User talk:HKA

High Com II
Dear Harron, You probably have seen that the High Com article mentions you as someone who assisted, according to Ernst F. Schröder, in the development of the Nakamichi High Com II and III systems. Although it was not met with a large market penetration (due to several factors), I think the system remains historically relevant and therefore I would like to fill some gaps in the technical specs I was not able to research so far. After all these years, do you perhaps still remember the crossover frequencies of the High Com II and III companders? The High Com II system spec'ed at 20–25 dB(A) noise reduction; was the (commercially unreleased) High Com III system even better in regard to the noise reduction figure, or was it just acoustically superior to II due to its three-band character? Did the III system also use pre-/deemphasis or not? Regarding your role, I understand you did took part in acoustical tuning, but did you also took part in actual circuit design? Thanks and best regards --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:58, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Dear Matthiaspaul,

I hope this is the proper way to respond to your inquiry. This part of Wikipedia is bewildering to me.

I'm sorry for the delayed response but I only just read your entry today (11 November 2021).

I have fond recollections of my time with Ernst Schröder, but he was far too kind to me in his High Com article. Yes, I played a small role in acoustical tuning, but I cannot claim any contribution to actual circuit design. And, unfortunately, I am unable to answer your questions regarding crossover frequencies and performance-related issues regarding later designs... not because I am sworn to some secrecy but rather because I simply do not know/remember.

As I recall, Nakamichi eventually lost interest in pursuing further NR gains via High Com for two reasons: 1) Dolby countered with their C-Type consumer noise reduction system, which not only provided S/N improvement greater than their B-type but did so while ingeniously addressing the problem of high-frequency saturation signal loss in tape recording with higher compression/expansion ratios. Ray Dolby, through his representatives, figuratively slapped Etsuro Nakamichi in the face for having "gotten into bed" with Telefunken. Mr. Nakamichi, for his part, was happy to have provided Dolby with the incentive to move beyond the ~10 S/N improvement provided by their B-type system -- a level Ray Dolby personally considered more than adequate for music reproduction, especially when the source was the LP disc. 2) The digital recording era was around the corner, and Nakamichi knew it.

Sorry I cannot be of more help.

HKA (talk) 21:08, 11 November 2021 (UTC)