4
—Owner’s Manual
Buying Cassette Tapes for the MT400
It is important that you buy the correct type of cassette tape for use with your MT400. You
should buy high-quality Type II (High Bias, 70
µ
s EQ) chrome cassettes of 90 minutes or less,
such as TDK SA or MAXELL CDXL II.
At normal speed, a 60-minute cassette provides about 15 minutes of recording time. That is
because the tape runs at twice the speed of a normal cassette recorder and you can use only
one side of the tape.
The following table shows the available recording times with three standard tape sizes:
MT400 Recording Format
A normal cassette recorder uses only two tracks (i.e., left and right stereo channels) for each
side (A and B). The transport direction of the A side is opposite that of the B side. The MT400
uses only one side of the cassette, and records and plays up to four tracks simultaneously or
one at a time. Therefore, tapes with all four tracks recorded on the MT400 cannot be played
on normal cassette players. If you try to play back a tape recorded with normal cassette
recorders on the MT400, you will hear Tracks 3 and 4 play backwards.
Normal cassette recorder tracks
MT400 tracks
The tape speed of normal cassette recorders is 4.8 cm/second. On the other hand, the MT400
uses 9.5 cm/second as its standard speed to achieve high-quality sound.
Cassette Tape
MT400 Recording Time
(with the standard speed)
C90 Approx. 22.5 minutes
C60 Approx. 15 minutes
C46 Approx. 11.5 minutes
Note:
We recommend that you use a brand new cassette tape for important recording. If you
record on a used tape repeatedly, the recorded sound may skip or sound quality may
deteriorate.
transport
direction
transport
direction
Side B (left channel)
Side B (right channel)
Side A (right channel)
Side A (left channel)
transport
direction
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3
Track 4
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