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Tape Project Machines / Re: Studer A810 head rewire
« on: November 07, 2010, 08:53:15 AM »
A couple more of the Studer and Otari.
Jay
Jay
Can you believe it? Tape Project is ten years old! Thanks to everyone who has supported us in introducing studio quality tape reproduction to the audiophile community!
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Here are the pics I promised of the finished playback head output modification we performed on a Studer A810. The small black pushbutton in the hole in the headblock cover allows switching the playback head from its normal connection to the internal playback electronics to a pair of XLR outputs that have been added to a blank plate on the top rear next to the existing XLR jacks. The only caveat with this setup is that you don't want to throw the switch with the machine turned on, as connecting it to the "hot" internal preamp will magnetize the head. So the procedure for switching is: power down the Studer and the external preamp, wait 60 seconds and then push the button.Here are some pic's of my Studer's headblock mod.
It's quiet, there is plenty of output for a Tube Repro, frequency response is quite flat, all in all it's a nice combo.
The level switch on the back of the Otari is very misleading. While one would think that it would allow the user to adjust the bias for different kinds of tape, in fact all it does is to change the playback levels to compensate for the amount of headroom which various types of tapes have. I believe the positions are for Ampex Operating Level (low), 250 nw/meter (comparable to Ampex/Quantegy 456 tape) (medium) and (320 nw/meter) (high). The recording bias on the Otari needs to be adjusted manually.
We all have heard of squealing tapes, particularly of the backcoated variety, however, I just pulled another reel of because of squealing, Dolby copy on London, Ampex manufactured, this is the second of this type of tape, a black colored tape, that seems to squeal for no reason, did it on side 2 about half way in, both tapes the same way (half way in side 2), there is no residue on the heads/path, what is causing this? I had a similar problem with RCA Living Stereo tapes years ago, got rid of them, ones I have purchased recently have not had that problem, although the dreaded "edge ripple" comes up quite frequently... any ideas?
do these only work with lock don spindles on machines like the 1500 and the Pioneer 909/707 machines? in other words, not on Otari machines or Ampex, etc...
For the kind of money I could buy a whole lot of BN 45's and have some change!!!Wow Myles,
That's some serious money!
One pretty interesting thing is checking the sellers feedback. Almost all the "winners" of these jazz classic originals are return customers. They must all be satisfied with their purchases so at least the records must really be mint as the seller states. I guess if I was in the position to pay that kind of money, I'd be glad that there was a seller on eBay that deals in actual mint condition records like this.
Heck, and some of the 1500 series Blue Notes sold for less than $1k!
If you look past the first page of feedback, there was a Sax Colossus that went for $2850.
Man, I gotta start hunting down a few of those original BNs!!! Wouldn't take too many of them at the price and could order a pair of Wilson Maxxs :) Or Magicos!
Hey Myles,That's a pretty good question, I'd like to know when also so I can get my funding ready.
Jay
Jay, you should start getting your funding together. You're gonna like Series Three.
TEASE :)
Hey Paul,That's a pretty good question, I'd like to know when also so I can get my funding ready.
Jay
Jay, you should start getting your funding together. You're gonna like Series Three.
That's a pretty good question, I'd like to know when also so I can get my funding ready.
Jay