J-Corder decks vs. A810

[kitjunkie]

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I am interested in a really good quality, good sounding deck - primarily for 2 track recording. I am quite intrigued by the J-corder machines - I especially love the natural. I'm not really sure how much electronic modification he does vs. cosmetic restoration. How good do they sound? Are they as good as better than a Studer A810? I've been interested in the 810 for a while, but am a little afraid of it from a maintenance perspective. There seems to be a lot that can go wrong with those machines and they appear to be expensive to repair.

General thoughts?

Thanks

[mep]

No matter how much you "gussy up" a Technics deck, at the end of the day it is still a Technics deck.  It is a prosumer deck at best.  I don't think it would be in the same league as the Studer.

[ironbut]

The last time I talked to Jacobs, he was working out some recording modifications for the Technics. I believe that this was being developed as a location recorder with battery powered operation and a new record board. Of course, all the RS15xx series machines came stock with a battery option but finding the adapters is a different story.

One thing that might be of interest to Mark also, is the new recording section is based on a Crown circuit and Jeff had said that it had a significant increase in headroom/dynamics. The board was being developed out of house and I have no idea if it came to fruition, let alone how it ended up sounding. It would be best to email him regarding this. IIRC, it was going to be pretty $$$.

My advice would be, not to limit your search to these 2 machines. If recording is going to be your major concern, you would do well to look into other machines such as Otari's and Ampexes. Also, a Studer A80 rather than the 810 (which was designed for broadcast) might make more sense. If you need something portable, that's a whole different story.

[Ki Choi]

Sent you a PM...

[Tim]

I recommend the UHA-HQ deck.  It's based on the Tascam BR-20 tape deck.  It recently won a "best source component" at the RMAF. Based on my experience (37 years professionally repairing RTRs), both the transport and electronics are quite impressive.  The recording section is fully functional and upgraded (some after-market RTRs are intended for playback only).

p.s.-  I have personally bench-tested the UHA-HQ deck and all of the decks so far referenced in this thread.

[docb]

I'm going to step in here because this thread is leaning toward something I try to avoid on this forum. Some folks are offering opinions that do not appear to be based on direct, first hand comparisons with the machines in question. General comments about why one machine might be better for a given purpose are welcome, but things like "Brand X is the best in all circumstances" or "Brand Y will never be good" aren't very useful. I think the OP might want to describe in a little more detail exactly what kind of recording will be done before we can offer up advice that best suits his needs. For example, archiving your vinyl collection might be better served with one type of machine, location recording of a string quarter might be better served with another.

[docb]

Hi Tim,

Do you perhaps know who is manufacturing these decks for United Home Audio? It's not clear on their web site who is doing this work.

[kitjunkie]

I'm going to step in here because this thread is leaning toward something I try to avoid on this forum. Some folks are offering opinions that do not appear to be based on direct, first hand comparisons with the machines in question. General comments about why one machine might be better for a given purpose are welcome, but things like "Brand X is the best in all circumstances" or "Brand Y will never be good" aren't very useful. I think the OP might want to describe in a little more detail exactly what kind of recording will be done before we can offer up advice that best suits his needs. For example, archiving your vinyl collection might be better served with one type of machine, location recording of a string quarter might be better served with another.

Dan,

To clarify, archiving vinyl and creating mix tapes of said medium is what it will be used for.

Thanks,

Steve

[docb]

archiving vinyl and creating mix tapes of said medium is what it will be used for.

Hi Steve,

If you are only going to be using the tape deck for those purposes then the selection criteria might revolve around what speed you want to record at, and whether the heads on the deck are optimized for that speed. Maybe the most important thing to bear in mind is that recording an entire LP to two tracks will usually take two 10" reels of tape at 15ips. That can get expensive, buying an extra copy of an album is probably a more sensible solution to preserving an album than blowing $100 on new, reliable tape to copy it unless it is a rare pressing (of course you can buy surplus or old stock tape, but that is a crap shoot). If you decide to go with 7.5 ips or 3.75 ips you can get proportionately more on a reel, but of course the sonic compromises from slower speeds might be a disadvantage.  As you expressed a desire to record two track rather than quarter track to maintain fidelity I will guess that you might feel the same about losing any fidelity to slower tape speeds. 

7.5 ips two track might be a reasonable compromise for rare pressings. Several years ago I asked Paul to make some masters for demo on 7.5 ips two track. I planned to use them with a machine that was limited to 7.5 ips max. Are they as good as 15 ips masters? Heck no, but they still sound quite nice. Are they better than 7.5 ips 1/4 track tapes? Oh yes. If you do decide to go with 7.5 ips you might think about heads that are more or less optimized for that speed. Some of the custom heads are intended for 15 ips and may not offer as much advantage at 7.5 as they do at 15 ips, and a lot of stock heads are already optimized for 7.5 ips.

[kitjunkie]

Thanks Dan. I'd definitely be recording at 7.5 ips. While 15 is obviously more desirable, it's cost prohibitive as you've pointed out. Based on this, is the A810 a good deck? Should maintenance be a concern? Another deck that I hear great things about is the PR99. Any thoughts there?

Thanks,

Steve

archiving vinyl and creating mix tapes of said medium is what it will be used for.

Hi Steve,

If you are only going to be using the tape deck for those purposes then the selection criteria might revolve around what speed you want to record at, and whether the heads on the deck are optimized for that speed. Maybe the most important thing to bear in mind is that recording an entire LP to two tracks will usually take two 10" reels of tape at 15ips. That can get expensive, buying an extra copy of an album is probably a more sensible solution to preserving an album than blowing $100 on new, reliable tape to copy it unless it is a rare pressing (of course you can buy surplus or old stock tape, but that is a crap shoot). If you decide to go with 7.5 ips or 3.75 ips you can get proportionately more on a reel, but of course the sonic compromises from slower speeds might be a disadvantage.  As you expressed a desire to record two track rather than quarter track to maintain fidelity I will guess that you might feel the same about losing any fidelity to slower tape speeds. 

7.5 ips two track might be a reasonable compromise for rare pressings. Several years ago I asked Paul to make some masters for demo on 7.5 ips two track. I planned to use them with a machine that was limited to 7.5 ips max. Are they as good as 15 ips masters? Heck no, but they still sound quite nice. Are they better than 7.5 ips 1/4 track tapes? Oh yes. If you do decide to go with 7.5 ips you might think about heads that are more or less optimized for that speed. Some of the custom heads are intended for 15 ips and may not offer as much advantage at 7.5 as they do at 15 ips, and a lot of stock heads are already optimized for 7.5 ips.

[jcmusic]

Thanks Dan. I'd definitely be recording at 7.5 ips. While 15 is obviously more desirable, it's cost prohibitive as you've pointed out. Based on this, is the A810 a good deck? Should maintenance be a concern? Another deck that I hear great things about is the PR99. Any thoughts there?

Thanks,

Steve

archiving vinyl and creating mix tapes of said medium is what it will be used for.

Hi Steve,

If you are only going to be using the tape deck for those purposes then the selection criteria might revolve around what speed you want to record at, and whether the heads on the deck are optimized for that speed. Maybe the most important thing to bear in mind is that recording an entire LP to two tracks will usually take two 10" reels of tape at 15ips. That can get expensive, buying an extra copy of an album is probably a more sensible solution to preserving an album than blowing $100 on new, reliable tape to copy it unless it is a rare pressing (of course you can buy surplus or old stock tape, but that is a crap shoot). If you decide to go with 7.5 ips or 3.75 ips you can get proportionately more on a reel, but of course the sonic compromises from slower speeds might be a disadvantage.  As you expressed a desire to record two track rather than quarter track to maintain fidelity I will guess that you might feel the same about losing any fidelity to slower tape speeds. 

7.5 ips two track might be a reasonable compromise for rare pressings. Several years ago I asked Paul to make some masters for demo on 7.5 ips two track. I planned to use them with a machine that was limited to 7.5 ips max. Are they as good as 15 ips masters? Heck no, but they still sound quite nice. Are they better than 7.5 ips 1/4 track tapes? Oh yes. If you do decide to go with 7.5 ips you might think about heads that are more or less optimized for that speed. Some of the custom heads are intended for 15 ips and may not offer as much advantage at 7.5 as they do at 15 ips, and a lot of stock heads are already optimized for 7.5 ips.

Hi Steve,
I have an A810 and I believe it is better than the PR99 by a long way!!! Just my opnion!!!

Jay

[Tim]

Hi Tim,

Do you perhaps know who is manufacturing these decks for United Home Audio? It's not clear on their web site who is doing this work.

I have been to the United Home Audio showroom and spoken to the owner about the deck.  On their website they do refer to the UHA-HQ as a  "remanufactured deck".  In this case, however, it means refurbishing and upgrading an existing Tascam deck. They employ a  technician to do the work.

BTW, the Tascam BR20 (and the UHA-HQ) is possibly the only RTR today that has all of the transport parts still available (new) from the original manufacture.  This is quite significant when attempting to keep a deck in perfect mechanical working order.

[Tubes n tapes]

I have first hand experience with the Studer A810, the Revox PR99 and the Technics RS1520.
Unmodified the Studer A810 beats the other two in all areas hands down. However to get a good A810 expect to pay a pretty penny for a professionally maintained unit. There are a lot of A810s out there for still significant prices that are in very sad state. Those machines were real workhorses and many of them are totally worn out.

The PR99 is interesting because it is in the basis a real Studer, but by concept totally stripped down to a bare minimum. Unfortunately they didn't do a particularly good job on the I/O electronics. The REC/Playback core of the machine and the heads are well designed. I have modified several of these decks to use only the core circuitry. I have also further improved those circuits to bring them up to modern audio standards. (you can read about that in other threads on this forum)  That makes it a good playback machine and an excellent recording machine, certainly outperforming the stock Studer A810.

The Technics RS1520 has a very good tape path, but the stock electronics are really disappointing. Also the recording head is quite disappointing. As a playback only machine with modified or external electronics you can get a good performance from it. For recording it is not the best choice because of the limitation of the recording head. It may have been OK for 1970s consumer tapes, but with an Agfa 468, you can loose as much as 6dB headroom compared to a Studer/Revox recording head.

By far the best performance I get is from the Studer A810 with custom external playback electronics. That really brings out the excellent characteristics of the A810 transport.

[docb]

The PR99 is interesting because it is in the basis a real Studer,

Hi Arian,

That's an interesting observation. When Paul bought his PR99 I was struck by how much the transport looked like a Revox transport. Is it in fact more like a Studer transport and presumably a step up from a Revox transport? They certainly are nice looking machines.

[Tim]

The Revox PR99, B77 and A77 transports are virtually identical. Tape tension is unregulated.  Studer transports (including the A700) are quite different in design (from the Revox models) and all utilize servo-controlled tape-tension.  Servo-controlled tape-tension (when working properly) makes a significant improvement in sound quality and head-wear characteristics.

The majority of Studers, however, I've seen in my shop are exceedingly old and quite worn-out and typically do not meet their wow/flutter specs.  Often many times what the unit had new out of the box.  Most customers, BTW, were unaware of this fact.  Only a few of those units are repairable due to the complete absence of OEM replacement parts.  That being said, EMI chose the Studer A-80 to play back the Beatles master tapes for the recent remastering project.  One can safely assume, thought, that it had installed in it all-new, custom-manufactured: tape guides, motor & guide bearings, heads, and audio electronics.