Nagra IV JS

[Guglielmo]

Hi to all!

Please I need an information: I may have the occasion to get a good Nagra IV JS. My aim is not to to record but mainly to play my collection of 2 track pre-recorded tapes. Is it a good machine suitable for this scope? What is the difference between the classic IV S and this version? Is it a "well sounding" machine?

Thanks for contribution!

Guglielmo

[Rally555]

Jesse here in San Antonio. The machine the Nagra IV JS will work.  I believe the difference between that and a IV S was used for instrumentation and logging.  The IVS was designed for stereo motion picture/music recording.  But if you are only going to use it for playback it will be a great machine.  I use the IVS for music recording and it has the wider track heads and pre-amps.  I believe you can hook the JS to a mixing board and record that way.  I attached a couple of my pictures.  If you have any questions feel free to email me at [email protected].


Sincerely,
Jesse

[Guglielmo]

Hello Jesse, and many compliments for your wonderful machines!

Also the Stellavox is amazing mainly with its scarce ABR option! You are lucky to own the 2 best portable recorders, it would be interesting to hear from you pros and cons of both...

By the way I am waiting my Nagra IV-SJ so I will try its features mainly in playback recorded tapes. Also the QGB for Nagra is a very appreciated accessory but vey very expensive and difficult to find... Do you know if the ABR (less expensive) may somehow work with Nagra's?

Guglielmo

[Guglielmo]

My "new" tool is arrived, it is in very good shape, now I have to understand its operation and put it at its best.

There are functions to set the equalization so I would ask the TP people helpful suggestions to utilise this machine may be also for TP tapes listening...

The first addition must be a QGB big reels adaptor, of course, but what about "tuning" to get the most from high quality 2 track tapes?

Thank you for help!

Guglielmo

 

[U47]

Hi Gugliemo
I had a IVSJ about 15 years ago and remembered it to be the same as IV-S for playback- that is from a distant memory. One very rare and interesting machine I had about 3 years ago was this Sony 770 4 channel portable deck. It was set up for 7 1/2 and 15 ips and had balanced mike inputs. It was as much money as a Nagra at the time and Sony only sold about 20 of them. It came with mimeographed operating manual as they never came up with a colour manual. It is a fine sounding machine, although nowhere near as rugged as a Nagra or Stellavox. They are much more common in 2 track format.
I've used Stellavox(sp-7 and sp-8), Nagra IV-S and T-Audio, Lyrec PTR-1, Sony 770 for location recording and playback. The Lyrec and Stellavox are my favourites for sonics. The Nagra IV-S is a fine recorder and not so great for playback. Charlie and I did put Stellavox electronics into a Nagra IV- this turned out to be a sonic disaster- likely due to the heads not being entirely happy with the 'vox electronics. The Lyrec is both a great recorder and playback device, but two drawbacks are lack of mic preamps and mechanical noise levels. The reliability is not wonderful from my experience with 4 of these over the last 10 years.
Regarding the ABR- it is totally Rube Goldberg like in operation. Totally lame for playback, due to almost non-existent tape tension. The QGB(Nagra) is the reel deal- great engineering and build quality. The ABR is only useful for location recording IMO.

Rich Brown
Portland, Oregon