Dolby NR encoding - did it ever work

I still remember being at a party and seeing a guys Nak 550, you want to talk about droop inspiring! And thank God for digital in terms of convenience, sound quality, and depth of catalog available.

Boy, I never dreamed I would be discussing Dolby B again. It sucked on cassettes. Yes, it took the tape hiss out along with the highs. In fact, I used to record with Dolby and play back without it for increased high-frequency response. Dolby A, used on studio recorders, didn't seem to have as drastic an effect. Buying a collectible cassette player? That's a new one. Well, to each his own.

Let me tell you something about well-executed dolbyB. It is great. My perfectly aligned and calibrated Nak 682ZX sounds incredible for a cassette deck, especially with Maxell Vertex tape. Forget those TDK, Sony , Denon etc. tapes. I tried everything. And my Nak is not even specifically calibrated for the Vertex. There is no roll-off, nothing that matters is lost. In most cases I do record with dolbyB. No live recording, only from records and cds. DolbyC sucks, I never use it.

Only a select few ever had access to a cassette deck of that quality. I'm sure the Naks can extract some excellent sound from a cassette, with or without dolby. Frankly, I never found tape hiss that offensive. Listen to Brubeck's Time Out. Loaded with hiss, but it doesn't distract from the music IMO.

One thing about cassettes I am finding is they apparently escaped the fate of overly agressive dynamic compression that befell their compact disc bretheren. The cassettes are by and large more dynamic, more musical and highly entertaining compared to their papier mâché sounding bretheren. Imagine, all this on a humble portable cassette player. And this is true even for digitally remastered cassettes.