tapedeck wrote:yea im basically just curious - i was impressed with the duplicator when i realised it copied both sides of the tape (4 tracks) at the same time. so its not like you do side a then side b on a regular recorder, you just copy the whole tape in one go.
Yes, that's really cool about them... a C-60 can be copied in 2 min and rewind it in just 30 seconds!
I was doing a looooong research about what you asked me, and it impressed me a lot that there is almost no info for this, I mean the info you were requesting it is a "basic" info that should be covered a lot of times... well that's what I thought, but I found some info here and there and I put it together in my interpretation...
This is how a cassette tape save the info in stereo in a common cassette deck
The yellow lines are the recordings and the brown it is the untouched tape (the stereo heads do not read or record over those brown parts)
so a mono cassette recorder use a 1/2 track, 2-channel heads which basically take both stereo A or B channels in one single time and record it in a new cassette... BUT the 1/2 head will also include the "noise" or hiss between the 2 A or B channels (L & R), so your new cassettes will still being stereo even when copied on a mono device but will be "colored" with all that hiss as well so will not be the exact same copy of your original stereo master.
I assume in the case you take a MONO cassette and you try to duplicate it in a stereo duplicator what could happens is the stereo duplicator will take the A track but will miss some of the real sound because the head it use it is a 1/4 track, 4-channel head so according to the 1st pic you will be missing the sound recorded in the brown area, since the mono heads are 1/2 wide, IDK If I am explaining my self really well but I think you get the idea...
I have in here a pic of how this heads are config and how much area of the tape they use
hopefully this image help to explain me better...
Again, this is something that I assume according to my research and the vague info out there but I am pretty sure it has a lot of logic what I am saying and the graphics can show better how this works, thoughts?
Now, again it comes to my mind if the manufactures were selling MONO or STEREO duplicators were basically based on how expensive were those heads in the past, so MONO heads of course are cheaper and then they released a cheaper duplicator to with MONO heads to fill the needs of people with basic needs, like duplicating sermons, audio books, etc, stuff where you don't really need the stereo... then they have the STEREO ones for those who wants to duplicate music and stuff... of course this are more expensive because use expensive heads, if you check online you will find the MONO duplicators sells for half of the price of the stereo if you ever come across one...
So if you are interested in one according to my research the good ones are the Telex ACC-4000 and the Telex X-Gen stereo, all other models are not high end duplicators so you can find it for cheap and also most of them are mono, I just bought a ACC-4000 and I am looking for the X-Gen, I would like to have both and test them side to side, the XGen it is a newer model so should be better and for what I read it is less noisy too, besides the look, the X-gen looks better to my eyes too... but hey! I got this ACC-4000 for $150 shipped and it is in pristine condition, LIKE NEW! so I can't complain... this were selling for $2499 retail
