A combined thin-film head has been developed for digital-compact-cassette (DCC) recording. In this head, the inductive recording head is placed behind the yoke-type magnetoresistive (MR) playback head. This design greatly simplifies fabrication by reducing the number of layers. Therefore, its structural stability and productivity are superior to those of other head designs. Its recording current is similar to that of a conventional thin-film recording head. The maximum output-level current is 120-160 mA/sub 0-p/, and the average output at 48 kHz exceeds 100 mu V/sub p-p/. The overwrite characteristics of 48 kHz on 9.6 kHz are about -19 dB. The influence of the recording field on the playback characteristics of the yoke-type MR head is negligible. This head has the characteristics required for DCC recording and playback.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>