Talk:Loop bin duplicator

I have two questions:

1. my understanding was that the signal was transferred by actually running the source tape in physical contact with the blank through a transfer head which carried a very weak bias signal which copied the signal across. The article currently doesn't mention this, and the assumption would be that the signals are transferred electronically (which may also be the case I guess).

As far as I know, this method is only used for video tape duplication since there is only once side to a video tape. Audio cassettes have an A and B side and copying them as you describe would be impossible.Jimberg98 22:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

2. Why use a 1/2" or 1" source tape when the destination is only 1/8"? Surely it would be much more productive to copy onto wider tape, then slit it down to 1/8" individual tapes, thus recording 4 or 8 cassettes at once. Is that ever done? I can imagine in this case that track alignment would be very critical, but it's going to be anyway since the 4 tracks on the destination cassette must be precisely positioned. I don't see what the benefit of the wider source tape is if the destination is already narrow. Graham 05:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, cassette tapes are also duplicated in the method you mentioned by having the tape in contact with the source tape and passing a weak bias signal through the two layers of tape, however, this method of cassette duplication is of a much lower quality than the method employing a loop bin duplicator, which is completely electronic (functioning much like the high-speed dubbing feature of a dual cassette deck, but much more sophisticated), and yields much better-sounding duplicated cassettes. This is the method that most of the major record labels use for duplicating albums onto the cassette. As far as using a wider tape, this is due to being that the wider the tape is, the better the reproduced sound will be from it. And with duplicating to a small 1/8" size tape like that used by cassettes, the audio quality needs to be quite high in order to utilize the maximum quality 1/8" tape can provide. misternuvistor 20:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I've updated this article with a little more detail on how it works. I was the chief software engineer for Duplitronics, the company that held the patent for digital bins before it was found invalid.Jimberg98 22:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)