Staying in the year of 1992, we find a Maxell SX II 60 high bias audio cassette hard at work in one of the era’s most popular home multitracking machines – the Tascam Ministudio.
Maxell’s SX II was a tape that aimed to optimise the balance between budget and quality. Marketed by Maxell as “Extended Range, Low Distortion”, the product delivered a refined sound at a price that would attract the interest of some bulk buyers.
Whilst the frequency reproduction did cover the decent range you’d expect from a high bias tape, I found the Maxell SX II more prone to glitching than the TDK equivalent. The relatively hollow midrange and blueish black colour of the tape emulsion suggests it’s a chrome formulation, but there’s nothing on the product to confirm that.
Although the sound is detailed, it’s pretty, sweet and very easy on the ear, due to a moderation of the frequency spectrum around the 2000 Hz area. This was a classic trait of chrome tapes, but the SX II is so moderate in that characteristically “nasal” frequency region that I’d have to cite it as the least nasal tape I can remember using. Had it been as stable as the TDK stuff I’m sure I would have used SX IIs a lot more.
It’s interesting to note that even though lo-fi was an established and rapidly growing interest by 1992, manufacturers of cassettes – the media that drove the lo-fi movement – were still desperate to persuade the world that their products were almost free from distortion. Indeed, in the early ’90s TDK even introduced a cassette that boasted CD-like sound.
Obviously, lo-fi was not the mainstream in 1992, if it ever has been. But you might imagine that a cassette brand would have spotted the quest among home music creators to grunge up their recordings, and tried to sell them at least one high distortion tape. Of course, the damage that could have done to a brand’s entire reputation, at a time when the vast majority of people wanted CD quality but did not have the option of recording to CDs, would have chilled the marketing departments to the bone. It was not gonna to happen.
Whilst Maxell claimed low distortion on their SX II, however, you actually got a noticable amount. There’s quite a bit of “grain” in the sonic detail. It’s attractive – especially coupled with the generally sweet aura of the tape.
It’s a great shame that mainstream demand forced all tape cassette companies to be so tediously one-dimensional with their product descriptions. The differences in sound between the various cassettes was part of the joy of using them – and it’s pretty much the whole of the joy today. But in describing the characteristic sonic colours of their tapes, manufacturers would have been admitting their products were not accurately recording sound. That was something none of them would be stupid enough to risk.
Tape Tardis 