philipbarrett

And I thought I was the only who'd noticed how much blacker the blacks were AFTER I disconnected my speakers.

So apparently you cannot tell by ear? Some kind of audiophile you are. Of course, since my Monoblocks run off a dedicated 400A, 3 phase supply I'm calling the company to get pricing on the big ones.

As they need it is the best. You cannot damage or wear out the heads with careful cleaning, denatured alcohol & a Q-Tip are the tools we use in the studio. Make sure you clean the tape path, capstan & picnch roller too. Unfortunate news is that the oxide coming off will pretty rapidly affect the sound of your tapes, you'll notice an HF loss first. If you have some that are particularly sheddy it's probably best to transfer onto a CD-R before they become unplayable. Defeats the object of the RTR I know.

I'll leave you all to fight this one out - http://www.aaudioimports.com/ShowProduct.asp?hProduct=37 "each and every fuse has also been accurately measured and checked" And how exactly do you check a fuse without destroying it? According to the 6 Moons review the lack of directional arrow orientation instructions was not a problem because "frankly, it really was not necessary as it was easy to tell by ear which direction the arrow should point."

Yes they were "supposed" to be 2:1:2 but they would get out of alignment pretty fast. The card frame would get pretty hot. If you're recording, Dolby SR is as sweet as it gets. The "ultimate" studio analog mastering package IMHO would be an Ampex ATR-102 using 1/2" tape, running at 15ips with Dolby SR. A huge number of albums are still delivered in this format. The 15ips gives you a huge low end & the SR gets rid of all the artifacts at the lower speed. Here's a picture of the last great US made studio mastering deck, notice the 4 speeds and equal tension tape path.

Basically you got a slightly compressed version of what you had recorded, not always bad if you were looking for a good rock sound but if you weren't... I agree on the dbx vinyl but let's not forget, portability is what finally drove CD sales. The introduction of the early CD Walkmans was the reason most people I knew started to switch and the car players nailed the lid down on vinyl. We used to do PA for a large radio station show every Friday night and used the 3BX to open up the sound of the turntables. It was pretty mighty through the big old Martin stacks we carried.

In professional studios back in 70s/80s the system proved to be less than ideal & even though priced at around 50%, failed to unseat the Dolby king of noise reduction. Do you have the remote for your BX? I'd love to find one for mine. There's one on ebay for $225 which is a complete joke considering my unit was a Craigslist gem, original box, manual and warranty card for $20.

Let me just clarify the dbx thing. The 122 & 224 models are noise reduction systems using an encoding process on recording which is then decoded on playback. Use of one of these units on an unencoded tape will sound truly dreadful (horrendous pumping & HF noise). The system was available in both 2 & 24 channel versions but never tracked quite right and was always seen as a poor-man's substitute for Dolby-A (unless you wanted a sloppy drum track tightened up). The BX series are purely a playback only process as my fellow Texan points out (I have a BX-3) and can be quite effective if used judiciously.

LOL - happened to me, as soon as the seller said, oh the guy pipped you, he's travelling in from XYZ state I knew exactly what had happened. Sadly, it's best to keep those sweet CL deals to yourself around here. As to the RTR, the most popuar domestic machines in the US were probably Akai, Sony & Tandberg with the higher end dominated by Technics. These machines will probably have worn belts & rubber by now with little or no chance of finding spare parts particularly since many different types & models were imported. Conversely the pro machines from Revox, Teac/Tascam & even Otari were destined for heavy duty use, designed to be regularly servicible and since fewer model types were available, should have a good selection of parts & service information available. For example, my local studio service technician works on all of them.

They come up on Craigslist all the time, just keep an eye open, you'll find a good one.

Sorry - you're right, 10" it is

Quarter inch is the width of the tape used for domestic RTR releases and most studio mastering tapes. Quarter-track is the use of 4 tracks, 2 (for stereo) running one way, 2 the other. Simply put, you can turn the tape over & play the other side. Studio decks are half-track, 2 tracks running in one direction, if you turn the tape over & start recording you'll erase over the previous tracks. All original domestic RTR releases were quarter-track. Disadvantage = smaller track width (4 vs. 2) so less fidelity. Advantage = less tape use, able to fit an entire album on one 7.5" reel at 3.75ips. You can record on any 1/4" tape but need to play back on the same type of track as recorded on. Good news is that many domestic decks had 2 sets of heads & a switch between 1/2-track & 1/4-track. Other things to look out for: 7.5" or 15" reels. Top line studio decks can hold a 15" reel of tape, most domestics can't. Domestic releases were wound onto 7.5" reels so this is not normally a problem unless youwant to play studio masters. Obviously a 15" reel capable machine will load a 7.5" reel. Tape Speed. Most domestic releases were at 3.75ips (inches per second), some high quality ones were at 7.5ips and some low quality ones at 1-7/8ips. Professional mastering is either done at 15ips with noise reduction (like Dolby SR) or 30ips. Some machines offered multiple speeds but most offered only 2. Make sure the 2 are the 3.75/7.5 combination. Sperate Motors. Many domestic machines used only 1 or 2 motors to control 3 rotating surfaces (feed-reel, take-up reel & capstan). This generally involved a complex system of belts and cams which have often worn out by now. The best machines used 3 independent motors for a much simpler drive chain. 3 Heads. Good RTR recorders had 3 heads, from left to right; Erase - Record - Playback. To save money cheaper decks often combined the record & playback heads which resulted in reduced performance for both. Seperate heads also give you the ability to "listen" to what you have just recorded (off-tape monitoring). Good news is that the Revox A-77 can be found in a 3.75/7.5ips 1/4 track version. These machines will take 15" reels and were designed by Willi Studer for continuous use in radio stations & the like. A good example is almost flat from 30Hz to 20KHz and will give 60dB of dynamic range at the slower speed. Another easy to find workhorse is the Teac 3340 originally designed for Quadraphonic use and able to switch between both 1/4 & 1/2 track. Plus the 4 big meters look SO cool. http://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/A77.htm

Tons of bargain Revox A-77s & B-77s out there. Be sure & get the 3.75ips/7.5ips quarter track models (not 1/4" which is pretty much standard for 2-track outside the studio 1/2" mastering decks) if you're looking to play tapes sold to the domestic market. Both are workhorses with tons of parts & service info. available. How'd Full Sail work out for you? In the industry? PB

Revelations: 1) Your ears are trying to tell you something if you'd just shut up long enough to listen. 2) If it sounds good it is good. 3) There is no such thing as better audio, just different audio. Misconceptions: 1) My ears just aren't good enough to tell the difference 2) If you can hear it but can't measure it then you're not really hearing it. 3) Your eyes can't deceive you.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/triple_t_e.html http://6moons.com/audioreviews/whitelightning/moonshine.html

$1,700 for the pair (there's a very slight nick on the join between the low & hi boxes on one of them). Damm business trip, not back for a week or so.

5th of March?

Thanks, I'm giddy in aticipa............tion! Can anyone help me date them?

Anyone got a truck headed from Houston to Dallas? I pulled the trigger on a pair of mid-90's KHorns, I'm out on buisness for a couple of weeks so I'll have to exercise some patience :-( Watch this space for some nice La Sxcalas for sale!

The experiment is going to reveal that we've all been had & it IS a Kurzweil LOL

Watch out for Carvers on the high efficiency Klipsch models. The switching PSU often has a slight rizz that is inaudible on the average Joe's speaker but vey apparent on our beloved babys.

Here's a B3 schematic, if the tube's in the power supply it'll almost certainly be a 6X4 & is missing because they are somewhat failiure prone! edit : sorry huge schematic

You're correct, not much point re-encoding at a higher bit-rate than the original.

You're a tease & I'm close enough to come get ya (Dallas, great State of Texas)! My instinct says my #1 comments were fairly accurate, it would give a vinyl cutting lathe a challange. So onto #2 with AKG K701s. Is it the same micing as #1 except that ambient mics have been added in? Reason I state this is that the stereo image has a nasty habit of moving to the left & right when loud notes at either end of the register are played. I'm thinking this could be caused by the direct mics (whose imaging is overly wide already) overpowering the ambient mics at those passages. I also hear a little time smearing on the attacks. Then again, it's a Kurzweil isn't it?

Plenty of lively discussions abound around here about the merits of active & passive bi-amping, the K-Horn low end, the La Scala low end & what not. Here's a what if question. What if you mated a pair of Klipsch RC series HT center speakers with the low end cabinet of your choice? They would seem to be an ideal choice as a mid/hi pack for us horn lovers, the lower end of the frequency reponse looks just about perfect to crossover to a low end box and the end product would be visually La Scala esq. How about a Jensen Imperial for starters? Or do I need more sleep?