DBX vinyl discussion (moved from "Who Are You" thread)

[svtmike]

I would love to have hear the dbx vinyl pressing...

I had no idea there were dbx vinyls. I had dbx tape decks in my house and my car so I could listen to my LPs (and later) CDs without hearing the tape hiss all the time.

dbx was magic to me until CDs came out. Then it quickly became unnecessary.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Still have my DBX Deck in the rack....

Are you able to provide a picture?

 

[jefe1]

Here is a picture of one I grabbed from online model 224. There were a couple of later model variations but I understand this is the preferred model for decoding dbx encoded records.
At one time you could find them for around $20 online have not checked for years. I have a couple including some dbx encoded records including Who Are You.
Some of the classical records had astonishing dynamic ranges.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

View attachment 114157

Here is a picture of one I grabbed from online model 224. There were a couple of later model variations but I understand this is the preferred model for decoding dbx encoded records.
At one time you could find them for around $20 online have not checked for years. I have a couple including some dbx encoded records including Who Are You.
Some of the classical records had astonishing dynamic ranges.

Nice... I have that model too. It's currently in a box in my loft, together with my turntable, cassette player and interconnect leads. When I move house I intend to create an separate analogue set-up

 

[kcrimson]

I was a dbx cassette person for years - even after CDs came out, since I did not want to expose CDs in car vs cassettes which I could replace. I still have approx 3000 hand recorded dbx encoded cassettes in my basement. Once hard drive space got cheap enough, then I stopped making cassettes and started ripping with eac. Here is one of my cassette / dbx configurations. That’s a dbx 224x-ds.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Oh wow... There are no words!

 

[himey]

I was a dbx cassette person for years - even after CDs came out, since I did not want to expose CDs in car vs cassettes which I could replace. I still have approx 3000 hand recorded dbx encoded cassettes in my basement. Once hard drive space got cheap enough, then I stopped making cassettes and started ripping with eac. Here is one of my cassette / dbx configurations. That’s a dbx 224-xds.

View attachment 114167

I had a Nak TD-700 for my car back in the day, and a BX-300 to dub the CDs.

 

[jefe1]

I had a Nak deck in my car for a while. I had a few decks stolen even with the removable faceplates. May still have my last one a Sony in the garage. That may have had dolby C decoding. I tracked down a DBX decoder add on for the car but never used it.

 

[svtmike]

I was a dbx cassette person for years - even after CDs came out, since I did not want to expose CDs in car vs cassettes which I could replace. I still have approx 3000 hand recorded dbx encoded cassettes in my basement. Once hard drive space got cheap enough, then I stopped making cassettes and started ripping with eac. Here is one of my cassette / dbx configurations. That’s a dbx 224x-ds.

View attachment 114167

That Nakamichi tape deck was pretty much the holy grail of cassette decks back in its day. I always had decks with the dbx built in.

 

[andyp]

That Nakamichi tape deck was pretty much the holy grail of cassette decks back in its day. I always had decks with the dbx built in.

The Nakamichi 550 portable was the ultimate bootlegging deck. Three mic input, left, right, and center blend.

 

[boxhead]

The Nakamichi 550 portable was the ultimate bootlegging deck. Three mic input, left, right, and center blend.

That's the deck I used for my bootlegging back in the 70s. Made some great tapes with it!

 

[ar surround]

That Nakamichi tape deck was pretty much the holy grail of cassette decks back in its day. I always had decks with the dbx built in.

Cassettes at 1-3/4 ips were useless as a high fidelity recording medium. Then came dbx encode / decode which made a world of difference especially with those Nak decks.

As for me, I was totally anal and used dbx on 7-1/2 ips reel-to-reel. You know, half the convenience at twice the price.

 

[andyp]

That's the deck I used for my bootlegging back in the 70s. Made some great tapes with it!

What groups did you tape?

 

[nikomen]

I always preferred my AIWA F990 deck, nicknamed “The Dragon (Nakamichi) Slayer.” Still works like the day I bought it, and have 10 unopened Maxell 90 minute metal tapes. I agree with AR though, I prefer my Akai 7” stereo and quad decks when it comes to tape.

 

[boxhead]

What groups did you tape?

Little Feat, 10cc, Joe Cocker and many more I don't recall. However the best recordings I made were of Midnight Oil. Their sound guy used to let me plug straight into the mixing desk . So I'd have 2 x line level inputs then plug a mic into the blend channel for room ambiance.

 

[jefe1]

Having seen Midnight Oil a few times I'm jealous.

 

[andyp]

I always preferred my AIWA F990 deck, nicknamed “The Dragon (Nakamichi) Slayer.” Still works like the day I bought it, and have 10 unopened Maxell 90 minute metal tapes. I agree with AR though, I prefer my Akai 7” stereo and quad decks when it comes to tape.

Not even close...

 

[Owen Smith]

I had no idea there were dbx vinyls.

Techmoan channel on youtube demonstrates playing dbx vinyl, he was very impressed with the sound quality.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Techmoan channel on youtube demonstrates playing dbx vinyl, he was very impressed with the sound quality.

Indeed, dbx really was very good for the time. In the early 80's I would record dbx LP's onto cassette tape using a Technics dbx capable cassette deck. By the mid 80's I would record CD's onto cassette tape using a newer version of a Technics dbx capable cassette deck. As analogue audio goes, nothing could touch it.

In the early 90's I dabbled recording CD's onto cassette tape using a Sony Dolby-S deck, which also sounded very good... But by this time the writing was well and truely on the wall for playing analogue tapes!

 

[Owen Smith]

In the early 90's I dabbled recording CD's onto cassette tape using a Sony Dolby-S deck, which also sounded very good... But by this time the writing was well and truely on the wall for playing analogue tapes!

I bought a Pioneer Dolby S twin cassette deck in the late 90s and barely used it. I shouldn't have bought it, but I was assembling my first hifi once I had a place of my own and hifi included a cassette deck so I bought one. It's in the loft. I used my Panasonic S-VHS deck far more for recording radio since it had much better sound quality. That's still in my rack but doesn't get used often now.