Tascam BR-20

[xcortes]

For sale in our Region 4 ebay. Supposedly in very good shape but as Doc says the most recurrent lie on ebay is that all rts decks are mint. Anyway it's cheap, around $300, and local. Should I take a look at it?

It's 1/4" two track, 15ips and 7.5 ips, IEC and NAB eq so it's TP compatible.

Yes, I know, I should save the money to send my RS1500 to Doc but anyway.

http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.mx/MLM-21422904-grabadora-de-carrete-abierto-marca-tascam-_JM

[ironbut]

Looks pretty nice Xaver. It seems like most of the folks that have one really like 'em. I've seen them for less, but they were ex radio station machines and that's aways a crap shoot. Is it local enough that you could pick it up. If so, I'd say, go for it. The savings on proper packing and shipping from the US could easily add up to $100.

[ceved]

If it doesn't work out it still makes a terrific boat anchor, or paperweight.
Consider use as a stereo lazy susan and see what speed it takes to hurl the condiments to your fellow diners.
More fun that a cow chip toss anytime!
I have a mint BR 20 and I could stare at it for hours; just ask my wife!
CV

[Studer Fool]

My vote is go for it.  At least if it's not too far away, at least go check it out!  The picture looks good but check the capstan, if that's shiny where the tape hits it, talk it down or walk. 

Honestly, I hate having a beautiful deck shipped.  If it's something you can drive away with in your car, then that's a really HUGE plus to me.  Perfectly fine tape machines routinely get ruined in shipping.

cdw

[xcortes]

I won it with the "buy it now" option. After saying all weekend I was not going to buy it I arrived at the office and "click". I need a shrink.

I will go either today or tomorrow. What should I look at? How can I visually inspect the heads? Any advise will be appreciated.

[xcortes]

I picked it up. Took me less than an hour to go and return. It looks VERY nice. Cost was approximately what cost me to bring my RS1500 down here.

More later!

[ironbut]

Nicely done Xavier. I've come close to picking one up a few times. I know if I saw it I couldn't resist. I promised myself, "no more gear till July?". Unless I build it of course.
Well, Steve Hoffman seems to like the BR-20,..
http://www.symposiumusa.com/MonRoom3.html

[xcortes]

I took the deck home. Looks very nice and in great shape. Some scratches on the top and sides but the front is very good. No signals of reels against the painting. No signals of tape wearing the it. Nice heads.

I opened it. It will be very easy to modify it to take the signal directly from the heads. Much easier than the Technics which wasn't hard at all following Charles instructions. In the Tascam the cables are very easy to trace and there's lots of space to work.

I cleaned the tape path and not much, almost none, dirt or oxide came out. Demagnetized it and connected it:

Boomer: it has been modified to run at 7 1/2 and 3 3/4 instead of the original 15 ips! Theres's a switch on the back but it still set to the high speed settings. Weird! There's a provision for this on the user's manual: "Tape speed is is switchable between 7.5 inch/s and 15 inch/s. On position is for 3-3/4 and 7-1/2 inch/s tape speeds. This entails installation of some internal parts. Consult TASCAM or your nearest TASCAM dealer"

I guess I'll have to buy the service manual. I found the user's for free but not the service one. Hopefully it'll say what parts to "deinstall".

Anyway, I played a tape I recorded on my Technics at 2 track and it sounded very nice. Not an extensive test but it was very promising. It should make for a very nice TP deck stock.

On a side note it is very noisy when fast forwarding or rewarding, yet it does a nice thing: when it "knows" it's coming to an end it slows down.

[xcortes]

I got the service manual and says the same legend: ""Tape speed is is switchable between 7.5 inch/s and 15 inch/s. On position is for 3-3/4 and 7-1/2 inch/s tape speeds. This entails installation of some internal parts. Consult TASCAM or your nearest TASCAM dealer"

Also found an old post on some forum that says: "High speed version runs at 15 and 7.5 ips. Low speed at 7.5 and 3.75. 1/4" tape."

I'm running out of options. I'd hate to let this deck go but ...

[rbwtapeinterlink-Bob]

Congradulatins Sir,

It's great you were able to obtain that tape deck in such great condition. I purchased a Tascam 32-B some while ago, but have never put it into my system. I had it serviced, but it only needed cleaning and a belt replacement. The heads and other moving parts were in great condition. My deck is set up to play 15ips only and that works for me.  Of course now, my entire system is packed up and ready to ship as soon as I sell my house. I do hope you will keep us in the loop regarding progress with your wonderful tape recorder find.

Bob W.

[xcortes]

I contacted the Tascam service down here. The engineer with whom I spoke was as surprised as I was of knowing it was setup for 3 3/4. He was very nice and will find out more...

[xcortes]

The Tascam engineer is still finding out if the parts to convert the machine to a high speed version are still available. Go figure!

So I decided to take a look for myself. I have the schematics for the high speed version. Thus it was just a matter of comparing them to my machine, right? It took me many hours to figure our what parts of the circuit control the speed and ended up looking at the capstan servo PCB.

It wasn't hard to see what the "installed internal parts" are. A resistor was protruding from the PCB and didn't look right. So I measured it, compared to the schematic and Bingo. Looking at it more closely it was three resistors: two that seem to be the originals and a third one in between. Bypassed the middle one, tested the speed and it was beautiful 15 ips!

Just for the record, in case anyone gets one of these machines and wants to go from the low speed to the high speed version or viceversa: R10 on the Capstan Servo PCB is 20k for the high speed version. However the 20K is formed by two 10K resistors in series. To go to the low speed version you desolder the joint of those resistors and put an 18K resistor between them. To go from low to high you take that resistor out and solder both 10K resistors. You also have to change a dip switch but that's on the manual!

The machine looks real nice. Operation seems to be VERY smooth. Runs very silent when playing tapes although it is a bit noisy of FF or rewind. I already played a 15ips tape on it but still haven't done any serious listening analysis. It seems to have a lot of potential. It will be very easy to rewire the heads to use an external amp (a Seduction, what else!). I might even try a selector switch on this one to keep the internal electronics.

Also adjusting and calibration seems to be easier on this one from what I remember seeing in the manual of the Technics. Or maybe the service manual is better.

[ironbut]

Hey Xavier, great news!  I wasn't sure from your description if it was a factory low speed version that nobody knew about. It sounds like the low speed set up was a done to a normal high speed which is good. Good because, depending on the motor, it would seem that it is difficult to design a quiet, smooth running motor that will do lots of different speeds. So when designers source motors for multi speed machines, they choose motors that will run best at the speeds that are stock. I'm sure that cost plays a big part in most decks too. I really like the looks of those and it sure would be nice to have some automated controls too. Sounds like you got an excellent deal!

[xcortes]

I'm listening to the Alvin tape right now. The stock electronics don't sound half bad to me. This is a great TP ready deck!

I found two very cool things about the deck:

One: it has a "spool" function that rewinds the tape at 1/3 the normal speed. I don't know 'bout you but I always feel a little nervous when my TP tapes are rewinding at thunderous speeds.

Two (this one is very cool): The tape has three heads, an erase head and two other identical heads. One is for reproducing and the other for recording BUT can also be used to reproduce, it is selected on the front panel. This means that you can take wires out of the repro head to use an external amp while keeping the internal electronics stock in case you need them for whatever reason. This function will also be very handy when comparing the stock electronics with the Seduction.

[ironbut]

Sounds like a great deck. I think they still make some parts for those too. Did the service guy at Tascam say anything about support? Does it have a removable head block like the Technics? That's one feature I really live about the 15xx series. The main reason I ask is the only thing that keeps it from being a great alternative to the Technics is the lack of 1/4 track playback. I've researched having other decks converted to switchable 1/2>1/4 track playback and having John French do the conversion is actually pretty cheap (I think that for an Otari MX 10 it was under $400). If the headblock is removable, the shipping would be just about nothing (and a lot less risky!). On the other hand, I think that a machine that doesn't have the space limits like the Technics might make squeezing different heads in less of issue. I didn't ask John about having the erase head replaced with a dummy but I can't see that adding much. For a dedicated playback only deck it could be great.