k7 tape - capturing on cel phone

[Litaiff]

Is there a modern cassette player to capture audio without needing a computer, going directly to the cell phone?

Or all models are like this one and needs a computer ?


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[dellsam34]

The problem is not the availaibility of a portable cassette player with built in memory, The quality of those devices is very horrible. You can build a computer less setup with decent quality but the price will be your deciding factor. A nice Sony walkman or a cassette deck from back in the day connected to a USB audio recorder with a built in SD card, Using computer meant that any audio capture device under $50 can achieve the $300 computer-less audio recorder.

[Litaiff]

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/32411062262.html

Is that also horrible ?? @dellsam34


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[Cornucopia]

I would make an educated guess, which agrees with dellsam34.

The digital portion is probably decent enough.
The A-->D is mediocre to fair.
The analog portion is cheap, lowest common denominator, so probably crappy.

Scott

Also, what the heck does "k7" mean? Surely not Philips Compact Cassette. Nobody I know ever called it that.

[dellsam34]

https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/32411062262.html

Is that also horrible ??

Absolutly.

what the heck does "k7" mean? Surely not Philips Compact Cassette. Nobody I know ever called it that.

The French speaking territories called it K7, K: Ca and 7: Sette, it's the exact pronounciation of the letter K and the number 7 in French.

[lollo]

one "s" is missing; casette sonds diffent from cassette, but close enough

[dellsam34]

We are talking pronociation here not spelling, 7 in French spells Sept, So neither Sette nor Ssette.

[lollo]

OT: indeed. K7 prononciation is not cassette, but casette (very close). But better leave final word to our native french friends

[dellsam34]

It's the exact prononciation in French, I do speak French, lived in a country that was occupied by France for centuries, and studied in the French language from high school until I got my engineering degree.

[lollo]

Well, I lived in France for 15 years, and for me double s is different from single s in prononciation, but my italian background may false my perception. Let's wait a native french

[dellsam34]

Only if the S is in between two vowels it becomes Z, If it is at the beginning of the paragraph and at the beginning of the word as in sept, It is S as in cette, If you write casette then yes it is cazette, But K7 is K-sept, that was my point.

[lingyi]

In this video, Techmoan explains why all modern cassette players are poor quality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WleZGWAebsY

Bottom line is there's no market for high quality cassette players today.

[El Heggunte]

Only if the S is in between two vowels it becomes Z, If it is at the beginning of the paragraph and at the beginning of the word as in sept, It is S as in cette, If you write casette then yes it is cazette, But K7 is K-sept, that was my point.

You are correct.

Here in Brazil most people also wrote "K7" when they meant «(compact) cassette».

2) lingyi is right, compact cassette is a dead technology and so nobody produces good cassette players anymore :-\
Just for the notes, I stopped using cassette tapes in 2005.
Because one day I finally realized they were not worth the hassle anymore.

[Cornucopia]

Contrary to goofy pop buzzfed journalism's attempt to push retro on us, as much as I loved and heavily used cassettes (probably still have over 1000 in storage), their time came & went ages ago -and isn't coming back (nor is VHS), and IMO the ONLY reason to have a cassette deck now is to be able to do a high quality transfer of old material that isn't available anywhere else (e.g. old family stuff, my old demo recordings, radio excerpts, etc).
And for that, it would be counterproductive to give it anything but the best. So, go with a good Technics or Nakamichi deck, something which would hold up well to age related wear.

Also, seeing as I live in primarily English-speaking country, I guess it makes sense that I never heard of k7.

my 0.02

Scott

[lingyi]

Anyone remember or had a BIC T-(X) deck? Recorded and played cassettes at double speed! Could only dream about a Nakamichi, but had a T-2 or T-3 during my long gone audiophile days.

https://www.cassettedeck.org/bic

[Litaiff]

@El Heggunte De qual cidade vc fala?

[dellsam34]

When it comes to playback the most important thing is the wow and flutter, so a 2 head with good motor control is all what's needed, Nakamichi 3 head decks are good for recording and playback and they are well over $3000 (the dragon), I have the Sony WM-D6C Semi Pro Walkman and it is probably the best player in its catogery when it comes to W&F and frequency response, But they are now expensive even in non working condition. But 2 head home decks from back in the day are usually decent and some are easy to repair.

[El Heggunte]

@El Heggunte De qual cidade vc fala?

I live in São Paulo.

[lingyi]

When it comes to playback the most important thing is the wow and flutter, so a 2 head with good motor control is all what's needed,

Memories from my audiophile days when I voraciously read everything I could (long pre-internet) and haunted the audio stores to listen to what I could only dream about.

The top Nakamichi decks further optimized reducing wow and flutter by pushing the felt pad behind the tape back, so the tape was solely supported by the rollers. AFAIK, only Nakamichi used this technique. http://www.hifi-classic.net/review/nakamichi-dr-1-43.html

Also important to playback quality is the composition and materials of the tape heads. Tape is abrasive and wears down the heads. Actually causing a groove in high hour heads. In general, the harder the material (I think most heads where glass), the better. I've read that on extremely worn heads, you could feel the groove with your fingernail.

Azimuth/tape skew is another factor in playback quality. Older Nakamichi decks allowed you you manually adjust the azimuth while playing back the tape on an individual basis. And the Dragon featured automatic azimuth correction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakamichi_Dragon

Sadly, Nakamichi used to be a guarantee of extremely high quality decks, but later their decks became cheaper and the legendary status declined.

The heartbreak and acknowledgement of the end of the era was when Nakamichi introduced their first CD player. CDs won over extremely high quality cassette playback.

[lingyi]

Also, seeing as I live in primarily English-speaking country, I guess it makes sense that I never heard of k7.
Scott

And we all know the Texan drawl is the REAL PROPER ENGLISH!

[dellsam34]

Yes, the audiophile days, when I couldn't afford even a boombox, All those features means nothing now, it's all high res and 24bit sadly. If I can go back in time I take a VHS Hi-Fi stereo machine with me, beats the crap out of every deck out there even some R2R decks.
Here is a capture using the D6C via the Terratec USB capture device with Magix Audio Lab @ 24bit/96Khz FLAC, little overkill but good if editing and restoration intended and output 16/44.1:

[lordsmurf]

The French speaking territories called it K7, K: Ca and 7: Sette, it's the exact pronounciation of the letter K and the number 7 in French.

I learned something new today!

... or did I learn something old today.

[dellsam34]

More of like you learned some history today.

[Eric-jan]

There are cheap audio interfaces for USB that will be recognized without drivers via USB-C (much cheaper and easy to find) only some Android phones have hick-ups, (missing audio frames) just try it, it's not worth the question in a forum, even in a video forum ! (or just use Google)
(btw you need a USB On The Go adapter between USB C and USB A most of the time)
or ION

[Cornucopia]

As has already been mentioned, it is rarely the digital portion of the transfer that is the quality issue, rather the A-->D and the Analog sections. Cheap gets you cheap. While that may be what the OP is looking for (and only they can decide that), they should know going in that quality is what they will be compromising.

Scott

[Eric-jan]

Well a cassette deck at the thrift store wil do also, will be better after cleaning heads, demagnatize heads, (replacing snare(s)? will also not break the bank, there are just not made any good cassette decks these days anyway….(or are much too expensive) i see no reason to get exited about it in any fashion, the OP (like said) clearly sets the quality standard himself, taking the effort to do some more research what's it all about, will give him maybe a better perspective, if needed.