Does anyone know the recording grade of a standard 4 track tape recorder???? I was curious about this because my old Yamaha DJX sampled at a better quality than the low grade recording on the Zoom MRS-4 digital 4 track which I think only samples at 16 khz in the lowest grade..

Squeak

The Quality in kHz does not apply to tape recorders. It applies only to digital audio to secify sampling frequency in kHz. The higher the frequency, the more quality of audio. CD quality is 44.1 kHz with 16 bit audio.

Squeak,
The range of frequency reproduction on tape
is approx between 55Hz - 16500Hz, if used good tape!
This is within the range what a child's ear can hear, the older you get the less it becomes.
If you use a pro 4track taperecorder, this is good enough and compares to old Revox A77 recordings.
You will notice that the dynamics seem to sound better/deeper as a digital recording.
This is caused because the frequency reproduction is fluctuating on tape and on strongest on the points where we would use compression in digital recordings.
A digital recording is flat and has no fluctuation other then sound peaks, but is not limited in reproduction and which is not the same.

The outcome is that tape seems to have more dynamic. confusing eh

I hope I clarified a bit as this is pretty tough explaning in english.

Fred

freddy,
not confusing at all.. great explanation

Thanks
Squeak