The Japanese TDK D? The AE, Old VS New

[@Jim_2E0HKM]

Great video! I do like the look of both versions of the AE, bit more interesting to look at then the TDK FE we have here in Europe, the new AE didn't sound too bad in this video to my ears (I thought it sounded passable in the last one, no drops outs or fading) but the older 80s version wins the battle hands down, the sound stage on the new AE seemed much more compressed to that of the older version for me, you can hear where the deck has had to work hard to bring life to the top end and as a result boosted some of the mid level too to achieve it, Sounds fine but results in a much more flat sound to the original, I notice the same effect when I'm trying to record on older worn cassettes which have lost that fresh top end response, some much you'll barely notice it, other songs with synths, guitars & backing vocals in can often sound quite from the source.. Take care, loving all these JA sourced cassettes that we rarely seen in the UK👍🏻👍🏻

[@retrocoreav7025]

Thanks for watching, James. Yeah, the FE looks kind of dull but it was an important tape. I know what you mean about the new AE sounding more compressed. I felt that too. The 80s one just seemed to have more life to it.

[@SIDEKICKDUSTY]

Could be that tapes are in a similar situation to what happened with 8 tracks in the 80s: as the customer base shrinks and a higher quality format becomes the standard, the makers focus less on quality and much more on cutting production cost. I'm glad you can still get decent quality tapes out there, though. I have a lot of affection for the format since I liked my cassette walkman a lot more than any of the portable CD players I tried (they tended to skip, heat up, and stop working pretty quickly) and all of my cars have had tape decks. I pretty much relied on tapes til I finally got an ipod in the mid aughts. I really miss making mixtapes for people. I should join or start a mixtape exchange ring... Sorry for rambling in your comment section. Good video.

[@retrocoreav7025]

I love making mix tapes. It brings back my youth 👍. I tried making mix MD as well but the fun just wasn't the same. Setting up the calibration, cueing up the tape and making sure there is enough room is all part of the Fun.

[@AlexandrES]

Continuing the TDK marathon, it would be correct to compare the TDK D of the mid-80s and 90s. Thank you for the video and enjoy watching it. A little criticism of your deck, the recording level controls rustle and it is advisable to carry out preventive maintenance on your deck, adjust the bias according to the instrument service manual. Keep shooting your videos, they are very interesting. The Japanese market is very saturated with different types and manufacturers of cassettes from different years. Wish you luck!

[@retrocoreav7025]

Thanks for watching, EvgeniyES. Yeah, the volume record level needs a bit of deoxit on it to remove the crackling. The rest of the deck is fully serviced though. Right down to new caps that were put in earlier this year. The official manual for this deck states that to calibrate tapes first we adjust the Bias followed by the levels then the EQ. But it also says to try a method that sounds best to the listener. I guess Sony don't have confidence in their own method 😉. Then again they calibrate their decks to their own tapes. Most Japanese decks are calibrated with TDK SA. Or so I read. So what I do is get the Bias right then the record level. Once that's done I adjust the EQ by ear. This provided far better results than using the level meter.

[@wrestletube1]

The old one really was better. It had warmth and some good musical quality.

[@Lucrativecris]

I prefer the 1980s TDK tapes

[@retrocoreav7025]

Same here. I have a big collection of mid 80s upwards of TDK tapes.

[@raulgonzalez139]

As I understand short tapes (10 minutes) were used for karaoke.

[@josephfrye7342]

Ah yes i already had the American tdk dynamic ferric cassette and it was using the 90s hubs throughout the years but I would love to see what the Japanese version of tdk dynamic ferric cassette looks like.

[@retrocoreav7025]

I don't think there ever was one. I'm thinking the AE was the Japanese version of the D

[@josephfrye7342]

@@retrocoreav7025 oh yes I knew that however i have not had the older 80s dynamic American and European cassette but some can be brittle and some cannot which they are strong enough. but all I got is some from the 90s still or last of the line new versions. but there are some Japanese versions of the cassette you got.

[@retrocoreav7025]

Back in the UK I have a lot of mid to late 80s TDK D cassettes. They were the work horse of tapes for sure. Cheap and good quality. I've not tried any of the 90s ones though. By that time I'd moved on to the AR. I wonder if Japanese buyers would go nuts for TDK D cassettes? Or do they even know about them?

[@josephfrye7342]

@@retrocoreav7025 hmm interesting question.

[@moshezaharia4666]

Hi Mark! first, I love your videos, I find the Japanese market very facinating in regards to stereo gear and cassettes. I just want to make a note: it lokks that you don't do the Bias correctly: pay attention to the display, when the deck is in calibration mode, the R & L are disappeared and that is for a reason: the deck records two tones, a high and low ones, so first use the Bias to balance them (so they are the same level) and only then use the Level adjustment to get the level correctly (the EQ is set during recording, of course). Whishing you all the best and keep these cool videos coming!

[@retrocoreav7025]

Thanks for watching, moshe. The way calibration is done on this deck maybe unique. The bottom bar is listed as Bias. The top bar is listed as EQ. The levels is measured by a square under the level bars. To either side of the square are triangles. The idea is to set the levels in such a way that only the square is showing. In the manual it says to adjust the Bias, then levels followed by the EQ. They manual recommends getting the EQ bar (the top one) level with the bais bar (bottom one) however I've found it's best to adjust the EQ by ear and forget about the bar.

[@moshezaharia4666]

Retro Core AV Thank for your detailed reply, you have an awesome deck! I have the Aiwa AD-F850, it doesn’t have the built in calibration tones, and the manual tells how to set the bias by ear, using the FM hiss from the tuner (set to -25dB for bias and then to 0dB for level).

[@retrocoreav7025]

Wow, that's quite the unique way to go about setting the Bias but if it works then that's good enough. I do like the look of the AD F-850.

[@moshezaharia4666]

@@retrocoreav7025 Yes, it works perfectly. the key is using high quality headphones because this method is based on hearing. But I would prefer the visual method.

[@peacearchwa5103]

Was TDK B offered in Japan, or was TDK B primarily sold in Australia and Southeast Asia? There are many counterfeit TDK B cassettes around, but I acquired some apparently genuineTDK B tapes. They are dropout-free, nice even tape pack, and perform fairly well even though the shell is definitely lightweight. Using a JVC TD-W318 with Compu-Bias (a decent MOTL deck sold from 1995-97), my TDK B recordings of audiophile-grade piano music are decent and enjoyable, though you must avoid driving the record level above the Dolby level. TDK B might be similar to the JDM TDK AE cassettes.

[@evoGage]

The 80s one sounds much better but the new one isn't that bad though. It's perfectly fine.

[@retrocoreav7025]

I'd agree. The first modern AE I tried was awful but this one was much better. Not as good as the 80s one but still better than the one I had originally tried.

[@evoGage]

@@retrocoreav7025 Keep up the good work Mark. I love the stuff you do on this av channel!

[@ArturArocha]

The 80s is a lot better !

[@retrocoreav7025]

I would agree.

[@Lucrativecris]

Japanese tapes are the best they've always innovated in the cassette market

[@Lucrativecris]

Where did you get that phones input thingy?

[@retrocoreav7025]

Which phones input thingy are you referring to? The music player?

[@Lucrativecris]

@@retrocoreav7025 where the headphone Jack is connected to

[@retrocoreav7025]

That's just a normal 3.5mm converter jack. You can buy them on Amazon for example.

[@Lucrativecris]

@@retrocoreav7025 Send me a link to the product idk which one is the correct one

[@tarstarkusz]

Anything is better than video game music or the YT library. Actually, it wasn't even that bad.

[@retrocoreav7025]

Some game music is really good. I'm sure will scoff at my music collection but I was brought up in the 80s and Stock Aiken and Waterman were the sound of my youth along with electronic pop in general.

[@tarstarkusz]

@@retrocoreav7025 I was a teenager in the 80s (class of 87). I don't know where you were in the 80s, but I don't remember the music you are talking about. Video game music is OK in video games, not with earphones. I only mentioned it as a way of nodding to you because I complained about the video game music a couple of videos back.

[@retrocoreav7025]

I was born in 1975. Im from Liverpool so as an early teen I'd listen to the HitMan (Pete Waterman) every Saturday morning. I guess that's why I'm in to Electronic music, euro dance and stuff like that. Doesn't help that my favourite group of all time is the Pet Shop Boys either. Maybe this is also why I think game music can be good?

[@tarstarkusz]

@@retrocoreav7025 I am in the US, so it was kind of a different scene, though I was also a fan of Pet Shop Boys.

[@retrocoreav7025]

Ah that's true. The US music scene was quite different than Europe. Maybe still is? There were many US acts that did become popular in the UK at the time. People such as Bobby Brown, Paula Abdul, Debbie Gibson, Martika, Gloria Estefan, Madonna and so on but none ever made it to the No. 1 slot. Even the almighty Michael Jackson didn't have many No. 1 singles. Probably only 2 from what I remember, those being Bad and maybe Black & White. Both 90s hits though.

[@amerigocosta7452]

Typical Italian pop, lol you're right (but Germans did that too). Having somebody actually recording and somebody else acting as the singer, appearing on covers, doing interviews, live performances and so on, it was so commonplace thanks to the overuse of playback at the time. Those projects didn't have much artistic ambition, they were only carried out in order to make a ton of money in a short time, and they usually achieved that. The actual singers weren't necessarily deemed too ugly for the job, but they were most likely vocalists working on multiple projects in order to pump out the huge amount of pop music Italy was outputting at the time, so it was convenient to have those models or fake performers.

[@retrocoreav7025]

I heard that Spangia (spelling?) was the actual singer for a lot of the Fun Fun stuff but because she was older they used models to appeal to the younger audiences. I have to say, I find the video to this track rather cute 😉

[@amerigocosta7452]

@UCEcva0Ahp9HHQvvbvePXoIg Most Italian pop (the one sung in Italian) use to be distributed both in Italy and abroad by the usual major global music companies. Italo Disco was made by a lot of smaller local labels here, so I guess they had many different deals for the foreign markets. I might be wrong, but Italo Disco has been pretty much dead as a genre for a while now, at least in Italy. Avex as far as I know is mostly responsible for the success of Eurobeat in Japan. Strangely enough, despite being almost completely made by Italian artists recording in Italy, Eurobeat has never been marketed in Italy in any way. Except the occasional otaku or retro-gamer (eg. thanks to Initial D), the general public doesn't know about it. The artists themselves might be known in Italy for other projects, in different genres and under different names.

[@amerigocosta7452]

@@retrocoreav7025 Ivana Spagna was in her 30s when "shadow" singing for this band, so you're most likely right (eventho I don't think she sings this particular song). Also, the songs she recorded and performed under her name were aimed at a different audience than Fun Fun, most likely young adults going to clubs and the likes. She wouldn't have had any advantage by being openly associated with this band at that point. And yes, the video is cute, maybe clumsy for today's standards but those were the 80's. And those giant Moschino shirts were the definition of the 80's in Italy.

[@retrocoreav7025]

Avex trax are indeed responsible for eurobeat in Japan. The first time I heard of Italian music was around 1988 / 89 with stuff such as Black Box and Starlight. But there was actually big Italian hits before that however, they were never published as being Italian. Baltimora’s Tarzan Boy, Ryan Paris (Fabio Roscioli) Dolce Vita, Sabrina Salerno’s Boys Boys Boys in 1988, Spagna’s 1987 hit, Call Me and Joe Dolce’s Shaddap Your Face from the mid 80s. I never knew any of these were Italian but they were all hits in the UK.

[@amerigocosta7452]

@@retrocoreav7025 Believe it or not, a lot of this music wasn't openly marketed as Italian in Italy as well. Especially in the dance scene they almost exclusively used English pseudonyms and English lyrics. Many people knew these artists were Italian but many others had no clue. They were aimed at a global audience (and I guess it worked since people from all over the world know and love them) and they also capitalised on that huge part of the Italian public that was fed up with traditional Italian songs and wanted something more foreign and modern sounding.

[@sh0t734]

clean the deck's potentiometers , they kinda noisy

[@madmoritz1817]

The new ones design looks soooo cheap. Just because of the dots where A and B is printed... Cheap design, cheap sound- fits.