It's easy to take the C-Format cassette for granted. This humble and unguarded form will fit neatly into the grittiest of jacket pockets, rest uncomplainingly in its semi-molten state on the sunniest of red-hot dashboards and congregate multitudinously with unnerring, unlabelled humility in the fattiest of long-forgotten cardboard boxes. And what comfort awaits it should such heartless maltreatment finally result in a partial breakdown of its reproductive abilities? With what compassion do we greet this last desperate cry of despair? Nothing but disdain do we offer. Is this really any way to treat a C-90??

No, my friends. We must realise how churlish and brutish we have been in this matter. These small, unobtrusive workhorses have long been the much abused proletariat of the magnetic tape world and we, the much lauded commanders of the On/Off switches, have all been happy to protract their suffering without a second thought. Well now it's time to wake up. Now it's time to take a fresh look-C.

An End To All Confusion

There is much confusion abroad concerning the different types of cassette tape available. The goal in all this searching for new tape coatings is quite simply to find one that is cheap to implement and which can take high magnetic flux levels, give low noise, wide/flat frequency response and low print through etc, etc. A European body known as the IEC have defined four basic types of cassette tape, and you can assume that as they go up the scale they fit better and better the above description — with the exception of low price:

IEC 1 — Standard Ferrous tape (Fe) using a coating of iron oxide.

IEC 2 — Chrome or pseudo chrome tape (CrO2) using chrome oxide, or more commonly an alloy with similar magnetic characteristics.

IEC 3 — Ferri-Chrome (FeCr). A tape containing one layer of chrome oxide and one of iron oxide. Intended to give the best of both worlds, but eventually binned as a bad idea.

IEC 4 — Metal tape. Instead of using a metal oxide, these tapes have a coating of pure iron crystals. In addition to being able to take higher fluxivity, metal also means smaller crystals and hence a better high frequency response.

That's

From tape specialists, Taiyo Yuden, comes a new generation of cassette tapes going under the collective title of That's. These tapes do seem to offer excellent quality at very reasonable (though not cheap) prices, and this has largely been achieved through the use of a new and innovative tape production process.

The production of 'metal' cassette recording tape, for instance, is not without its complications. The creation of the necessary needle-shaped pure iron powder has always required the reduction of very expensive pure iron by a horrendously complicated procedure involving all manner of bunsen burners, phials, rubber hosing and litmus paper to get from Fe + 2HC1 to 4Fe + 4H2o. However, those That's R&D chaps have apparently made a breakthrough that allows them to inexpensively process cheap old ferrous chloride to produce the desired iron crystals with a performance equal to or better than the standard wares: high quality, low price — the business man's Grail. This new discovery has given birth to the That's MG cassettes, and although the company continues to produce a superior metal tape, the MR, by more standard methods, even this process is soon to be changed.

The next That's goal was to create a tape capable of metal-like performance on a CrO2 (chrome) position and at a chrome price. So as to protect the delicate walls of your artiste's sensibility, oh sensitive reader, you will be spared the details. However, you might be interested to know that it is actually pure metal that is used on these tapes, but with a slightly different method of crystal construction to reduce coercivity... without impairing particle anisotrophy... or going all soggy as soon as you put the milk on. The end result is the That's EM and EM-X tapes — pure metal tape, chrome/high-bias position. The EM apparently offers 2dB more overall output as compared to the best of the pseudo-chromes, and the newer EM-X claims a further 1.5dB signal-to-noise ratio, 1.0dB extra sensitivity and a better LF response. On their perfectly aligned test recorder That's achieved a +3dB frequency response of up to 16kHz, although no record level was specified.

But even if the tape is wonderful, hasn't the weakest link always been the mechanical structure of the C-Format with its loosely centred hubs and its overly casual tape guides? With lesser cassettes/cassette decks, the tape path tolerances are such that the tape can easily and freely ride up and down against the heads in the play mode even on the most sophisticated of players, bringing into doubt the stability of azimuth, frequency response, stereo imaging and everything else that makes it sound a bit off. A good cassette in a good deck is, though, capable of working tolerably well. These new cassettes (the That's, that is) can't actually lay claim to incorporating any new mechanical design; after all, all C-format cassettes have to come within the guide lines of an original Philips patent. They are, however, built to unusually high tolerances and thus, when used in a equally respectable machine, can be relied upon to keep to the straight and narrow (tape path).

Although cassette prices can vary considerably according to where you purchase them, at the end of this feature are some rough guidelines for That's C-90 cassettes.

The V-700

To the uninformed observer (a mate of mine) the V-700 might appear as a low-cost video cassette recorder. On beholding it, the overall impression is one of brushed silver with very little evidence of colour or aesthetic dash of any kind. However, at the price, perhaps we should be thankful that Teac have omitted the more frivolous costly cosmetic extras to concentrate on practical performance.

When the power is switched on and the display lights up, things cheer up no end. The digital tape position counter offers both a continual display in arbitrary units, which works in play and wind modes plus a 'real-time' counter (minutes and seconds) which only works in the play mode. To have a real-time counter at all in this price bracket is something of a bonus.

Another useful feature is 'Compumatic Programme Search' (CPS). If you are playing a cassette with definite spaces between tracks, you can use this facility to go straight to a desired track; eg, by punching in CPS 5, it will wind forward to the start of the fifth track and drop in play. Another memory function apparently allows you to cycle between two user-determined points, although being without an owner's manual, as I was, I wasn't able to make this happen: a bit demoralising, really.

Enough about the tricky bits, the main points are that this is a three-head, two motor machine with both Dolby B and Dolby C noise reduction. Should you be prone to recording off the radio there's an 'MPX filter' which is designed to filter out the 19kHz stereo switching signal transmitted along with FM radio signals.

In addition to record level controls, there is also a fine bias adjustment provided. The great advantage of a three head machine is that you can listen back off tape as you're recording, thereby hearing the final result as it goes down. Consequently you can use your ears to decide how far to crank the record level up and how far to adjust the fine bias control: too much bias and the high frequency response will tail off, too little and the sound will start to distort and go muddy. Also, if you're mastering to cassette, you can adjust the final Eqs on the multitrack mix so that they sound right coming off cassette — which is the whole point of the operation. The arguments for a three-head machine, then, are very strong.

In the past one argument against the use of high fluxivity metal tapes has been that with the size and construction of cassette machine record heads, the head will start to saturate and so distort before the tape goes. There's a definite play-off between head longevity and high fluxivity. Some manufacturers will proudly offer a life-long guarantee on their heads which will almost certainly be made of crystal, however these will probably suffer from distortion as soon as the levels are pushed. Equally common is the use of permalloy heads which can take higher levels but which might only last half as long. The V-700 uses the latter design, although you can still expect eight to 10 years service under normal domestic conditions. Teac now have a somewhat revolutionary new head material called Cobalt Amorphous (CA) which they use on their very upmarket models costing between £500 and £1,000, and which offers both high level capacity and crystal-like longevity.

Zero Clunk

The V-700 uses the same kind of motor driven tape transport where the head assembly whirs sedately into position each time you push one of the buttons, which in this case are fully logic controlled. This lack of mechanical clunking makes for a less disturbed head assembly, better maintenance of overall physical alignment and improved reliability. It is good news.

In operation I found that I could drive the V-700's meters well into the red without apparent distortion, and indeed with the Dolby C switched in, the loss in quality was commendably slight.

Once I'd got over my childish disappointment at its lack of hi-tech visuals, I must say that I was generally impressed with the performance of the V-700, especially considering the price. If you have something akin to a Fostex A-8 set-up, or possibly even a Tascam 38, and you're doing demos to hawk around the A&R departments, the quality available from the top end of the cassette market is quite adequate, assuming that the recipient has a reasonable quality player. Basically, you shouldn't feel pressured to mix 1/4". On the other hand, if you're mastering, or you want to keep your works in good condition for any length of time, you'd undoubtedly be better off with the larger format. Cassettes have never had the potential to sound better.

TASCAM V-700 CASSETTE DECK - RRP: £329.00