[Wayner]

I wonder if the balance issue could be caused by too much, or too little, anti-skating adjustment?

Frank Van Alstine

Certainly a possible cause, however, with poor anti-skating adjustment (too much or too little), one channel will also suffer mis-tracking. I've seen (and heard this) on several CDs as well, so it's not just related to one medium. I truly suspect that they were mastered this way, perhaps unknown to the mastering engineer that his system was out of balance.

Classical recordings are almost if not all recorded live on a stage with the sound-stage dependent on the musicians position.

The usual first response is that it was the artist's intent, but on some recordings, I really don't think any artist would want the effect. When I made live recordings of orchestras, I usually had 4 microphones on the stage. One low frequency mic set to mid stereo pan position on the mixer to send equal bass energy to the left and right. This kept the red lining surprises to a minimum and gave the recording a full bodied sound (and actually sounded like the live event). I would then use 3 microphones to cover the general stage, but in good sounding halls, I would use 3 microphones mounted in the same position with one straight forward, one 90 degrees to the left and the other 90 degrees to the right, using cardioids in all cases. This technique had a name (I forgot) but would capture lots of ambient stuff and give the recording some nice "air", but sometimes losing some imaging.

Mark, as far as good cassette tape goes, I have always liked Maxell XL II s or XL II C90. Both are CrO2 and well made, surviving the test of time. I have no idea where to source the tape, but that is my brand. I also use Maxell Reel to Reel tape, UD 35-90 (N). This is a 1 mil tape and is also great stuff.

Wayner

[BobM]

I've used many different brands of cassette tape over the years. The Maxell's mentioned have definitely fared better than others over time. BASF being the absolute worst - actually having a whitish oxidation coming off the tape and polluting the head within a minute or two of playing them back. SONY was decent but not great, and TDK's lost a lot of bandwidth over time.

Same for my reel to reels. Maxell wins overall.

[Wayner]

If my failing memory serves me correctly, Bob Carver tried to address this problem in the early days with Phase Linear on some of his high end preamps. It wasn't a balance control, but an additional knob used as an "auto-corrolator" or what the hell he ever called it, that would move some of the lower bass/mid bass frequencies to a more balanced position, maybe he called it holographic something or other, but it was NFL as I'm not sure it worked that well and perhaps disturbed the recording too much. Or in other words, the cure was worse then the cause.

I personally wouldn't care about this unbalanced energy distribution, but it affects my gain riding when I record analog. With my new Tascam CD burner, I can raise the level of the digital recording (from it's digital source), but not with the left and right channels independent. If the leading channel were lower, I could raise the recording level, without redlining, and in the digital recording world, you do not redline, ever.

Wayner

[Mike Nomad]

To follow up: can readers respond with their best sources for fresh, high quality cassette tapes (C-90)?? 

Thanks, and Cheers,

Mark

Mark, I'm not sure how "hardcore" you want to go with this cassette thing... I used TDK MA-R90 cassette shells, and went to a bulk house for the tape to re-pack the shells. I used what was basically Denon's metal formulation, and kept the Run Time to ~25 min. on a side so I could use .11 mm tape (I think. Haven't thought about this in a LONG time) and keep spool binding to a minimum.

Edit: I think I had the decimal in the wrong place.