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Anyone notice SVHS Audio best other Analog equipment including turntables, cassette decks.

I have a few JVC Super VHS decks manufactured from the late 1980’ to about 1994 in use around here. Using SVHS tapes only I fine that they produce better analog stereo sound than the best cassette and reel to reel decks I’ve experienced the past few decades. I feel that they are better (hi-fi/stereo) than high quality turntables too. There are many reasons besides the hi-fi analog stereo sound they produce. Because high end (SVHS tape, SVCR decks in particular) often last for decades without issues, no scratches, few if any dropouts, w/ rarely a need for any maintenance, for me, they make them the best analog choice. They produce a sound much better to my ear than our perfect performing Nakimichi ZX7 even when using the highest quality cassette tapes that we have had for decades. It remains in mint-operating condition. I use it to make & copy custom tapes for our car deck. S VHS is better equipment for hi-fi stereo, (a clean natural analog sound sounds best to the human ear). VHS VCRs are capable of producing an amazing 20-20,000 MHz w/ 0,005% wow and flutter w/few if any drop outs to have to listen to. Dead quiet is supreme. SVHS tapes are much better sounding than your basic VHS tape. I find that VHS tapes cost much less for a better-quitter tape compared to other analog technology. I tossed out all of my turntable equipment that we have had since the early 1970’s, out to the curb as it were, years ago due the SVHS technology best that technology w/much less expense and much less headaches to deal with too. Who knows what I am talking about. Does anyone else know where I am coming from? I must admit that my experiences come from the 1950’-1980 technology. (not having owed the most expense equipment of today), yet, having lived through the early 1950’s to date and into music since those early days of analog. That is my point here is does superior vintage (1980'90's) pure analog (super) SVHS have to continue to die quietly, a silent death?
archiecb
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chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Even vinyl records made from a digital master (or digitally remastered) is not analog, it's digital on analog media, but it's not the analog sound. 

Analog sound picked up by microphones in the studio and recorded on multi-track master tape (or mixed down live for direct cut) > mastered for lacquer cut > pressed on vinyl > reproduced by pickup cartridge in our speakers. 

I think most of us on audiogon already have vinyl and turntables above average level. Some people have reel to reel or cassette tape recorders. Some people have expensive digital rig. 

I haven't seen S-VHS recorders and S-VHS tapes since the 90's. 

If you like everything better from S-VHS tapes it's fine, but we can still buy records of our favorite artists for $10 (original presses). What's the point to buy S-VHS tapes and S-VHS recorder? For beginner it's a bit weird in 2021, for experienced users the best analog media is vinyl, the best digital media is high-res files (or endless streaming). I believe that serious digital rig can reproduce all digital just fine (I am not a fan of digital). 

Recording streaming on S-VHS today is like recording FM radio on cassette tapes back in the day. 

Some formats are outdated, for example I never seen a big old RCA "12 inch video disc reproduced by phono cartridge! It would be nice to play a movie like this instead of netflix. 

 
emailists
923 posts
 
Here is my VHS Hifi experience (can’t remember is it was S-VHS). Back around the late 1980’s I used to do some amateur audiophile recordings of artists in the NYC East Village Anti-folk scene (perhaps before it was called that, and certainly before it spawned some well known artists.)

Not having the great recording gear I bought later (including a Neumann U67 and a pair of AKG C414s) I did weekend rentals of a Nagra open reel deck (normally used for film production) and a pair of Schoeps figure 8 mics and recorded in Blumlein stereo.

Since I didn’t own an open reel deck I took the Nagra’s live output and fed it into a high quality VHS HIFI deck (I got into S-VHS as well, but I don’t know if had the decks at that time.)

While the VHS stereo Hifi tracks were a nice option to listen to the masters in a better format than audio cassette, I remember the recordings were grainy sounding in the highs. Not sure if it’s a switching issue in helical scanning, but that was my finding.

Later on I got to borrow a Tascam 4 track cassette based portastudio and at double speed with the best metal cassettes I could find after doing shootouts (the cassettes had a ceramic body!) I made some really nice recordings with that U67.
Someday I’ll have those open reel master tapes digitized as DSD, but reading this thread has made me want to find those VHS Hifi masters and hook a VHS deck up to my system!



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