Geoffkait:
"Cassettes to my ear have more resolution than CDs. Notes are more rounded, the harmonics are richer, there is more air and you can hear all the squeaks and whirring noises of instruments like violins that are missing in action on CDs. Tape is a natural medium. It breathes."
Have you ever compared the same album, or at least the same tracks, side by side on CD and cassette on a good system? If you have and the result is the same, I would suggest it has more to do with the quality of the original recording and the master used rather than the medium. Technically, CDs are a superior medium to cassettes across the board; better signal/noise ratio, better frequency response and a larger dynamic range. Cassettes also have audible issues that CDs do not, such as wow & flutter, stretched tape and bleed through.
Tape is not a natural medium; the tape itself is a synthetic material with the only natural component being metal particles that are placed onto it as part of a man-made chemical process. Of course, magnetic tape is inert and never been observed 'breathing'; but I'm going to assume you meant that as some sort of analogy that I don't quite understand.
" Ironically, perhaps, tape frequently sounds like it has more dynamic range than CDs. Yes, I realize that theoretically CD should deliver many orders of magnitude greater dynamic range than tape, especially the humble cassette, but I'm not hearing it. And the dynamics of tape sound more natural and unrestrained. Of course there are exceptions but I'm speaking generally. In addition, from what I hear comparing digital to tape, tape is much sweeter and has more, uh, resolution."
You're correct, tape has a much lower dynamic range capacity than CDs. My first thought after reading your post above was that your perception may be the reality and the cause may be a result of the 'loudness wars'. If you google 'loudness wars' you'll find plenty of discussions on this so I won't go into too much detail. Basically, there are pressures on mixing engineers to have their CDs mixed so they play at a generally loud level, which results in a drastic reduction in the dynamic range. When I initially played my first hi-rez download (Jennifer Gomes' "A 1,000 Shades of Blue" which was recorded direct to digital at 24 bit/96khz in front of a live audience with minimal mixing utilized), the most obvious improvement over my CDs, besides the absolutely dead quiet background that the music emerges from and the resultant ultra high detail level, was the increased dynamics; for the first time, I could clearly hear tonal and volume changes on any particular instrument I chose to concentrate on.
So, my opinion(theory?) is that the loudness wars has so compromised the CD mixing process that an individual, you, has actually perceived the dynamic range of cassette tapes to be greater than CDs. Personally, I stopped using a cassette tape deck in my system a long time ago, when CDs first began to be offered for home use and soon after began replacing cassette players in cars with CD players. Your post is the 1st time I've discovered an impression that cassette tapes outperform CDs in the areas of dynamic range and resolution.
I have no reason to doubt your honest assessment and view it as an indictment of the extent to which the loudness wars have corrupted the CD mixing process and compromised a format with such high potential.
However, I think we're straying off the original thread starter's question about whether CD quality is attainable via a computer audio system. I believe your observation is worthy of its own thread but think it's proper form to try to avoid hijacking a thread by straying to related topics.
I hope you agree,
Tim
