[MacJunky]

Ok guys, I am in need of your great wisdom.
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Heh, yep, you know that if it is old, MJ is probably interested in playing with it. :P
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Please excuse the length. :P



**** Backstory, testing and other happenings ****

My sister recently bought a car made in the early 90s(that surprisingly seems to get similar gas milage.. er, kilometreage as my mother's 2007 Civic) and does not yet have a CD player for it so I thought I should slap some good music on a few cassette tapes.

Now, since I already have a Sansui G-4700 Receiver(that looks like pure raging pwnage in a box!) connected to my computer and a JVC KD-55 Stereo Cassette Deck chilling in my bedroom I just grabbed the KD-55 and connected it up.

Initial testing with a barely used Fugi DR-I Normal Bias went extremely well and I was in shock at the quality of the recording. Really, I am serious, this KD-55 was recording at such a good quality I think I can safely swear that I have never heard a better sounding cassette tape. REALLY!

Anyway, once I had two full Deathstars albums recorded onto the tape my sister and myself go out to her car and test it. Yep, you guessed it. The tape sounded like total crap.

It was extremely muffled and the volume was very low even though other tapes sounded like regular tapes do in her car's deck. I bring my tape and one from her car back inside and test both in my KD-55 and again, mine sound spectacular and hers sounds (again) just like your average audio cassette.

At this point I am reasonably baffled so I grab my mother's AKAI GX-ASX that was sitting around in a corner of the living room unplugged. I connect it to my G-4700 in place of my KD-55, pop in a test tape and proceed. The KD-55 recording in the GX-ASX sounded just like it did in my sister's car as well as my old RCA RP-1830A walkman thingy.

Next I try recording with the GX-ASX but the resulting recording was nothing like the KD-55 recording and more on par with your lower quality cassette tape recordings when played in the GX-ASX, KD-55 or RP-1830A. I could not test in my sister's car as by now she had gone to bed but I am willing to bet that it would have sounded like the other players.

It would seem my issue is with the JVC KD-55. I would really love to use it but I do not know what to do to make it's recordings play in other devices.
Listening to it's recording now and it sounds freaking spectacular! Not quite up to the quality of the audio file on my HDD but with both my headphones and speaker setup it is getting reasonably close. I never had any idea tapes could sound like this!


**** Other notes and important points ****

* Both cassette decks were connected to my receiver with the same cables in the same arrangement.
* Both play other tapes with the same or at least very similar sound quality.
* Both players initially received a quick wipe with some 99% isopropyl alcohol on read/write/whatever heads as both had accumulated plenty of dust over many years without use.
* All tests were done using the same song played by iTunes in Mac OS X on my P5K connected to receiver via onboard analog line-out with iTunes and system volume maxed as well as identical itunes equalizer settings.
* In all tests the VU meters or similar LED arrangements were almost redlining at peak.



**** Theory ****

My best theory, I think, is that the KD-55 was recording to the tape slightly off centre so the other players could not read all of the needed area to produce proper sound.
To be quite honest though, I have very little experience with cassette decks so I have no idea if it is even possible for parts to shift in this manner.