Mondo Knows Facts
Dolby put hiss reduction in the home
The system boosted quiet high frequencies on record and cut them on playback Professional Dolby A appeared in studios in the 1960s and the simpler B version reached cassette decks soon after. The trade was a slight change in tone for noticeably less hiss. Later systems added headroom for loud peaks. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
Eight track cartridges rolled the tape in one loopThe end of the tape simply joined the start, so it played for everDolby B made cassette hiss bearableThe 1968 system raised quiet treble when recording and lowered it on playbackTape speed wobbles have two namesSlow drift is wow and fast tremble is flutter, both audible as pitch waverEvery analogue tape copy loses qualityHiss and distortion build up with each generation away from the masterTape made editing possibleEngineers cut and rejoined tape with a razor blade to build a takeThe cassette was meant for dictationPhilips introduced it in 1963 as a compact, cheap recording medium
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Tags: noise-reduction, tape, formats
Dolby put hiss reduction in the home: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The system boosted quiet high frequencies on record and cut them on playback. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.