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Reel to Reel Tape Machines / Re: list of recorder brands past and present
« on: February 05, 2013, 08:34:50 AM »
Movic
Saba
Saba
TP-027, Jerry Garcia / David Grisman wins a Writer's Choice Award from Myles Astor of Positive Feedback Online
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Yes I am suggesting that one can have a custom head the size of which is optimized for a given speed. There are sometimes heads that can be substituted from one brand of deck to another that can be more optimal than the stock head as well. Greg Orton is quite flexible about making custom heads to meet a particular need and John French has done quite a few head swaps to optimize the performance of various decks.
It just might not be any BIAS issue.
http://www.endino.com/graphs/
Commonly known, 15ips lacks bass tones compared to 7?ips as 30ips lacks bass compared to 15ips.
The FR moves one octave for each doubling of speed
http://homerecording.com/bbs/general-discussions/analog-only/30ips-15-ips-mastering-282941/
http://www.electricalaudio.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=907
Using a head designed for the desired tape speed ameliorates this issue. The links to which you refer discuss the use of the same head at different speeds. The length of the track on the head determines the lowest frequency response. A head design optimized for 7.5 ips will not sound as good at 15 ips. But a head design optimized for 15 ips can sound better at 15 ips than one designed for 7.5. Note also in those graphs that the head bumps are practically non existent in the better machines.
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It was another one that me suggesting anything digital in the thread I linked to.
I want to keep it stricktly analog.
"dolph"
You mean a 1/2 inch cassette analog stationary head format? Just keep in mind there is not much tape length in a VHS cassettte for high linear tape speeds.
My we interest you in an El_Cassette? Remember that format?
QuoteWhen I refer to a VHS format I'm not saying that the entire audio signal chain be that of VHS format. I'm thinking more on the lines of the tape cartridge, rotating head and transport layout. The tape speed could run at a faster than VHS speed perhaps double giving 1 hour tape time per cartridge. As it would not be concerned with a video signal all of the engineering could be devoted to audio only. Considering that Hi Fi 1/8" cassettes are fairly capable devices the device I envision should be able to exceed that quite easily.
If you keep the rotating heads you have two choices: FM analog or digital technology. The digital is superior in many ways one of which is the data can be buffered to get around the head switching problem.
Again they basically have made a format on this principal, RDAT. The Sony PCM800 is a good example. Tascam made a compatable unit as well.
Just got my second Lyrec PTR-1 from Lyrec of Canada last weekend. Fully sorted out and tasty sounding. 27 pounds and handles 12 inch reels with switchable NAB/IEC eq at 3 3/4 to 15 ips. Perhaps the last designed analog tape recorder- was introduced in 1989.
Rich
I dont think I've ever actually tried shuttling the tape on my 1506. Seems kinda scary, jogging the controls from one fast direction to the other, but sounds like its common practice........
I do it on my 440 deck, but that machine has a different feel to it at the controls. Its also possible to spool an *entire* reel onto the floor with that deck before you realize what is happening.
How does shuttling work mechanically? I guess the brakes are not active at this point, just changing which motor is holding back torque...or something?
Tj
I put around five feet of leader tape at the beginning and end of 7" reels; makes threading easy and of course is a better place to put on the brakes, unfortunately the leader sometimes passes me by and runs off of the reel, in which case only the leader takes a little tattering. The tape that broke was approx in the middle......first time it happened but then again I dont RW/FF that much, with the exception of 10" reels that I store tails out; and these are run right off of the spool, not stopped mid-tape.
Perhaps the breakage was just a fluke. I should dig out a reel of 'junk' tape in each size and abuse 'em a little, just to get a feel for how each machine is handling the braking.
On the Ampex decks, it seems as if you must shuttle tape controls to come to a controlled stop. Is it also a common practice on consumer decks, or was your comment that the machines do it automatically as part of the stop function?
Dolph...what machine are you running, and whats a 'memory flag'?
Thanks-
Tj
Really interesting thread guys.
I always dreamed of having an isolation booth to put my turntable in but until the advent of standalone phono stages that wasn't really practical. Now I could see that have a phono stage with balanced outputs could get the table far enough away so that any mechanical feedback would be eliminated.
On the subject of recordings of the lp's sounding better than the lp (aside from any influence that the feedback would have) I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps somewhere in the cutting process, there's a point where the eq that's applied (reverse RIAA) that the formula for eq is perhaps biased a tiny bit to help minimize tape hiss or maybe some other artifact that occurs during the cutting. And maybe (a lot of maybe's here) the tape hiss or something in the biasing is filling in that gap. Kind of like an analog dither. I'm sure you know that it's common for folks to run their recordings (mostly digital) through tape to smooth the sound. Most of them attribute the improvements to natural tape compression but could there be other factors involved?
Well, just another one of my half baked theories. I'm sure Paul could slap this one down with no effort.