Number White Revisited

[mikel]

i had originally listened to 'The Number White' last year when i first recieved it on the Ampex ATR-102 and my stock RS-1506. then last fall i briefly listened to it on the Studer A820. i liked it but had not yet 'got' it.

this morning i listened to it on my deParavicini modified RS-1700.

maybe it was my mood, or whatever, but this morning i really enjoyed this music. the recording is wonderful; it is honest and straightforward with lots of energy, very relaxed and easy to be enveloped by. i loved the sound of the Art Khu's piano...that is how a piano really sounds. Jacqui does sound different on almost every cut. i like her voice and the different gears she shifts to. She has great 'presense and power' in her sultry voice and these cuts compliment her. the mixes are different and fun. it's easy with the level of detail on this recording to switch from focusing on one musical line to another without effort. neat, and just good music!

i will be listening to The Number White frequently and showing it off to visitors. 'belated' great job guys!

i'm thinking that maybe the dPv Technics has a level of smoothness those other RTR decks don't yet have (they need some more refined output electronics) and on this particular recording that issue made all the difference.

[Ben]

Comments with the basic stock R2R
Why have I missed out for the last 40+ years real music, untill now?
This type of music, you take the phone off the hook, lock the door ,
turn down the lights and have 20 minutes of pure bliss.

[xcortes]

Isn't the 1700 a 1/4 only deck?

[mikel]

Isn't the 1700 a 1/4 only deck?

the RS-1700 comes with the auto-reversing heads. Tim dPv upgraded the autoreversing heads and provided upgraded 2-track read/record--4 channel read only heads from an RS-1500, which are installed. so the RS-1700 functions as an RS-1500 but can also be used to autoreverse at the full performance. i have only listened to 15ips 2 track Tape Project tapes on it so far.

update on my above post.

this past week a local audiophile contacted me; he had read that i had some of 'The Tape Project' tapes and wanted to listen to them. he came over yesterday. as i mentioned above i have had the dPv RS-1700 turned on for a couple of months and it was sounding very nice. when i knew i would have a visitor this weekend i decided to turn on the Studer and let it warm up for a couple of days (up to this point the longest it had been turned on was for 5 or 6 hours).

well; it turns out that much (maybe nearly all) of the Studer's slight harshness/dryness/leanness is gone with the 48 hour warm-up and i'm not turning that sucker off for awhile. it also has more depth and body and the already amazing dynamics have moved up a notch or two. my previous perspective that the Studer needs different output electronics has diminished considerably. why did i not figure this out sooner? oh well.

i played the CD of Exotic Dances for my visitor as i set up the Tape TP-007 on the Studer; the tape sounded great and i was wondering why it sounded so much better than i had heard it before; more warmth, body, deeper soundstage....more musical and just easier to listen to. we then put it on the dPv RS-1700 and it was very nice but the level of information and the separation and layering was diminished. the jump factor was lessened. the dPv was a bit rounder and sweeter but the refinement of the Studer was on another level. by this time it was clear that the Studer was now a different animal than it had been.

then we played the Lp of the Oistrakh Bruch while i set up TP-006 on the Studer; my visitor was quite enthralled with Oistrakh's violin on the Studer (it humbled the Lp) and there were similar differences on the dPv Technics.

it was no longer necessary to do comparisons; so i threw TP-008 'Waltz for Debbie' on the Studer.......Holy Guacamole! it was everything i wanted it to be and we both just enjoyed it.

later after my visitor had gone i set up The Number White on the Studer. it took all the good things i had heard yesterday morning on the dPv and notched them up a couple of levels.

postscrpt; i think my visitor is intending to get into RTR; i'm not sure at what level and how soon. i have a stock RS-1500 he is considering purchasing.

[ironbut]

That's really an excellent post Mike! I'd always hoped that the 820 would be an end all machine but never really heard anything that would confirm that until now.
 I'm a big believer in importance of the transport. Initially, I think that most of us think that moving that tape across the heads should be such a simple thing but the deeper you get into it, the more complex it becomes. That said, I think that the very top of the heap machines all have that in common. Great tape handling.
On the other hand, the state of the art in amplifier electronics has really moved ahead since most of these machines were in current manufacture. When it came to Studer, I had hoped that the things that they'd learned from designing their mixing consoles, which have always been held in high regard, would carry over to the 820. It sounds like it did!
Thanks for the report Mike. It's nice to know that such a killer transport is also a fantastic sounding one too.