Reel to reel

Pre-recorded cassette tapes also were terrible, but if you recorded the cassettes at home off of the LPs, they sounded just fine

I am afraid that I just cannot agree with a blanket statement like that.

I have a LOT of pre recorded cassettes and find them to be just about as variable as vinyl, there are definitely clunkers but there are some really well done examples as well.

I have two different playback decks, a Nak and an Akai and both show the differences in quality of tapes fed through them.

Just my opinions and findings,nothing more.

benjie

Why does this distortion not exist in digital or analog LP recordings? What is unique about a R2R’s recording circuit that causes this to happen?

It’s not really the recording circuit that causes this distortion. I know that you may not want to hear this, but the distortion common to analog tape recording is a function of the nonlinearity of the tape itself. The use of bias increases linearity and - as you may know - is only applied during recording, not playback.

Magnetic tape is also challenged with high level (approaching 0 dB) HF. The use of EQ is a technique to improve that performance.

One way that I think there is great similarity between LP and analog tape is that both systems seem to have profound, although different, limitations ... on paper. In practice, they both can result in extraordinary performance. The experiences of tape users in this thread is an indicator of that.

I am afraid that I just cannot agree with a blanket statement like that.

@uberwaltzYes, its all about provenance.
@benjie The 3rd harmonic in tape machines has to do with the nature of the record and playback heads, both being inductive devices. If a 2nd order shows up, its a sign that something is wrong with the machine.

Ralph, you keep self-advertising, and that's that. That piece of s... Technics with Grado is nothing really, DJ toy at best.