On Wed, Nov 24, 2004 at 06:47:57PM +0100, Timo Sch?ler wrote:
 [...]
> cdrecord should complain on 48kHz .wav files... (it did for me, as i 
> transitioned audio from DAT [48kHz] to cd-r...)

So what about dear old analog audio cassette tape?  Is there a
theoretical maximum quality of a recording, played back on inexpensive
consumer players?  (I can readily record up to 48Kbps, but if recorded
at that level, am I just retaining imperfections of the medium with
higher fidelity?  Or, if the tape is in good shape, is there always
room for better sampling, due to the analog nature of the tape?)

(I suppose that I should be asking these questions on an audiophile
list, but...(^&)

Of course, I am using an audio cable to tie the output from the
player to the input of the computer.


Some of the tapes are micro (mini?) cassettes that were used for
conducting some interviews, and I need them copied to the computer
for this radio show.  For those, especially any done in English
(Spanish interviews are translated), quality matters, though the
original recordings were done in rather suboptimal conditions.

Most of the tapes are ones that I've been buying of late for
the sake of broadening my musical horizons.  (One of my projects.
(^&)  Cassettes of music are very cheap these days, so I'm using
it as an excuse to buy lots of music that I don't know.  At least
the songs that I like (maybe all of the tapes), I'd like to migrate
to my computer---the quality is not always the best, but it is
more convenient to select from an XMMS playlist.  (^&  And random
access to songs (or parts of songs) rather than linear access along
a single tape, is a big boon.

Ones I *really* care about I will probably buy on CD, but others
are in a grey zone where I'd like to get the most that I can from
the tape, without throwing time and money at it.


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/