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Author Topic: Tube Repro - interesting phenomenon  (Read 5251 times)

Offline docb

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Tube Repro - interesting phenomenon
« on: January 11, 2010, 01:08:29 PM »
While at CES we found that one of our Tube Repros seemed to be going a bit dull on top after being left on for 48 hours. We had experienced this only once before, and PB reminded me that in that case the sonics were brought back to normal by a simple switching of power off and back on. The common thread between the two incidents was very low humidity. We seemed to have a static charge building up on some panels on the chassis when the Repro was left on for a long period of time and somehow that is affecting the sonics a bit -  but only in very low humidity environments (humidity at CES was around 30% and humidity is 98% here today so I don't think I can reproduce the problem!). Switching the Repro power seems to bring everything back into proper equilibrium. So if you live somewhere that is very dry and you leave your Repro on all the time, you might want to "reboot". Make sure you don't have tape on the playback head whenever you switch the power on or off. That goes for all tape recorders...
Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
President for Life, Bottlehead Corp.
Managing Director - retired, The Tape Project

Offline xcortes

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Re: Tube Repro - interesting phenomenon
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2010, 01:32:03 PM »
Quote
Make sure you don't have tape on the playback head whenever you switch the power on or off. That goes for all tape recorders...

Thanks for the advice. Could you elaborate on the consequences and their causes?

Thanks
Xavier Cortes

Offline Ki Choi

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Re: Tube Repro - interesting phenomenon
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2010, 02:07:59 PM »
Having the valuable tape away from heads for all tape decks even without the use of Tube Repro would be a good thing.

The possible consequencies of leaving the tape in contact with tape heads while cycling the power are erasure or degradation the contact area of the tape.  Sorry to say, I have been there and done that...
Ki Choi

Offline docb

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Re: Tube Repro - interesting phenomenon
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2010, 02:12:59 PM »
Yup, Ki is right. You may inadvertently create a little pop or dropout on the tape where it was in contact with the head.
Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
President for Life, Bottlehead Corp.
Managing Director - retired, The Tape Project

Offline ironbut

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Re: Tube Repro - interesting phenomenon
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2010, 02:23:16 PM »
Interesting (the static thing).
I've found that it pays to spend a little time and experiment with different grounding schemes with your particular set up (what's plugged into what circuit leg) to get the lowest noise (with my Repro at least).
It gets pretty dry around here but I haven't left it on 24/7 once I felt like it was totally broken in. So, no problems like that.
steve koto
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