Tape Project Forum
Tape Machines => Reel to Reel Tape Machines => Topic started by: classicrecordings on December 16, 2008, 06:59:49 AM
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I have been offered a 2 track 1/4" Ampex 440 on its dolly for free. I do not know what version it it.
Could those who know, tell me if it is worth spending the money getting this machine mechanically perfect. It has one broken tape tesion guide, but other than that it plays and sounds very good. I would not use the electronics in the long term, I dream of having a Repro head amp one day.
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
David
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Yes, it's quite a decent transport. It's not up to the level of sophistication of an ATR, but it is a nice rugged and reliable studio transport that sounds good. We did our first demos in 2003 with it's ancestor, the 350. For the price I'd say it's very worthy of consideration.
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That brings up a point. Has anyone gone to the trouble of setting up any of the earlier Ampex series machines for proper TP playback eq in their existing electronics, solid state 440 or tube 351 or 354 and comparing them with the various Studer or Revox machines, the later Ampex ATR 100 which is being used for duplication and the modified Technics, the Otari etc.?
To ask a more simple question, what is being used out there to play the TP tapes other than Technics, Studer and Otari (and that Nagra T)?
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I have a half track high speed Revox B77 I found on fleaBay. While this deck was NAB EQ, I also found a spare set of 3 3/4 - 7 1/2 NAB record and playback amp cards there, which were easy to convert to 7 1/2 - 15 CIRR. The slower speed NAB and high speed CIRR amps use the same PCBs, so it just required swapping a few caps and resistors. But the high speed NAB amps use different PCBs, so I couldn't just convert those.
So this deck is now fully capable of handling Tape Project tapes, and I played the one I have on it after a cleaning. It's on my workbench right now - I've now replaced the wear parts and did a full recap. Playback works fine, but I'm trying to track down why the left channel won't record before I button it up and put in back in my system.
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Yes, it's quite a decent transport. It's not up to the level of sophistication of an ATR, but it is a nice rugged and reliable studio transport that sounds good. We did our first demos in 2003 with it's ancestor, the 350. For the price I'd say it's very worthy of consideration.
Thanks for the recommendation. Physically, it looks OK, but I may need some new parts. Do you know of anyone that I can contact for parts?
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"Thanks for the recommendation. Physically, it looks OK, but I may need some new parts. Do you know of anyone that I can contact for parts?"
You might try this as a resource...
http://recordist.com/ampex/mail-sub.html
I subscribe to it but have never posted.
I know that there are many people on the list who have Ampex parts, including some who are known to the TP ringleaders and helped them when they were starting the Tape Project.
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There are plenty of sources for parts and service for 440's. A guy I know has a 440C and loves it. They were the standard workhorse in studios, radio stations and film for many years. Steve was right about recordist.com. I'm also a subscriber to that list but be sure to check out the their web site too. There's lots of sources for parts and service there. It's not one of the "in" machines only because the price of the very top machines have become so low. As far as the playback electronics go, I'm not sure how they sound but there are a couple of alternatives that were offered by after market providers that you'll find on eBay from time to time. I doubt that it'll ever sound quite as good as an ATR or one of the better Studers but they are very nice.
I think it would make a great restoration project if you have the time. Here's some photos of one along with some other great restoration work.
http://www.videopark.com/oldbroadcast.htm
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Regarding those upgrades to the repro electronics, here's a link to a company that used to build some.
http://www.rtzaudio.com/
If you go to the archives page, you can download what you'd need to make your own. I emailed them to see if there were any parts (board or hardware) still sitting on their shelve but unfortunately no. I guess they no longer have time for offering any help on build some of these either. Rick Chin was the designer( I believe) and he's pretty active on the Ampex list so if you run into trouble, you may be able to help there or off list.
I'd be willing to bet that Paul is familiar with the RTZ upgrades so hopefully he or others can give their impressions on how worthwhile this upgrade is.
I seem to recall another company (Iovonics or something like that) that sold a rack mount upgrade too.
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I've been offered a free trial run on a restored Ampex 350 and a restored Ampex 440. The intriguing part is that the 350 is quite famous for its tube electronics. RIght now I have four R2R machines and if I got one of these, at least one of the machines and maybe two would have to go. I've been told that the 350 and maybe the 440 take two people to move them. Anyone want to comment on the tube sound of the 350 and the overall performance of the 350 and 440, assuming the heads are in good shape. Larry
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Bump.....wanted to see if you took advantage of the offer for a free trial run. I cant comment on the 350 Ampex's; never used one, but I own two 440B decks, one 1/4" mono and the other 1/4" two-track, and find them to be fairly good transports. They dont have the finesse or features of many 'prosumer' decks, but they handle tape reasonably well as long as you are easy on the controls. Perhaps the 440 playback electronics (transistor) are not as sexy as those on the earlier (tube) machines, but you have to consider the immense amount of studio work that was done on these decks.
Tj