[Coco] CoCo 2 cassette audio on emulators

[Robert Gault]

Ricardo M. Ferreira wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Do you know of a CoCo 2 emulator than can play cassette audio with high quality?
>
> Unfortunately now I don't have with me my Coco 2 (a Brazilian CP-400, actually),
> so I'm using XRoar. IIRC, on the real machine I could hear on the TV the audio
> from a cassette tape by typing AUDIO ON:MOTOR ON, and the quality of the audio
> was "perfect" (i.e., sounding as if I had connected the cassette tape directly
> to the TV audio input).
>
> I did a few tests on XRoar, and while data loads fine from .WAV files, music
> doesn't sound very good due apparently to a low sampling rate by XRoar, no
> matter the quality of the .WAV file. For example, I tried to play a 44100 Hz, 16
> bit, mono sample (that sounds perfect when played on any program) using XRoar,
> and it sounds like 8 bit & less than 10 kHz.
>
> I'm looking at XRoar's source to try to figure out if I can apply a patch, but
> if someone knows about an alternative solution, I'd be glad if you could let me
> know.
>
> Thanks!
>

Ricardo,

Part of your problem could be the manner in which emulators process wave files. 
A real Coco can handle real music perfectly with AUDIO ON:MOTOR ON with the 
quality of the sound a function of the tape recorder.
I've just done a test with MESS by taking an mp3 file and converting to a wave 
file. If the file is converted to 44100Hz, 8-bit, mono, it plays perfectly. Any 
other combination sounds awful.
Try that with your XRoar.

VCC will not play .wav files in this manner.

Robert