showstack / glossary / azimuth-tape
Azimuth (tape) 磁頭方位角
The angle of a magnetic head gap relative to the tape path, which should be exactly perpendicular. If the recording and playback machines disagree, the top of the track is read fractionally before the bottom and high frequencies partly cancel across the track width. It presents as a dull recording and is a phase error, so equalisation cannot recover it; aligning the playback head can.
中文
磁頭間隙相對於磁帶行進方向的角度，理應完全垂直。若錄音機與放音機的方位角不一致，磁軌上緣 會比下緣稍早被讀取，高頻便會在磁軌寬度上部分相消。聽感上像是高頻不足，但本質是相位誤差， 因此無法用等化補回；調整放音磁頭方位角則可完全復原。
Regional usage
| Where | Term | Note |
|---|---|---|
| UK / US | Azimuth | |
| HK / TW | 方位角 / azimuth |
Easy to get wrong
A dull archive tape is far more often an azimuth mismatch than a degraded recording. Boosting the top end cannot help, because the energy is cancelling itself rather than being absent.
Sources
- AES standards for audio engineering — Audio Engineering Society primary
Understand the mechanism
Something wrong, or missing?
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