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Messages - joeljoel1947

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1
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the post.  I will add some here too as I'm allowed to be less PC then you.  ;)

Yes, after waiting I think 3 years plus for the "promised review" (promised by TAS) of reel to reel vs. other formats, that is what we got???  IMHO it was a two page ad for the UHA deck. Record your precious vinyl to open reel to save your stylus and your LP's???  SERIOUSLY??!!?? That was something important to mention?  That was taken right off the UHA web-site!

The UHA deck was underwhelming sounding when I heard it at the AK fest a few months back.  That said, I even own a Tascam 32. Love the Tascam; even more then my Technics 1506, but not quite as much as the Otari B2's or 3's I have.   The Tascam is a nice 2-track machine @ 7.5 and 15 ips. It sounds better to me stock then what I heard in the UHA demo!  So, yes, I think more then just one deck needed to be used for the "review" especially considering JV has NO experience with r2r; at least in this decade. 

 Really sad that JV missed many things and glossed over others.  The way it reads there are only 20 tapes in the world to play, period.  And of the 20, only a few of them have not "deteriorated" or are better then the vinyl version (which BTW there are only a few vinyl versions of the TP tapes in total so comparisons are not easily done).  Why no mention of all the quality pre-recorded 7.5 ips 2 and 4 track tapes that RUN CIRCLES AROUND the original LP pressings?  No mention of KOB, Time Out, Duke meets Count, Sketches of Spain, Miles Smiles, any Beatles, 2-track MLP's, Living Stereo's, Barclay Crockers, etc etc etc.  No mention of the fact that r2r will still today yield you the best possible fidelity for recordings if you want to get adventurous and make your own "master tapes".

Nope, I think your basic card-carrying audiophile is gonna read that article and walk away saying, "who cares?" about r2r.  It's Arnold's Overtures or bust....Very sad.

JV needs to get over the dropouts.  When I compared the Waltz Debbi tape project tape to the Japanese SACD, the same exact dropouts were in the SACD in the same spots.  It is what it is.  But the TP blew away the SACD, and the vinyl, and thats what mattered to me!  Could care less about the dropouts.  Thats what JV should be listening for---the sound---not the dropouts.

Why would he say tapes with dropouts were "deteriorated"?  Did he pull that out of thin air??????  That just doesn't read well!  And on top of that, there are are millions of tapes that have NOT deteriorated.  It all depends on how things are stored and cared for.  To read what he wrote again makes the average audiophool to believe that ALL "old tapes" are going to be destroyed with time. 

Anyhow, I was disappointed with the whole thing. It didn't keep ME happy. ;)

 Yes, at least SOME visibility was given to r2r which is a good thing.  But they coulda hit that one out of the park had more care and attention to detail been given to the piece.....

2
I read the article and was wondering about one of the comments JV made.  He states, "Although some of The Tape Project Tapes are distinctly better then their LP counerparts, a few of them aren't (not because of any weakness in the UHA tape player but because of the deterioration of a few of the mastertapes from which the tape project dubs were made)."

I don't recall ever reading about confirmed "deteriorated tapes" that the TP decided to make dubs of in this forum.  Perhaps besides the Linda R. tape, but that was for a different reason.  Does JV know something we don't; or is he just guessing as to a reason why a few of his lp's sound better then the tp tape counterpart?  If he does know something we don't, which of the master tapes that were "deteriorated" did the TP go ahead and dub?  Maybe I missed something...

3
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Teac Tascam 32-2B
« on: July 17, 2010, 05:07:46 AM »
Thanks Steve.  Yeah, the 32 is a solid no-nonsense deck. I got it for a song locally, and couldn't pass it up. 

 Nice machine, very straight-forward and sounds good too.  Stock vs. stock, I like it a lot more then my Teac X1000R from the same "family".  Just seems built better.

I'm sure you are right on the NAB/IEC thing.  I bet a lot of the Tascam/Teac/etc. have the capability to "switch" its just a matter of knowing WHERE and how that is accomplished that is probably left out of manuals, schematics, etc.  Only the dude who built the board would possibly remember how!

4
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Tascam 32
« on: July 16, 2010, 03:55:35 PM »

I recently bought a Tascam 32 and as far as I can tell, I'm the first guy on the internet to discover it is both NAB and IEC compatible!  From everything I've read online it seems that Tascam set the 32 up in the USA for the NAB standard and in Europe/Japan for the IEC standard.  What I have not been able to find until last night anyhow is that the end user can "make the switch" themselves.

According to the user and to the service manual for my 32, you CAN convert the deck from NAB to IEC by switching some jumpers on the internal amp.

From page 39 in the manual of the 32:
Note:  If necessary, inter-switching between the NAB and IEC standards can be accomplished by simply removing and repatching the jumper wires on 5 points of the amplifier.  The details are explained as a note on the schematic of the amplifier section.

From schematic of amp section:
For NAB Standard: With the A, B, and C jumper connections being disregarded, jumper D is connected to the terminal side of C129 and jumper E to the terminal side of C128.

For IEC Standard:  With the A, B, and C jumpers in place, jumper D is connected to terminal side of C127 and jumper E to terminal side of C130.


Now, I have not tried this conversion myself, but it seems straight-forward.  This then makes the Tascam 32 a "tape project ready" machine as it is a half-track, 7.5/15ips/IEC compatible machine that can handle 10.5" reels out of "the box".  I hope this may help someone down the road because it took a bit of digging to find out!

5
Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: Teac Tascam 32-2B
« on: July 16, 2010, 03:48:09 PM »
I recently bought a Tascam 32 and stumbled upon what I believe to be misinformation in this thread.  Accoding to the service manual for my 32, you CAN convert the deck from NAB to IEC by switching some jumpers on the internal amp.

From page 39 in the manual of the 32:
Note:  If necessary, inter-switching between the NAB and IEC standards can be accomplished by simply removing and repatching the jumper wires on 5 points of the amplifier.  The details are explained as a note on the schematic of the amplifier section.

From schematic of amp section:
For NAB Standard: With the A, B, and C jumper connections being disregarded, jumper D is connected to the terminal side of C129 and jumper E to the terminal side of C128.

For IEC Standard:  With the A, B, and C jumpers in place, jumper D is connected to terminal side of C127 and jumper E to terminal side of C130.


Now, I have not tried this myself, but it seems straight-forward.  This then makes the Tascam 32 a "tape project ready" machine as it is a half-track, 7.5/15ips/IEC compatible machine out of "the box".  I hope this may help someone down the road because it took a bit of digging to find out!

6
General Discussion / Re: Improving Room Acoustics
« on: May 25, 2010, 07:33:17 PM »
Or, as another option you could spend $89 and get full 24-bit DSP room correction on the bass bins and make it perfectly flat +/- 1dB from 150Hz to well below 20Hz if you have the right subwoofers employed.  That is if you can accept such a thing being in your system....

IMHO, its the only way to fly.

7
Creek Bank / Re: Creek Bank channel orientation question
« on: April 23, 2010, 05:27:55 AM »
Quote
There seems to be a parallel universe going on for this release please refer to TP Tapes General topic thread.
Can these threads be combined under the specific release topic?


I created the parallel universe because nobody at the TP was acknowledging the issue in this thread.  So I thought I would try the general section too.  Finally, after a months wait almost to the day, we have a response that they are looking into it.

Quote
wait for an answer which ultimately must come from the owners of the master tape, not the owners of the TP.

How are you so sure? 

8
Quote
Joel,
Maybe they are checking into it or trying to figure out what's up!!! Give them some more time and see where it goes, I am pretty sure there's an explanation!!!

Jay
 

 

Maybe they just don't care Jay!!  Typical...

9
Creek Bank / Re: Creek Bank channel orientation question
« on: April 03, 2010, 01:18:23 PM »
Quote
It could be that the stereo record and CD were both taken from the same master or dub, so the channels would be the same on both, even though they were almost 20 years apart.  Larry

Hi Larry,
Unless the TP used a different master (and saying that there should only be 1 of them in pure theory, right?) then all 3 should line up with each other. The cd lines up with the LP, but the TP release is opposite both.  Since Doc said they used the original stereo tape for the TP dupe, its just not making sense on how their release is different then the other two.  Furthermore, I guess I'm perplexed that someone at the TP would not have compared their "master" of Creek Bank or even the duplicates of that master that we end up with back to the stereo LP version at some point.  Wouldn't they want to know if its sound quality was any better or worse then the stereo LP?  I guess I'm put together differently as my sheer curiosity of how each format stacks up to one another using the same release makes this the 1st thing I do if I do not have the other formats already--get the lp of the TP release, the cd of the TP release, and the sacd/hrx if available and start comparing away.  I guess I'm one of the few doing this which is interesting in itself.  For example, my post in the Naylor forum asking whether or not anyone has compared TP-001 to the cd version has been sitting there for almost 2 years now, with not a single reply!

10
Maybe my last post got missed in its own specific category? Or are you guys still trying to figure it out?
http://www.tapeproject.com/smf/index.php/topic,1444.0.html



11
Creek Bank / Yet another Creek Bank channel orientation question
« on: March 24, 2010, 12:31:47 PM »
Houston, we have a problem.

Today I received my Mose Alison "Creek Bank" LP, Prestige P-24055.  It lines up with the channel orientation of my Mose Alison cd, Prestige PRCD-24055-2.  Both the LP and CD are the stereo versions, and both place the piano in the hard left channel.  The tape project release is the exact opposite, and places the piano in the hard right channel (as also outlined by astrotoy in the Creek Bank thread).  Following where the piano is in this release makes it very easy to discern the channel orientation, although of course all the other subtleties in the mix are reversed as well.

The cd was remastered in 1993 at Fantasy Studios by Rudy Van Gelder.  The LP was remastered in 1975 at Fantasy Studios by David Turner.  So either both of those guys got it wrong both times with their own "Fantasy" material (or both some 20 years apart decided to reverse the channels on their own), or the Tape Project dub was done with the channels reversed somewhere in the chain.

Can you please look into and address this issue?  I'm hoping the response won't be, "reverse the outputs from your tape deck when you play Creek Bank". ;)  That might be ok for a $3 cd but for a $500 tape I would expect a better solution and/or explaination.

12
Creek Bank / Re: Creek Bank channel orientation question
« on: March 19, 2010, 08:27:12 AM »
Quote
It was apparently only issued in mono, so I guess stereo either way is wrong if one wishes to split hairs.

I'm curious then---- if the stereo version is not the original (and splitting hairs "wrong") then why did you guys use it for the TP release?  Was the true original mono version not available to dupe?  I ordered the reissued Prestige Creek Bank on LP yesterday (P-24055) out of curiosity to see which way it orients the channels.

13
Creek Bank / Creek Bank channel orientation question
« on: March 18, 2010, 05:23:20 AM »
Well something is amiss here.  The left and right channels on this tape are the exact opposite of the cd release (Prestige PRCD-24055-2).  The piano is in the right channel on the tape, as Larry describes above in another thread.  Problem is, on the cd release its in the LEFT channel!  I triple checked everything on my end to be sure before posting this.

I guess I'm the only one who has compared the tape to another format on this one?  Something was done wrong here---either on the tape or the cd.  They are "vice-versa"!  Anyone have the LP on hand to settle the matters as a tie breaker?  ;)

14
Creek Bank / Second listen
« on: March 13, 2010, 09:01:14 PM »
Well something is amiss here.  The left and right channels on this tape are the exact opposite of the cd release (Prestige PRCD-24055-2).  The piano is in the right channel on the tape, as Larry describes above in this thread.  Problem is, on the cd release its in the LEFT channel!  I triple checked everything on my end to be sure before posting this.

I guess I'm the only one who has compared the tape to another format on this one?  Something was done wrong here---either on the tape or the cd.  They are "vice-versa"!  Anyone have the LP on hand to settle the matters as a tie breaker?  ;)

15
Prerecorded Tapes / Re: Quinton Tape Review
« on: February 10, 2010, 02:42:54 PM »
Thanks for the clearing that up guys.

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