Question re copying cassette tapes

[William J Poser]

I'm not so sure about the recommendation of stereo digitisation. If
the originals are not stereo recordings, there's no point in creating a
stereo digital recording, and indeed, even if there are two channels
on the original tapes, if they do not reflect inputs from two different
microphones, you don't have a true stereo recording and there isn't much
point in preserving two channels.

Also, 44.1 K samples/second is overkill for most linguistic material. If
it contains music, such a rate may be desirable, but for most speech,
22.05 K samples per second includes all of the information likely
to be of linguistic significance. 

16 bit resolution is highly desirable, but there's nothing sacred about
44.1K samples/per second sampling rate and stereo. These are merely
residues of decisions made by the music industry and have nothing to
do with the quality of linguistic recordings.

Bill