Dolby S NR

I have two tape decks that have Dolby S noise reduction. I also have a third deck which only goes up to Dolby C. I briefly owned a deck with DBX, but never used it. Im also aware Dolby S was designed from Dolby SR which was used for movies on pro equipment. S was just for cassettes. Yes I own way to many decks for what I need.

What are peoples opinions of Dolby S as compared to B or C, or even OFF? For years I used Dolby C, but my one complaint was it seemed to squash down the soundstage a bit. Dolby S was a big improvement in that regard. S even removed the garbage down low, so tapes sounded cleaner then with C. I have never heard a Nak deck, so I cannot comment on how they may be better in this regard. I make 99% of my recordings in Dolby S, so I'm familiar with it. It seems to suffer less from the Dolby tracking error C had. And its been said you can use Dolby S recorded tape and play them back with B if needed. I have only a couple cassettes I've recorded with Dolby Off, and these were from CD. So the soundstage is only as good as the CD can produce. Hiss was audible with the tape which were Metal. I always used HX-Pro as well, but thats another story.

One poster said HX-Pro was good at what it does, yet Dolby S was just average. I find this strange because Dolby S to me really improved the recording and made normal bias tape sound very good as well. Now how much an improvement the recording was due to Dolby S over just a great designed deck I cannot say. The decks I have used in the past were a JVC TD-V6, then a Luxman K-112 (which I have currently-but not my original deck), then a Sony TC-K909ES, and now have an Aiwa Xk-S9000. I have not yet been able to use the Aiwa deck as it needs service before use. I still have my Sony as well. Its now been relegated to backup service. I'd like to hear how good the Aiwa is being some say its a Nakamichi buster. Looking inside at all the parts in the deck with its multiple circuit boards (including one big board just for Dolby S), I'd believe it at least comes close. This Aiwa sells for more then its new price today. I bought mine for $1300+taxes on duty. The S9000 is supposed to compare to the Nak ZX-9, Dragon, and CR-7A.

Dolby S is definitely a more advanced noise reduction system than is Dolby C. What Nakdoc, and I have been saying is that Nakamichi cassette decks were good enough that they simply never really needed it. Nakamichi had about the best Dolby tracking of anybody in the business. And for this reason, Dolby C sounded REALLY good on Naks (as long as they were properly calibrated for the tape that was being recorded on). But Dolby's performance on other manufactures decks was much more hit and miss. Sometimes it was good. But often times it stunk.

The best thing, in my opinion, about Dolby S, was that it forced manufacturers to build better sounding decks, because to qualify for Dolby S, a machine had to meet certain minimum specification. That was never true about Dolby B & C. Its just too bad that most of the Dolby S machine's build quality is so vastly inferior to a good Nak.

Frankly, I don't know why Nakamichi stayed away from Dolby S. Perhaps it was because they were already starting the exit from the Cassette deck business at that point, and that they were not interested in furthering the state of the art in cassette technology any longer? :scratch2: I can only speculate. Nakamichi never used Dolby HXPro, simply becuase their heads had better HF headroom without it than most other manufacturers did when using it. :yes:

Dolby SR was designed for use inside of recording studios, and it is far and away the best noise reduction system that Dolby Labs ever designed. Dolby S was a simplified version of this system that was designed for cassettes. Dolby SR succeded Dolby A in the studio, in the same way that Dolby S succeded Dolbys B & C on cassette.

Unfortunately I don't know much about this Awia machine, so I really can't comment there. But I must admit that it sounds awfully nice from your description. :yes:

Since this is show and tell- you can see a photo of the Aiwa in my first post. Ive read this Aiwa was supposed to be Aiwa's answer to the high end Nak decks like the Dragon. It was a 4 motor deck that had dual capstan, 3 head, cassette shell clamp (for vibration), wood base (also for vibration), and even had a recording mode for virgin tapes that turned off the erase head for a lower noise floor. The specs on it were (recorded in Dolby C):

Metal tape: 13Hz to 24Khz +-3db at -20 level or
20hz to 16khz +-3db at 0db level
Normal tape: 13Hz to 21Khz +-3db at - 20 level or
20hz to 12khz +-3db at 0db level

The manual I have also says at -20db record level -10db spec (not +-3db) it says 8Hz to 27Khz Metal tape.

Dolby S SNR was 87db peak level metal tape (my service manual says 84db- not sure why). Wow and flutter was 0.018WRMS

Heads were oxygen free amorphous (Sony also use these heads). The deck also had external power transformers (one for analog, one for digital). The deck had a digital input for sending a signal from a CD player. The internal D/A converters were 18 bit.

The above specs dont look as good as the Naks I've seen mentioned on my other posts, but Im sure the deck sounds great regardless.

AWESOME deck- I have lusted after one of these since I read the review in gradeschool in the early 90s. I still have it (from Audio) if you want a copy, just pm me. Anyway, I've always been a fan of all the Dolbys, so I'm probably the wrong person to ask, but I love Dolby S. I too was a Dolby C person for a long time, but when I got an S deck I was quite pleased... provided I used top notch tape. C-type seemed to do better with lower grade blanks for making quickie car tapes or dubs of something for my band.