the file, but it won't be digitally limited.
>
> If you have to go down to 1/4 speed, your top end will be limited (again in the analog domain by 
> the repro deck) to 5 kHz.
>
> But, interestingly, those are the limits of the JBR unit as well. Standard speed on a 
> microcassette is 2.4 cm/s (15/16 in/s) and LP is 1.2 cm/s (15/32 in/s) while a standard cassette 
> is 4.8 cm/s (1-7/8 in/s). There just isn't much high end on the tape at 15/32 in/s!
>
> The technique on my website for reloading cassettes can be adapted to microcassettes as well. If 
> you cut the tape right at the empty hub side of the opening, you'll preserve the start pulses that 
> JBR talks about.
> http://richardhess.com/notes/2006/03/06/loading-c-0-cassettes/
>
> You will not be able to return the tapes to the microcassette shell, but this has been acceptable 
> to a wide range of clients. One potential client did not want the original artifact damaged, so I 
> declined the project.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> On 2013-04-19 4:49 PM, Grant, Tyra wrote:
>> We need to purchase a microcassette player for creating digital transfers.
>> I'd like a durable player that will provide playback quality  as good as is reasonably possible 
>> from a microcassette.
>> Any recommendations?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Tyra Grant
>> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>
>> Digital and electronic media preservation
>> University of Kansas Libraries
>> Phone: 785-864-8951
>>
>
> -- 
> Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada                             647 479 2800
> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>