Connecting a cassette recorder playback head directly to mic in

A Tascam Porta 03 was used just for transport and its head.


Signal path:


Denon DX90 cassete, recorded in the 90's - Tascam Porta head, L track side A - SONY TC-D5 Pro - Sennheiser HD580


The impedance of the head is 250Ω so very similar to a moving coil mic. The multi pin connector was carefully removed from the Tascam board and a nice balanced connection was made with small aligator cable clips to XLR in.


It worked and when the Sony rec level was at max the VU meters went up to 0VU.


So in terms of signal strength it is similar to a 200Ω mic when one sings softly.


To repeat, this is a playback head directly connected to mic in of a system of flat electrical frequency response.


The sound was appalling.


It sounded like an almost bad quality telephone, carbon stuff and worse.


Bass and treble was missing and mid was like barking. Like coming from a bad gramophone horn.


It is amazing what playback equalization does to cassette tape. It seems to do not only integration ie low cut or high pass but treble boost too.


Of course things would be much better if the cassette tape was running at 7.5ips.


To compare, connecting an MM vinyl record phono cartridge to high Z mic in, electron tube grid for example, gives as sound of full treble, like bats or birds singing but it is an interesting and nice sound.


See next post on how driving the head directly form an amplifier with DC sounds like.