Headphones: Less Than Ideal Way To Listen To Cassette Tapes?

Even though it was deemed an indispensible component when the Sony Walkman became king back in the 1980s, are headphones, until now, has always been a less than ideal way to listen to cassette tapes?

By: Ringo Bones

Dubbed by conservatives as the most antisocial way to listen to music back when Sony’s Walkman was new, the shortcomings of the ubiquitous headphones has recently been brought back into the spotlight after the shortcomings of a flagship Apple product – i.e. the Apple AirPods wireless headphones and their Mainland Chinese made knockoffs – as early users complained of excessive background hiss, not to mention early users old enough to remember 1980s era cassette tapes saying that the hiss levels are worse than that of tape-to-tape dubbing a copy of a copy of a prerecorded cassette tape album. But are headphones really the weakest link of all the sound producing transducers in our high fidelity audio hobby – especially when it comes to listening to prerecorded cassette tape albums?

Despite its shortcomings, audio enthusiasts old enough to have taken sound quality seriously back in the 1980s had surprisingly managed to make due of listening to music via headphones. Weird between-the-ears stereo soundstage when listening to plain vanilla 2-channel stereo cassette recordings and producing more background hiss in comparison to conventional loudspeakers notwithstanding. But let us explore more on the headphone’s hiss issue given that, especially when listening to prerecorded cassette tape albums as your primary music source, is already inherently hissy in the first place.

Hiss is more noticeable through headphones than speakers for several reasons. Since headphones lie closer to the ears of the listener in comparison to loudspeakers, any hiss that the headphones’ produce is readily transferred to the eardrums. Headphones are more sensitive than loudspeakers – i.e. headphone sensitivity are typically measured in decibels per milliwatt as opposed to decibels per watt when measuring loudspeaker sensitivity – so headphones are more likely to pick-up the faint residual hiss produced by your audio rig, like that in the preamplifier stage and / or the Dolby noise reduction stage. And headphone models that isolate your ears from outside sounds can also prevent such sounds from masking hiss, denying the user from using Mother Nature’s naturally generated dither noise.

Unconventional Cassette Tape Deck Alignment Hacks For Extreme Cassette Sounds?

Even though proper alignment of tape heads are a necessity for playback compatibility when playing a tape from one deck to another but is it possible that a bit “unconventional” alignment results in a superior sound quality from cassette?

By: Ringo Bones

For those old enough to remember how “unconventional” cassette tape head azimuth alignment tweaks back in the late 1970s to the 1990s managed to transform their humble walkman or a car stereo like the famed Pioneer KP-500 to rival that of a full-sized open-reel tape deck or an audiophile CD player using various everyday items like strategically placed match-books, paper clips and even bobby pins knows how rewarding this bit of DIY can be. Though it can be taken to an extreme when it causes cassette tape skewing problems and an “eaten tape”, within a certain envelope, these tweaks can offer rewards in terms of much improved sound quality from prerecorded cassette tapes.

Unconventional cassette tape head azimuth alignment head tweaks gained notoriety back in the late 1970s due to neophytes and jumpy electronic tinkerers upon hearing a tape deck cough, they immediately get hold of a screw driver and give the azimuth alignment screw of the tape head a couple of tweaks. The first thing to remember most of all is that the heads need adjustment only when they are being replaced in the case of worn-out tape heads. To find out if the tape heads do need adjustment – or for those buying a used cassette tape deck at a keen price at a garage sale – check if the tape head’s wear pattern is rectangular. If it is trapezoidal or varies much from head to head, they need to be adjusted. On the other hand, never adjust heads that have actually been worn out unless you want some tape travel and skewing problems. Problems about worn-out cassette tape heads are solved by complete head replacement.

But the good – or bad – news is that within a certain “latitude”, some minimal tape head azimuth tweaks via strategically placed match-books, paper clips and bobby pins – especially in entry level walkmans – can result in treble clarity that can make your humble walkman, car stereo or boom-box rival that of an open-reel tape deck and audiophile grade CD players in the 2,000 to 5,000 US dollar price point. If you have old Hair Metal prerecorded tapes from the 1980s, sometimes, the result can be as eerie as akin to being less than 20 feet away from a well-struck crash cymbal. I remember now that this is how we did cassette tape high frequency clarification tweaks before “affordable” decks by Yamaha and NAD with the “Play Trim” feature became widely available during the 1990s.