How to digitalize music tapes in lossless quality?

[CSchmidlapp]

I had a fairly nice hand me down set up as a teenager.
They we're separate Technics components dating around the late 80's which included a Cassette Deck. (that I used on its own connected to my sound card).
I always turned the Dolby NR off. Even on Dolby NR cassettes.
It always seemed to cut to much off the high end.
I gather the technology improved?

I only really used the tape deck initially to record my friends CD's but used it a few times for sound fx dubs when I was using VHS players to edit mid 90's. It sounded great.

[deleted user]

Well, the thing is, as spoRv pointed out, there are various types/generations of Dolby NR, so the one you used may have been too aggressive for the tapes you used? But yes, the cutting off of the high end is on purpose, that is (if the types match) how it is supposed to sound like. Many people are fond of the way the Dolby NR encoded material sounds, but essentially it is boosting the high frequencies on the tape (it does other things too!) so that they gain a few decibels against the inherent tape noise. Then when you pull them back down, you are simultaneously pulling down the tape noise, resulting in a less noisy recording overall. So far the theory anyhoo.

One also has to say, though, that pre-recorded tapes may not be a fair measure, as they are recorded at high speeds and don't have the same kind of high fidelity you would have if you recorded them in realtime (not sure in which ways exactly, probably frequency response, but I read that this was pretty much a consensus). So maybe in a weird way, the Dolby NR "compensates" for that.

[zoidberg]

You don't do heavy metal in dobly

[spoRv]

Almost all tapes sold at the times - at least, after a given time (can't remember, again, too old dinosaur I am...) were recorded with Dolby B; none AFAIK with Dolby C; Dolby S improves the play of Dolby B recorded tapes.

Agree with TomArrow, a home recorded tape - from a CD/LD, using chrome or metal tape, with Dolby C - outperform an original tape.

P.S. Once I had a tape deck with DBX - it was exceptional! Sadly, there were so few of them, that I can't swap tapes recorded in DBX with anyone - no internet at the times - so I ended up to record most, if not all, of them in Dolby C.

[CSchmidlapp]

That was nostalgic, Ive just found a review of the Tape Deck I used to own

[spoRv]

I do love those silver gears so much now - to so much at the time (early 90s)!