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Messages - U47

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46
Hi Bob
I'm using a 2 track 15 ips ReVox G-36 that Jack Clark did over a few years ago. I've had quite a few of them over the last 20 years and found them to do a much better job of recording than playing back. Charlie King(stellavox) wrote the article on them in Glass Audio about 15-20 years ago- "The Greening of the G-36". Jack has incorporated at least a few of Charlie's mods since the article came out. My friend Kara of DeHaviland Electric also has done some work on her G-36 and made some improvements to the circuit. DeParavicini also has done many rebuilds of the G-36. I think his is more of a total new circuit, rather than a mod to the original.

Jack mentioned to me about 8 years ago that high speed capstan shafts and 2 track heads were getting to be very hard to find. I suspect that today they would be near impossible to source, especially the capstan shafts.

They are very nicely made Swiss machines.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

47
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: Speaking of Dolby,..
« on: May 13, 2008, 09:58:59 PM »

I've owned both the 100 and 100A and found the 100 to be superior. Pretty sure the 100 is all discrete circuitry. I would like to hear one with new caps and improved power supply. Then again, I only own 3 Dolby B tapes....

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

48
Tape Tech / Ampex 960/1260 upgrades to transport
« on: April 04, 2008, 11:16:10 AM »
I'm looking for some help on getting the old Ampex 960 running with decent w/f specs. Anyone have ideas on how to improve this transport? Electronics and heads are great on this old classic IMO.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

49
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Tascam BR20 and BR20t
« on: March 16, 2008, 07:23:02 PM »
from what I remember, the main difference is that the BR-20T has SMPTE time code. It has been a few years since I last used one of these.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

50
Ampex 351-2 or 350 tube models.

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

51
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Tascam BR 20 versus Ampex 102
« on: January 28, 2008, 09:10:52 PM »
Stock 102s are pretty crappy sounding for playback in stock form. Best with outboard electronics. Comparing the the Tascam and Ampex transports is sort of like comparing a Camry or Avalon to a Mercedes S class. If you have the money, I'd go for the Ampex. Just my opinion after using both the Tascam 20 and ATRs. I actually love Toyotas :-)

Rich Brown
Acoustic Arts
Portland, Oregon

52
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: Decca Tapes?
« on: January 22, 2008, 12:49:22 PM »
Hi Charles
The Angel 2 tracks are not super rare, especially the lighter titles. I have had about 25 different Angel/EMI/Columbia two tracks over the last 20 years. There are a few great ones, most left me less than thrilled. The Angel releases I have now do not indicate whether they are NAB or IEC eq. I suspect they are IEC. The EMI/Columbia releases I have seen are all IEC. I have one lovely Oistrakh Encore tape that has notes by Neville Marriner- Angel ST-4001. Some of the same titles were also available as an EMI or Columbia 2 track in the UK- they are usually in a red box. Bob Witrak at HDTT has released one Klemperer EMI Mozart 2 track on high resolution digital(DVD or download). It is a pretty fine recording and transfer. I think he even has free download samples.

Rich Brown
Portland, Oregon

53
General Discussion / Re: Dolby Pro Unit 363
« on: January 17, 2008, 01:44:11 PM »
Never opened my cat 22 cards to see that they were discreet. Just suspected from the size and sound that they were IC based. It gets me wondering why the later units sound so crappy compared to the earlier 301 unit...

Rich Brown
Portland, Oregon

54
General Discussion / Re: Dolby Pro Unit 363- and A-301
« on: January 16, 2008, 06:57:47 PM »
The A-301 was Dolby Labs first Dolby A(pro) NR unit. Decca started using it in 1966 and continued with it for many years. All of the Lyrita recordings were made with Dolby A as well. It is a huge all discrete transformer coupled encode/decode device. Charlie King modified one of these about 20 years ago that was switchable between A and B. It pretty much approximated the B curve. Pretty handy and great sounding unit. The later Dolby A (360, 361 and later) were all chip based and sounded like it :-(
I've used the 330 Dolby B NR device and was not that thrilled with the sonics. I just found one for a friend in Canada and he recently reported to me that he is quite happy with it.
I'm waiting for a 301 to come in from Asia shortly. It has 96 electrolytic caps that need to be replaced, as do most of these golden oldies- quite a bit of work...

Rich Brown
Portland, Oregon

55
Tape Tech / Re: Sound Technology 1500A Questions !!!
« on: January 08, 2008, 09:51:33 PM »
Just visited Sound-Smith in Peekskill, NY over the holidays. They repair all sorts of vintage gear, including open reel and cassette decks, as well as manufacturing various types of phono cartridges, preamps and speakers. They have about 6 Sound Technology 1500s and at least 5 1700 units in operation. I think all are functional. They do quite a bit of repair and restoration of Tandberg and Nakamichi tape decks. Quite an impressive operation. I was sort of surprised to see these 'golden oldies' still being used- they must still do the job quite well.

Rich Brown
Portland, Oregon

56
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: Decca Tapes?
« on: November 20, 2007, 10:41:36 PM »
There are no Decca tapes. Ampex did the duplication from the 50s through the 70s. Stereotape might have made some Dolby tapes of London titles. Interestingly, EMI/Columbia did produce 1/2 track stereo tapes, while they were sold as Angels in the US.

57
Tape Tech / Re: tape baking is not rocket science...
« on: October 14, 2007, 07:26:22 PM »
especially for mid 80s Ampex 456 or 406. All you have to do is stick them in an oven at around 130 degrees for a few hours. I'd recommend getting the temp to 140 degrees and turning off the gas; then stick the tapes in for at least 3 hours.Do not go over 140 degrees. It is probably safer to bake them at 125-130 degrees for 6-8 hours. I used to use a lab oven and that worked well. Scotch 250 was much harder to deal with- I'd leave that to a pro. I've 'baked' and re-baked hundreds of tapes over the last 15 years. I have one old 406 tape from 1980 that I've baked at least a half dozen times and it still plays fresh and clean.

Rich Brown
Portland, Oregon

58
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Otari MTR-10? PR-99 different versions
« on: October 08, 2007, 07:48:20 PM »
The ReVox PR-99 Mark I has all discrete electronics, as opposed to the later Mark II and Mark III which was chock full of junk op-amps. I do adore the nicer tape tensioning arm on the takeup side of the Mark II and III decks as well as the lovely LED auto locator. I think you will find the Mark I to be nicer sounding than the later versions.

59
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Danish tape recorders- Lyrec Frida
« on: October 03, 2007, 05:56:13 PM »
Thanks for the reply. I've since purchased one and it is quite a fine little deck. Weighs 27 pounds and handles tape about as well as a Studer B67. Takes up to 12 inch reels and has IEC/NAB eq. Very crappy headphone amp and no mic inputs are the only downsides I could find.

Rich Brown

60
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Danish tape recorders- Lyrec Frida
« on: May 26, 2007, 05:20:12 PM »
Who knows anything about this interesting and very late recorder? The factory still supports it to some degree and a few have shown up on ebay recently. Many European national radio corporations used them for location work. I just spoke to one ex-BBC engineer who had some experience with one this afternoon. 27 pounds and it has switchable NAB/IEC eq. I've been told it is great for editing.

http://www.lyrec.dk/images/frida.gif

rich brown
acoustic arts
portland, oregon




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