Hi Kenneth,
 As much as I have liked what Dolby has done to make impossible or
unlikely mediums sound reasonably good, proper alignment of Dolby
systems is the biggest problem to this noise reduction system. Alignment
of the tape to the recorder and using that same kind of tape for future
recordings is one thing to do. During that alignment, Dolby tone should
be set by the technicians to that ideal level during recording, allowing
a transparent playback of the original material. That is the end goal.
Ideally, the technician tweaking up your Dolby should mark the input
controls to that ideal level, which if not properly setup, would have
the Dolby working at times it shouldn't causing "distortions" of the
signal (different than intended levels of companding, etc.). That should
then be the ideal level for the Dolby, and as long as you match levels
coming in to that record level, then all should decode fine on the
playback.
 So many people claim that Dolby takes all of the brightness out and
other claims which are either directly due to misalignments of the input
levels during recording, or playback levels on the decode side, or
listening to tapes too much without Dolby playback then using a Dolby
system which will expand the compressed bands back to their normal
levels which to someone listening to the tape without Dolby for too
long will now think is sucking the highs out. Much of this also comes
from the same crowd that seems to use speakers that make only pitch on
anything below about 150 Hz, and that has to be much louder than
anything else.
 Bottom line, if you have a Dolby deck and wish to record with it a lot,
select a tape formulation and length that you like, take it and the
recorder to your friendly neighborhood audio technician to align for you
to that tape formulation and record away in bliss!
 Bonnie *:>
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