Tape Head - Types of Tape Heads

Types of Tape Heads

The physical design of a head depends on whether it is fixed or rotating. In either case, the face of the head where the gap is must be made hard wearing and highly smooth to avoid excessive head wear. It can also be seen that due to the construction method of the head gap, head wear will tend to widen the gap, reducing the head's performance over time. The vertical alignment of the heads (the azimuth) must also match between recording and playback for good fidelity, and the gap should be as close to exactly vertical as possible for highest frequency response. Most tape transport mechanisms will allow fine mechanical adjustment of the azimuth of the heads. Sometimes this can be achieved by automatic circuitry - the actual mechanical azimuth adjustment being carried out by taking advantage of the piezo effect of certain types of crystal material.

Read more about this topic:  Tape Head

Famous quotes containing the words types of, types, tape and/or heads:

    “... there are two types of happiness and I have chosen that of the murderers. For I am happy. There was a time when I thought I had reached the limit of distress. Beyond that limit, there is a sterile and magnificent happiness.”
    —Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    “Our major universities are now stuck with an army of pedestrian, toadying careerists, Fifties types who wave around Sixties banners to conceal their record of ruthless, beaverlike tunneling to the top.”
    —Camille Paglia (b. 1947)

    “We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they the same education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves.... Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require dreams.”
    —Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)