Comparison of the magnetic recording performance of medium-scale ring, double-sided pole, metal-in-gap heads on high-coercivity longitudinal media

The magnetic recording performance of medium-scale ring, double-sided pole, and metal-in-gap (MIG) heads were investigated on standard longitudinal high-coercivity floppy, video tape, and isotropic floppy media using a stretched-surface multi-head magnetic recording tester. The isolated pulses for the ring and MIG heads exhibited sharp peaks near tbe edges of the gap for a head-medium separation of less than 0.1 um. Low density maximum output voltage was independent of the type of the write head. The largest output voltage was achieved from the MIG head. The isolated outputs on video media agreed with calculated values for the ring head efficiency set to 52% and the pole head efficiency set to 33% using the Karlqvist head field approximation.