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Importance of warm up. I hope this helps someone

I was checking a cassette I had made last month back to the original CD source for comparison. All my equipment had been on for 4-5 hours except CD player. I cued both up and the CD player was overly clear (bright) compared to the cassette made from the same source a month earlier. I thought well since this is a cassette I should expect some roll off in the highs after a period of time but not so soon. OK everybody. Im a cassette fan. I grew up with it and I know other mediums maybe are better. OK back to the warmup. I decided to let CD player warm up for 30 mins. I compared again and cassette was a perfect copy of the CD!!!. I can only figure the CD player was not warmed up. Everything else stayed ther same and was constant. I pay more attention to warmup now. I know it was important but I did not see how much until today.
128x128blueranger
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blueranger OP
719 posts
 
Shadorne. Thanks for the tech info about speakers. I was using headphones. I too have noticed loudness levels on begining and end of record. I see that on the tape vu meters. I know the importance of vol levels. I will adjust CD output to same loudness of record when doing AB. When I am recording I often find the correct recording level is when you cannot hear a loudness difference between tape and source. Thanks again for response
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drubin
3,265 posts
 
Very impressive. I retract my skepticism.

I totally understand your continuing pleasure in making tapes. It's like a ritual.
The digital age, for all the boon that it clearly is, seems to have made music
more of a consumable rather than an artistic expression to be considered at a
pace.
axelfonze
14 posts
 
Tubes really need to warm up before use. Just ask any guitar player. The effect with solid state gear is much less pronounced (and even debatable), but tubes definitely need to warm up before sounding their best, or even listenable sometimes.

Oh, and most recording studios do NOT still use analog tape. Some big budget stuff will still mix to tape, or track to tape before dumping to digital for overdubs and mixing, but tape is slowly going the way of the dinosaur.
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