Author
|
Topic: Sound head demagnetizers?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jan Bister
Darth 8mm
Posts: 2629
From: Ohio, USA
Registered: Jan 2005
|
posted March 26, 2006 09:52 AM
Whether they're earthed (rather: grounded) or not is irrelevant to any magnetic buildup occurring over time. It's just a simple matter of all that magnetized oxide stripe running over the head when running a sound film... same with cassette and reel-to-reel audio tapes... after so much time it just happens, and in more extreme cases you'll have audible hiss and loss of high frequencies as a result. A head demagnetizer does just what its name suggests and restores the full frequency/dynamic range of the sound head. Which in turn is good for tape (or stripe) because running recorded tape past a magnetized head can also have a slight erasing effect, causing permanent hiss and loss of high frequencies on the tape itself. (But again that's a more extreme case and not very likely to happen.) In short, demagnetizing is simply a good idea of maintaining top sound quality, though it's not required nearly as often as a mere cleaning.
Dan, thanks for the links, I've already seen them... (and btw, I was kidding about the unplugging thing) actually the one I'm tending to buy looks like this... I used to have one exactly like this back in Germany (which was of course a 220V/50Hz model) and it always worked well... interesting to hear it's supposedly a clone of the Nakamichi DM-10 demagnetizer (itself supposedly a high-end device, though I'm not sure why).
-------------------- Call me Phoenix. *dusts off the ashes*
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|