Yet another update, I did manage to get Sound Forge Pro 10 installed but getting the DigitalFaq presets ended up being somewhat of a bust after several attempts. Besides, my understanding is the filters/presets are for restoration and not so much capturing the audio. The compact cassette player also arrived, but with a horribly stretched out belt. In my attempt to remove it, I may have accidentally pulled out two ends of a cable soldered to the stereo amplifier chip on the motherboard. Will see if I can get that repaired or not, worst case I can hopefully find another to use for parts. I will say that the radio does sound higher quality on it than the previous Sony unit I used.

I will probably spend the next time days I have free figuring ScenalyzerLive with the MiniDV cameras and the manual if possible.

The presets are for filtering/restoring, yes. Nothing to do with the basic record function. But the main reason to record in SF is the ability to move right into the filters. Secondary reason is that it's a clean uncluttered interface for audio capture.

Yes, audio player belts are often a nightmare/PITA to replace.

I know you now know this, but it can never be written enough for readers:
Most audio players will be in bad shape, especially junk out of old storage units, from an attic/garage -- aka, what most eBay sellers have, as scrounged from garage/estate sales, not the original owners that took care of the items. Same for VCRs, TBCs, etc. eBay is gambling, not buying, and you often lose with AV/audio/photo gear. For some obscure items, or items not commonly refurb'd (like these aged audio players), I know it's one of the few venues. Just be careful. If you decide to attempt DIY repair (and that often fails), realize you cannot return it. So it's a sunk cost, lost money. Don't try to make yourself feel better with "well, it's good for parts now". No, it's just pissed away dollars, you lost, move on.

I understand very well that if I am definitely unable to repair the device(s) that it's a sunk cost, just look at the (relatively low sum of) $50 I paid only to find out that my Mitsubishi unit is economically unfeasible to repair. I'm never seeing that value/money again in any form. If I can't get either audio player going without a little bit of extra effort, I will just abandon that and keep searching. I generally have more positive/less defeatist attitude on repairing things, but I understand when it will no longer become worth the time or effort for some devices. The reason I'm dabbling with these players/audio capture is because I can (comfortably) afford to sink some money into gear/reasonable repairs. I could likely not do so at this time with the much more intimidating (and expensive) world of analog video capture. But I agree, it's very important for people to know when to cut their losses and understand that without some serious luck, a good bit of money will go down the drain when dealing with electronics that are decades old. It's inherent to the "hobby," as it is when working with most 20th Century cars and trucks.

-- merged --

Just figured out that ScenalyzerLive cannot interpret HDV video signal, which is a shame, but it seems to have issues controlling my HDR-HC3 anyways, so I suppose WinDV is my only other Windows option? I understand that Mac OS was better for HDV workflows, but I'm not sure if I'd be able to/find it worth the time to get set up that way.
Unrelated, but one of the tapes appears to be a completely white screen for a few minutes (sound intact), I assume that would have been a bad IRE setting during recording?

Edit: I'm going to give HDVSplit a test first.

-- merged --

After trying out HDVSplit for some time, I can say that it works great! Many times, I am able to capture an entire 64-minute tape without any dropouts, and tapes that do usually only have around 2 total that I just capture over. ScenalyzerLive is excellent as well, and as for the Microcassttes, the Sony Pressman shows up today, so I just need to test it some. Just need to figure out the workflow for getting it into SoundForge.

The Pressman did not arrive today but surprisingly, the belt for the Aiwa arrived from Europe over a week ahead of schedule. Installed it, and despite noticing another questionable cable connection, it works great! Stereo works, as do the Dolby B and the Type II/Type IV bias switches. I can see why it’s highly regarded; it’s among the best compact cassette portables I’ve heard.

On that note, I feel I should share some information I discovered on the HS-TX610/616 units: they use what’s known as the OZM-2 basic mechanism, and it is the exact same type used in the HS-TX410, HS-TX510, HS-T33/33W, HS-TA310/310W, HS-T29/29W/290W, and HS-P108. I am also 90% it is also the same mechanism used in the HS-TX710.

-- merged --

Just got the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz installed today, the computer appears to recognize the card properly, but of course, the disc is unable to install the correct drivers. I am using 64-bit Windows 7, and while I have seen at least one user online having figured out to how make it compatible, it's looking like I may have to regress to XP, which does not support most of my scanning and audio applications. Does this mean I must install an XP partition for the drivers to live?

The Sony Pressman also arrived and appears to be in excellent shape.

The only reason for the TBSC is the AIW, and WinXP must be used.

Or are you trying to build an audio capture setup only? You'd still be best with WinXP here. There are many options for decent audio capture, with more modern cards, using more modern OS.

But that TBSC was one of the best. Win7 handles audio different than XP, TBSC WinVista/7 drivers not as good anyway.

Creative/SoundBlaster is "popular", but so tinny. You'd need a more expensive cards for quality, and for post-XP OS. But by comparison, a TBSC with good XP box is overall a better price -- and that can even include the XP box price!

Perhaps an XP box may be ideal, as it does indeed support Sound Forge Pro 10. Which ones would you recommend?
Also, assuming I find the XP route too daunting, I'm just curious as to what your more expensive modern recommendations would be, assuming Creative/SoundBlaster still suffer greatly from distortion.
Would an XP box also make more sense than a partition/separate drive? Also worth mentioning the Santa Cruz card I acquired was indeed new in the box, so I have no reason to believe it's been damaged at all.

I don't know why XP would be daunting. Newer Windows OS are a bigger PITA.

Never partition a drive. There's really no good reason for it.

A physically separate drive for XP is fine, but the system needs to support both XP and the current OS, which is less likely as the years go by, due to hardware.

You didn't buy "new", but "NOS" (new old stock), emphasis on "old". Components can age and decay, used or not. Storage matters more than anything else. Where was it for the past 20 years? In an attic (not good), or a desk drawer indoors (should be fine). Did a chain smoker own it (bad), or was it in the bedroom of a kid (at his parent's house) that now has his own kids? People never think about these things. Too many details to make assumptions. Verify.

The XP box chosen depends on budget. I can help you build out an amazing system, but it can rival the cost of a new computer. If you want to dumpster dive, options differ. No, there's really no "middle ground" anymore for older XP systems.

You're right, I should have said "unused" or "unopened." Having dealt with NOS shoes and other rare goods, I usually check the item's background in detail to ensure it has not degraded beyond use or display.

My current Windows 7 system features only components manufactured during the mid to late 2000s (except for the SSD), and all of them appear to support Windows XP, although I would need to purchase a new HDD or wipe an old drive (which I have already tested and confirmed functionality of) since Windows XP does not really understand SSDs generally.

I would consider also building out a separate XP system, but since I need a new soundcard anyways, I would probably find it easier to justify the cost of the (more expensive) modern soundcard you would recommend. But if that does not even perform as well as the Santa Cruz I can just continue down the XP route.

Yep, same, some experience with shoes and vintage action figures.

Very true. However, I have started to use 2.5" HDD for OS boot, and SSD for capture storage. The SSDs are fine if under 2tb, and formatted on a Win7/8/10/11 system. Also use large blocks, not small default 4096 bytes (slows down SSD massively).

Audio essentially works like climbing out of a quicksand pit. Every movement upwards is grueling with small gains. But the alternative is a quick fall to nothing.

- Most audio cards are covered in mud, no signs of life (all the no-name and budget-name crap seen on Amazon, Newegg, etc)
- A few are panting, gasping, having just gotten their head out of the mud (Creative, SoundBlaster)
- Some are still waist deep, but escape is hopeful (Turtle Beach)
- Some are still waist deep, but found a tree root to tug on, so a bit more hopeful (pro audio cards)

Here's the thing with audio: you never escape the pit. That would be perfection, and perfection is not possible.

You're looking at something like this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...3167/KBID/4166
It needs breakout cables, and XLR adapters (to mini, or RCA)

Now, is a Digigram worth $500+ more for analog AV work? I say no. I suggest using that $500 towards building a dedicated Windows system. Why? Because audio is like video, and does not share resources well. You cannot use your daily email/Facebook/etc computer for AV tasks without running into problems. Even the OS itself is a PITA, forcing BS background tasks and forced updates (if on Home).

It is a better card. But unlike the TBC situation, we have alternate audio ingest options that really are "the same quality".

One of the studios I worked for was among the largest in the world, and I was the archives content encoder for about 3 years. That included ingest, restoration, and streaming compression. I worked on a special archives project that still gets praised for quality. Part of that required that special attention be given to audio. I think a lot of these self-proclaimed "audiophiles" of the world would be shocked at what actually happens in these places. That studio's standard for audio quality was beneath my own, and I'm no audiophile. I saw way too much M-Audio at the time (Avid, Pro Tools era), and have never considered it to be truly quality (and yet, quite expensive).

M-Audio reminds me of Blackmagic. Big initial adoption by studios, but almost entirely due to targeted marketing, not quality or legit reviews. They got bamboozled by BS at events like NAB. And as happened with M-Audio, issues are slowly coming to light, and studios are moving on from the brand. Consumers are trying to "me too", to be fancy like the big boys, but they're years late. Notice that you'll never hear professional praise of either company (for hardware), just wanna-be consumers. BM is actually a tiny company, in Australia, with about 1% AV industry market share. They really do get too much attention by the capture crowd. Brands like GoPro aren't fairing much better, better competing products exist (and have for years). That "brand name" recognition only lasts for so long.

Anyway, to bring it back, don't buy audio cards based on anything but quality. Forget social media "likes", or amateur "reviews", brand name, etc. Focus solely on quality. For older XP era PCI cards, it's hard to beat what Voyetra (Turtle Beach) did at the time. TB pivoted the business in 2005, so no more computer audio products of old. Fast forward to now, and you have few choices, either expensive pro audio, cheap Chinese crap, or the used market for "the good old days" of analog audio ingest from consumer sources. Same for the cassette players.

Yes, long winded reply, but I try to add some history these days.

My SSD that I use for the main OS for the Desktop is under 1TB, so I could write to that... but the HDV/DV files are already taking up lots of space, so I may add another for file storage. I assume the 4 Kilobyte size is referring to the allocation size? I plan to change that anyways, but thanks for the reminder.

The Windows 7 tower I am using for this build is something I pulled out for the exclusive use of these projects. I have little else besides my scanning, audio, and photo editing applications.

I suppose it does make a lot more sense to see if I can get XP running optimally or if I can build a Windows XP machine that would work best. My largest issue with that would probably be the unsatiable urge to go all-in and replicate the "Perfect System" from circa 2005 or 2006. Or perhaps I haven't a Clu.

I was never big into M-Audio, but I see your point; I was always suspicious of Blackmagic Design's color science. Something about it always felt really off or unexplainably unsound compared to say, ARRI or Sony color science (as far as moving digital goes). GoPro likely gets by on its "insane marketing" and "clout" but seems to have lost its "moment" (not that it ever deserved one). I wonder if people have tired on the brand or if its market is being intruded on by the most advanced smartphone cameras as well as a variety of other "proper" quality cameras.

This is why I like hearing recommendations from you and others: oftentimes, the best manufacturers of electronics products are too busy making quality products with a moveable (not necessarily "fair" or "agressive") price to spend boatloads on whatever Digital Marketing the brands with the weak product are, desperately trying to grow their foothold and market shares. Only the really massive companies like Apple are able to spend what they do on marketing and also manage to put out products that sometimes lead their respective segments.
A more obscure example might be Falcon Northwest and Alienware; you could argue that both can be bested by a homebuilt rig, but FN makes excellent, high-quality machines, while Alienware's portfolio has become increasingly vacuous (at least internally/specs wise) and market-driven (although I would argue it was headed that way from the start with their focus on extraterrestrial plastic aesthetics over some performance)

Now any new compact cassette mechanism is stuck getting saddled with some form of that awful Chinese mechanism with the same Tanashin motor. Or in some cases, worse than that. Even some of Sony's products in the compact cassette market in the early 2000s (near the end of the compact cassette's very slow and very painful death) were far superior, and this is the brand that often rested its laurels on its globally established name. Unfortunately, this is likely how things will be since compact cassettes will never return in a truly unironic fashion.

As for your historical anecdotes, I really appreciate those. History like this is often very hard to find online or simply not accessible to many, so thank you.

On a final note, I installed the necessary files for Windows XP Integral edition, and honestly, I hope I do not need to again. I made the mistake of visiting the "home page" for that website and I could feel my IQ dropping by the second. Not necessarily something I'm blaming anyone for, but I'm glad that's over with. I'll transfer everything off the HDD and see if I can boot it and get the Santa Cruz working.

Soundcards were common before USB came along. Nowadays the most common are probably USB audio interfaces/converters. Good soundcards were common around 20 and more years ago and did a good job. Nowadays the converters have gotten better, cheaper smaller etc. Mid range brands like Presonus, Focusrite and others are excellent performing and reliable, and of course can be bought brand new. They're about the least of our worries these days for digitising legacy video and audio tapes IMO.

Took me much longer than it should have, but I finally got a newer, compatible hard drive to run integral edition and figure out the issue with the sound card: the case would seat the card properly without having it not quite plugged in fully, so it isn’t quite flush, but functions perfectly. Sound Forge 10 also appears to function well with XP, so all that’s really left is a rough guide, a cable, and perhaps a tuneup of the Aiwa, since I believe it may be playing a bit too fast. No one in the area has the test tapes or equipment to look at it, so I’m considering contacting someone knowledgeable at Tapeheads.

- Guide for what?
- Cable for what to what?
- Aiwa belt is probably not fitted properly

Nobody has the official service test tapes these days. I had one, but it's been MIA for a decade. (I still have one for our 8-track, saw it a few years ago, but packed and shuffled off somewhere. Not much need for 8-track.)

I don't know that I'd call Focusrite excellent, but it is middle priced for middle quality. Definitely better than low-end PCIe junk on Amazon. You can do better, you can do worse.

For me, the challenge of audio cards is to properly extract lows and mids and highs. There is "right curve" and a "wrong curve" to audio. Any random card can extract any random curve. Most cards push 1-2 ranges, but not all 3. Too often, some cards boost ranges for the stupid reason of adding more bass or more treble, and the mid-tones are completely lost. So you have to be really careful about audio products for video, because the goal is not to play music on a stereo with steroids.

For example, Creative/SB cards always want to boost lows and highs, and you lose mids. So it's boom-boom tinny audio, which sounds fine for pop music, but awful for speech or concertos. This is also why a lot of people hate instruments like violin, because those can be ear-piercing and anxiety-inducing when mids are missing. And mids missing is the low-quality standard found in most speakers and headphones. Even "good" headphones are often just boosted bass/lows to half-ass compensate for the screechy treble/highs.

None of this is "audiophile", but it is a generally a statement on how people have screwed up their hearing in our modern world. Not just too much loud music, but no hearing protection when operating machines like lawnmower and leaf blowers. So you have to be very careful with advice on "quality", because some people can't hear worth a crap (and don't want to admit it, or don't even realize it). Most hearing loss is at notched Hertz values in the mid ranges, not the highs as some falsely believe.

Compression never helps, as it eviscerates values across the board, especially the low-high/high-mid ranges. You get tinny boom-boom with boogers. SiriusXM radio is really bad about this, some of the talk stations are just mumbling as a result.

So those are the metrics I'd look at. When shopping for anything audio, look at the curves, and then read carefully to make sure the curves aren't fudged (which is more common now, but not 20 years ago).

FYI, the Monsoon MH-500/502 speakers have a reference-like curve, when in cherry condition. I've done that for years, because those can complete with $500 reference monitors.

Sorry if this sounds a bit rude of me, but I'm referring to the audio capture setup. I assume it is not as simple as just plugging in any random cable into the tape player, receiving the sound through the green port, and pressing "record" on Sound Forge 10 Pro. I'm not even sure what would be the best cable, since the one I am using for testing other audio sources and speaker systems came with a set of Sony WH1000XM2s.

As for Focusrite, I came to believe they were good in the world of USB A/D converters, (for suees like getting a microphone or amp to a laptop) but not for dedicated sound/studio applications.

Appearances can be deceiving. There are high quality A/D converters in there. Dont need the mic preamp? Just use the Line Input, which also has a front panel variable gain trim to accomodate different audio output levels and impedances from various audio devices.

I'm not sure what you mean, so I doubt the answer is rude. :congrats:

No, not random cable. Just a well shielded mini 3.5"

But yes, it sort of is as simple as "plug in wire, press record in Sound Forge". Maybe some settings to control input volume, etc.

Pretty much.

The same is true of mixers. Not every hole has to be filled with a wire.

I have nothing against Focusrite, just nothing for it either. It just is. But not what I'd use. In general, I'm not that anal about audio (or even video, for that matter). It just needs to be quality hardware that doesn't make the audio/video worse than the already-inferior (to modern standards) source. The main issue is restoration, or archiving. When the input is missing values (DV compressed color, audio mids missing, etc), the task of restoration is either more difficult or impossible.

With audio, focus on the input/output frequency response curves. Let that guide you to gear, then listen with ears to verify the quality.

Here's one for you:
How different is Focusrite vs. M-Audio? From what I've read, both are poo-poo'd more than not, intro/beginner (low) quality. The Audient gear gets more praise for USB "audio interfaces".

Haunted, if the subject is analog audio digitisation, or digitizing analog audio soundtracks such as in videotapes, if you havent already you might consider joining some online forums which specialize in audio and where understandably a broader and deeper range of experts participate. You could try Sound on Sound or Gearspace forums, but understand that there is often quite a range of member skill and ability. Finding objective, unbiased information is not always easy.

For advice on service and repair of analog audio hardware, Tapeheads is a good resource, again precisely because it specializes in the field of mostly analog tape audio.

Another update; Tapeheads, despite its knowledgeable user base, has not been very much help as of right now. Hopefully this changes, but I feel like maybe people are not interested in portable stereos that are not some sort of Sony product.

My Monsoon MH500 speaker set arrived today in unused condition; the subwoofer, satellites and functions all work great, and the control pod is in perfect shape like the rest of things, with no (externally) visible corrosion. I have not heard such good speakers south of $500 USD today, and I got these for roughly a tenth of that.

Finally, another question about recording levels; I keep the master volume (computer and Santa Cruz, as they are essentially tuned together) at 50%, and the Monsoon puck half turned up to prevent distortion. However, because the recording levels on some tapes end up being on the low side (and that’s saying something for someone who likes to keep their audio clip and distortion free), should I compensate by increasing the Santa Cruz record level in the control center or should I simply raise the volume a bit past five out of ten on the Aiwa stereo?

The technical term for setting the gain on multiple stages is "gain staging". Sometimes this has to be worked out by experiment for lowest noise and distortion.

It's not just you. I've been a Tapeheads member since the 2000s, and there are indeed some smart blokes there. But, like you, I've not often found it to be useful to audio sourced from videotapes. Sometimes not even useful to old cassette digitize/transfer work. From my experiences, it's mostly fixing audio gear, or listening to audio gear, not this sort of usage. Some discussion on already-digital processing, even analog processing.

Told you. Enjoy. :D

Be careful with the puck! Slow! :warning:

I'd suggest never going past about 80%-ish on the puck (obviously not a marked value, just be aware of where you are in the dial turns). Those speakers can overpower, distort, and damage. People would get these at Circuit City, then be idiots by cranking the knob to 11, then complain how horrible those were compared to underpowered Best Buy crap. If you take care of these, these will take care of you. I still have my original pair from 2001, my 2nd from 2003 (for my 2nd capture system built), and then 3 more.

Here's another pair of tips for you:
- That large OEM power brick is a POS, and may break eventually. It will "work", but inject audio noise. Replace it with a quality "Honor ADS-24S-12 1224GPCU, 12V 2A, center-positive, 110-240V" power supply. Just buy one now, tuck it in a drawer.
- Buy these inline power on/off switch from Amazon. Whenever you will not be using the speakers for an extended time (week or more), or bad weather is upon you (regardless of UPS in use), just turn the speakers off. This switch is better than yanking power, as the speakers can spark at the unit.

I had to lose a Monsoon set to learn all of this. Let me loss be your knowledge gain.

Max 75% input as needed, too easy to distort otherwise. I generally rest at 50-66% values. I don't always change per-tape, but do when something is noticeable too high or low input level. I almost never dip below 50% input.

I'd never max out the Aiwa output levels, maybe 85% at most. You can really blow things when you start to input/output 90-100% volume or levels. Not just temporary damage, but permanent. There's always somebody that claims cranking to 11 is fine, but then they're nowhere to be found when gear blows/damages. Err on the side of caution, especially with this harder to find older gear, especially once it's in quality condition.

I’m being extra careful not to turn it up past 50%-60% while keeping the master system volume close to a similar amount.

By line do you mean the record line? I definitely hear a very faint buzzing through the speakers that I assumed was the brick, so I believe it’s the sound output line. Thank you for the advice on the new adapter and switch, although part of me is tempted to press the newer adapter into service prior to the brick failing (whatever that looks like)

OK, I will try to keep the sound card record settings at these levels

This is the only device I have not cranked past a solid 50%, but your advice tells me that the stereo can take the most gain without issues compared to the speakers and record level, so if I need more gain, I boost the player signal first and if I still need more around 8 (unlikely), I can carefully adjust the record level in the control panel. Of course, I would be most careful of all with the speaker puck, followed closely by the master volume.

I finally found a reputable place to get the Aiwa issues sorted, so it will be headed off soon to be looked at.

Finally, for shielded audio, would this be an appropriate cable? I understand that my current ones are poorly shielded, as not only does the Aiwa add static just from being plugged in, but if one of my fingers gets too close to the head/play button, it increases the static even more:
https://soundprofessionals.com/product/SP-SPSC-7-PRO/