I made three copies of records over the weekend, before I left for London on Monday. They were all from Classic Record 45rpm reissues of well known recordings. I have the original LPs of all of them also. They are RCA LSC-1806 Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathusthra by Reiner (the first stereo release by RCA on vinyl - recorded in 1954), RCA LSC-1817 Offenbach Gaite Parisienne by Fiedler (the second stereo vinyl release - recorded in 1956) - BTW both were not issued on stereo vinyl until 1958, as I remember. Finally, the last was the Columbia JC35305 Stardust by Willie Nelson. All of them are on Harry Pearson's Super Disc List. I really like all of the albums also. I did a very easy A/B comparison while recording, by listening to the tape playback of the Ampex and switching the preamp tape monitor (remotely) between the record input and the tape setting. I matched volume levels carefully and absolutely could not tell the difference between the vinyl and the tape. I used the RMGI SM468 tape that I got from Romo (what Doc wrote about) and I used the IEC EQ setting on the Ampex. Playing the 45's is a real pain - getting up every 10 minutes or less to change a side. THere is another issue that the tape ameliorates, but not solves completely. That is on many of the classical albums which have long movements or one continuous piece, the end of an LP side is faded out - so there is not a smooth transition between sides. This is particularly true in the Also Sprach. Having the tape, there is still the fade out (I cannot edit that well) but there is not the minute or so pause while I flip the sides of the LP. Of course with pop and jazz albums andsome classical - the tracks are separate enough that this is not a problem. Romo also put enough tape on the pancakes (much more than 2500' - that I had no problem fitting the entire albums (34' 36' and 38' respectively) on one reel without tape spilling over.
On a separate issue, by chance I did score a couple of cases of the original ENTEC SM911 which was mentioned briefly in the Audio Asylum. The fellow lives in England and he is sending the cases to my hotel in London. The price was certainly right, especially with the fall in the pound - I'll let you know how they sound when I get back home.
Larry