I remember seeing some of the Simon & Garfunkel master cutting
tapes at Columbia which were literally worn out from over use. The
tape seemed to have become very thin and the audio level diminished.
Doug Pomeroy
Audio Restoration and Mastering Services
193 Baltic St
Brooklyn, NY 11201-6173
(718) 855-2650
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> Regarding Robin's posting, I don't think there's any blanket "wisdom" about old tapes getting
> "dulled out," but I have heard stories about older tapes that were used to cut a lot of LP masters
> get so they don't Dolby-track well and other things related to certain frequencies falling off more
> than others over time. I think it could be that the tapes passed over slightly magnetized transport
> parts or heads here and there, or were exposed to weak magnetic fields for long periods of time, or
> even lost enough oxide for it to be audible just because they were played so many times. After all,
> playback is not a frictionless exercise.
>
> -- Tom Fine
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