Passively mixing signals from cassette playback heads

Would passively mixing the signals (grand total of 28) straight from cassette heads be asking for trouble? (28 signals summed into 1.) I'm assuming the voltage the heads put out is very low and the impedance is very high, but I have no idea. You don't even want to know the details of this project. Anyone who could chime in with a simple "No" and "Here's why..." would be greatly appreciated.

There will be nothing to stop you summing them but I am assuming that you have heard of playback equalisation. Where and how is this gonna happen?

The project is not one of those exercises of trying to find the "pure" sound by any chance, is it?

A fixed-head disk drive? 



Actually that site has a lot of pics of great boatanchor technology, mics, and some schematics too.  Almost like it might belong to somebody here.  8)

Simply shorting 28 "identical" heads together might actually "work". It is kinda self-mixing. I'm not sure what the signal level will be, but it won't be 28 times higher, even if all 28 channels have signal, so it may pass into a standard playback EQ preamp.

Radically different heads will not mix equally and may screw-up each other's signal. But I think by the time of cassette, 98% of all heads used were basically the same design (impedance suitable for a cheap transistor preamp).

I don't want to think how much hum a 28-way 6-foot-long head-level bus might pick-up. Do 2 or 4 machines and perfect your shielding before you go 28.

> Almost like it might belong to somebody here

I left my doughnut-core memory behind when I moved. It was similar to this.

PRR said:

I left my doughnut-core memory behind when I moved. It was similar to this.

Click to expand...

heh heh.  That is a nice unit.  Data had a nice warm sound in those days.  Probably all those carbon comp resistors.