The playability and degradation of polyester magnetic media has been an ongoing concern for decades for audio curators, technicians, and hobbyists. As these collections continue to age, users increasingly desire to transfer their contents. However, such a task can be daunting. This report presents a new, rapid, nontechnical tool for evaluating the playability and physical surface of polyester magnetic tapes without needing to place them on playback equipment or use expensive technical instrumentation. Water contact angle, using a micro liter-sized droplet, was found to accurately predict the physical playback condition of the vast majority of tapes from a sampling of test tapes from the Library of Congress testing labs. This tool provides an appealingly simple and powerful method to directly probe a tape's physical surface. Results could frequently be interpreted by eye, without needing technical processing equipment or software.

Author: Davis, Andrew R.
Affiliation: Preservation Research and Testing Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540-4560, USA
JAES Volume 67 Issue 12 pp. 953-960; December 2019
Publication Date: December 30, 2019 Import into BibTeX
Permalink: https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=20706

Download Now (383 KB)

This paper is Open Access which means you can download it for free.

Learn more about the AES E-Library

E-Library Location: (CD JAES67)   /jaes67/12/pg953.pdf

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2019.0046

Start a discussion about this paper!