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Reel to Reel Tape Machines / otari mx-5050 questions
« on: March 31, 2012, 02:41:05 PM »
The tape project bug bit me courtesy of DocB a few weeks ago and I picked up an Otari MX5050 BII for $160. Once I spent a few hours cleaning the gunk off of the heads everything appears to be working but I had a few questions.
1. headphones plugged into the headphone jack sound very loud and distorted, there doesnt seem to be a volume control, any thoughts on this? I picked up a cheap beheringer mixer and have the low impedence output going into the mic preamps of the mixer for now and im using the phones output on the mixer.
2. I recorded the 1 khz and 10 khz test tones on tape (30 year old tape) playing back they are pretty close on frequency using an iphone audio analysis program. The left channel seems to be significantly louder (20 db or so) when im playing back the tones. A recording on the old tape that came with the machine has the same volume on left and right channels so I think it probbly the record settings ajustment or heads? could demagnitizzing the heads help? havent done that yet but did order a new tape yesterday. Just downloaded the alignment proceedures for the unit but I dont have a lot of the analysis equpment needed to set up the alignment atgmvnmnd dont want to fix something that isnt broken. I assume that is simply the record level ajustment screw?
3. rewinding one of the old tapes is extreemely slow, is this a spring ajustment on the felt brakes?
Thanks for any suggestions!
1. headphones plugged into the headphone jack sound very loud and distorted, there doesnt seem to be a volume control, any thoughts on this? I picked up a cheap beheringer mixer and have the low impedence output going into the mic preamps of the mixer for now and im using the phones output on the mixer.
2. I recorded the 1 khz and 10 khz test tones on tape (30 year old tape) playing back they are pretty close on frequency using an iphone audio analysis program. The left channel seems to be significantly louder (20 db or so) when im playing back the tones. A recording on the old tape that came with the machine has the same volume on left and right channels so I think it probbly the record settings ajustment or heads? could demagnitizzing the heads help? havent done that yet but did order a new tape yesterday. Just downloaded the alignment proceedures for the unit but I dont have a lot of the analysis equpment needed to set up the alignment atgmvnmnd dont want to fix something that isnt broken. I assume that is simply the record level ajustment screw?
3. rewinding one of the old tapes is extreemely slow, is this a spring ajustment on the felt brakes?
Thanks for any suggestions!