Marvel Posted April 12, 2009 Share Posted April 12, 2009 My first decent RTR was a TEAC TCA-43. It was three units. A playback only transport, that had a 4 track playback head (record too, but not useful by itself). Add in one or two 2 channel record amps, with sync cables, and you had a reasonable 4 track record deck. It NEVER messed up. The only drawback was it only ran at 3 3/4 / 7 1/2 ips. Sweet machine. I used it until I got my 3340S. It came as a TCA-40, 41, 42, and 43 (the 43 also had the sync switches on the heads). Very cool! Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GWSmith Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Bruce. I LOVE that old add you posted.... All those afros from the 70ies......... The KICKER IS, the keyboard that is being played in the lower right hand corner........ As a keyboardist from the 70ies, that is a Yamaha YC-25-D ! I had one of those myself and played it live back in the day. It was supposed to be their answer to the Hammond Porta-B (O: Just thought I would add my 2 cents......again [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xtreme4099 Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Got two nice decks : Teac 3340S Technics RS-1506 They both work fine, but i think would benefit from a good tune up or a trip to the repair shop, the technics sounds like it might need new heads or something else might be going on, doesnt seem to have as much headroom or highs that the teac has, imma gonna to get to it someday, unemployed at the moment so that'll have to wait. Got about 60 classical tapes prerecorded tapes and a whole bunch of recorded ones, a nice craiglist steal, got it all with the teac for 5 bucks sometime ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 got it all with the teac for 5 bucks sometime ago. IIRC, my 3340S cost about $1150 when I bought it new. I need a newe pinchroller at the least on mine. I have a TEAC A-1500 portable that the school was getting rid of, so it made it home to my house. I haven't powered it up yet, but the heads look to be in great shape. I will probably make a desktop/wood case for it. I need to find the rubber rel hold downs for it. I'll see if I can grab a couple stoppers from the chem lab (the kind that glass tubing goes through. that will work as a temp fix. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipbarrett Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Correct on all points except that DBX precode is what you use right now on TV. It worked well and artifact free, and still does. 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Correct on all points except that DBX precode is what you use right now on TV. It worked well and artifact free, and still does. 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. Yeah, I've read that, though I am not sure something else wasn't at work. I have an NX-40 low end encoder and if I were doing location analog I'd use it. Completely silences tape with no artifacts I can hear. That is ideal to me. Ever hear a DBX encoded LP? Awesome, totally comparable to hi res digital. If it had not debuted at the same time as the CD, DBX LP's and the laser turntable would likely have gained at least an audiophile foothold. No remote. I think they all get sold separately for the reason you note above. Frznvrmt sent me a link to a guy who was supposed to offer a cloning service for 40 or 50 bucks, but he never responded to emails. Sheesh, anyone with one of these could pay for a habit by just cloning learning remotes for us... Anyway, I have to get up to change an LP or tape so setting the unit is really not much of a hassle. It WOULD be nice for those times I forgot to tweak it for whatever I am playing, though. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipbarrett Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Yeah, I've read that, though I am not sure something else wasn't at work. ... If it had not debuted at the same time as the CD, DBX LP's and the laser turntable would likely have gained at least an audiophile foothold. 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 >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 was unaware of that. The specs were 2:1:2 on the NX-40 so I assumed that's what you got. Since I always used DBX post dynamic expansion in front of the NX-40 to deal with LP dynamic compression, I probably never noticed it if it was there. Can't imagine why they did that. I am wondering if the "consumer" units like the NX-40 were as spec'd and perhaps the "professional" units were less than 1:2 post? Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 They were supposed to be 2:1, 1:2. Set as a fixed amount. I thought that was the cool thing over the dolby. What you need, Dave is a couple channels of Dolby SR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 They were supposed to be 2:1, 1:2. Set as a fixed amount. I thought that was the cool thing over the dolby. What you need, Dave is a couple channels of Dolby SR. For what? I only do tape playback and have no plans to record. I find DSF 1 bit, 2.8mhz digital equal to or better than any analog recorder I've ever heard. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipbarrett Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornwalled Posted April 13, 2009 Author Share Posted April 13, 2009 Hello again, Thanks again for the advice and information. This is proving to be a most interesting thread. I am currently listening to the Rachmaninoff as I type this. Any thoughts on how often I should clean the heads? I cleaned them as soon as I brought it home, as mentioned above. However, my tapes are pretty old, so I'm thinking they may shed oxide faster than a newer tape? At this point, I'm thinking clean it when it needs it. On another point, my cat loves the machine. She'll just sit and stare at the reels going around and around, trying to figure out how she can catch. The thing I have to watch out for, is when her paw comes out. Bad cat! She also loves to help thread the tape. -Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipbarrett Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 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. First, the cat. Let her get into it at full rewind and if she keeps her claws, she'll leave it alone from then on. [:@] As to CD transfer, Canyonman transfered a Tape Project direct to a CD deck with burn function and sent it to me. It was vinyl good, way better than all but a handful of commercial CDs. That said, I'd still go at least 24/88.2 from R2R to ensure getting every last drop of goodness. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank1938 Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 First, the cat. Let her get into it at full rewind and if she keeps her claws, she'll leave it alone from then on 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. LOL. Seems we have come full circle. Back to watching the reels go around and dumping the R2R to CD. [*-)] R2R machines are still fun but, when you do find some high quality tapes, do convert them to something that you will have as a backup. Enjoy the machine.Frank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 First, the cat. Let her get into it at full rewind and if she keeps her claws, she'll leave it alone from then on 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. LOL. Seems we have come full circle. Back to watching the reels go around and dumping the R2R to CD. R2R machines are still fun but, when you do find some high quality tapes, do convert them to something that you will have as a backup. Enjoy the machine.Frank I'm mis-quoted. That one was from Phillip Barrett, and true enough. However, I added: As to CD transfer, Canyonman transfered a Tape Project direct to a CD deck with burn function and sent it to me. It was vinyl good, way better than all but a handful of commercial CDs. That said, I'd still go at least 24/88.2 from R2R to ensure getting every last drop of goodness. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipbarrett Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Nice looking Ampex ATR-700 on Dallas CL for $250 - http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/ele/1120769770.html Actually built for Ampex by Teac, this version had the balanced I/O I believe. If it works it's a keeper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornwalled Posted May 4, 2009 Author Share Posted May 4, 2009 Hello, As mentioned before, I have 2 still wrapped BASF tapes. They are 1200', 1.5 mil BASF. A pic is shown. I don't know how old they are, but the price of $2.99 makes me think they can't be TOO new. Either that, or consumer 1/4" was pretty cheap! That's not much more than a standard 90 minute cassette went for in the end. Any thoughts on this? BASF doesn't make tape anymore. I guess no one does at this point, right? My question is this: are these tapes worth anything? Or should I just open 'em and lay down some recordings? I'm kinda itchy to record, and have plenty of used junk I could wipe out, and leave the new ones wrapped. However, the appeal of having unused tape, that's never been across heads before is kinda appealing. As I type this, I'm recording some classical from a Telarc CD, onto a used Maxell 1800 ft. With three heads, I can listen to the tape as it's recording, which is nice. Unfortunately, I can hear some dropouts sometimes. I'm guessing because of the used tape? Any thoughts would be appreciated. -Jon EDIT: I am now playing back the recorded song- Antinoni's Adagio for Strings, recorded onto the aforementioned used Maxell UD tape. Quality is poor in the beginning, with dropouts / distortion. However, about a minute in, things clean up some. This suggests to me that the tape is probably to blame. I don't think I can make a fair assesment without breaking out the new tape. Hopefully it's not the deck that's at fault. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted May 4, 2009 Share Posted May 4, 2009 Should be easy enough. Pause near a dropout point and rock the reels back and forth to cue it up to the head so you know were it is. Mark the spot over the play head with your finger and pull it out and inspect it. You should be able to see where oxide has flaked off. From you description of it being near the front, that is likely. If you have plenty of tape to fit whatever you are recording, just roll past the damage spot and cut it off. To prevent further damage it would help to obtain some leader tape and splice it, but you can get by if you don't mind sacrificeing the first few feet of tape to damage. Also look for creases and such that will also cause a dropout, along with splices that have stretched to allow a gap. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted May 4, 2009 Share Posted May 4, 2009 I guess no one does at this point, right? In the U.S. you can get brand new:http://www.atrtape.com/ http://www.rmgi-usa.com/index.html RMGI is the European EMTEC tape. RMGI bought the EMTEC/BASF formulas and manufacturing BASF equiv. tape. Quantegy (who was doing the original Ampex 456 tapes, etc.) is now out of business. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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