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Reel to Reel guys...


Schu

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I currently have two rtr's a sony that I can't recall the model number ( it does take 15" reels) and a Tandberg 64. The Tandberg was the first high quality piece of equipment that I ever bought. For those of you in the Bay Area, I bought it used at Pacific Stereo in Berkeley probably in 1972.

It still might be the best sounding piece of gear that I have ever owned.

I have owned many r to r s . This old Tandberg sounds by far the best.

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Yes the Tandberg was the finest i have heard as well. I have a freind well into his 80's who collects reel to reel machines and i have made some very long drives to pick up some in particular for him and his collection. Still at his age he takes some of the nicest equipment i have seen and mods and rebuilds in great detail. I have no idea about these machines other than how to use one although sound quality from the Tandberg and i dont remember the model was very good.

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Gary,

I always found my 3340S to be very quiet. I did a fair amount of acoustic music, and never found hiss to be a problem. I still have it, but I am sure it needs a good going over. I have a few tapes I want to capture to my PC, but it's a bit of a pain to set up and get done. Mostly I'm just too lazy to spend the time on it.

Bruce

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Shattuck Ave. had some other little stereo stores too. The good old days! Thanks for the blast from the past.

The Sounding Board, for instance. Moving on to streets other than Shattuck, my favorites were those with highly articulate sales people who were also engineers, including Don Helmholtz at Pro Audio (Oakland) and Joe Minor and John Curl (now the genius of Parasound), at Berkeley Custom Electronics..

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I LOVED that Pacific Stereo store
I haven't heard of that store in many years. They came to the Dallas area in the early 80's and did carry some reel to reel units.

Most of their stores were a bit shlocky, but one of the best features of the store was that you could negotiate price on anything in the store. I got some crazy great deals in Pacific stores. The higher end stores were much harder to negotiate with.

Sadly, I can remember paying over $650 for a Hitachi VCR in 1982.... Without a doubt I was no visionary at that time.... (still not much of one).

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I currently have two rtr's a sony that I can't recall the model number ( it does take 15" reels) and a Tandberg 64. The Tandberg was the first high quality piece of equipment that I ever bought. For those of you in the Bay Area, I bought it used at Pacific Stereo in Berkeley probably in 1972.

It still might be the best sounding piece of gear that I have ever owned.

I have owned many r to r s . This old Tandberg sounds by far the best.

Josh,

Were you making recordings, or using it to play commercial taped material?

BTW: Man, I LOVED that Pacific Stereo store in Berkeley. My favorite department was the "used gear" shelves. I'd go up there on Saturdays in the early 1970s and buy all the used tube amps. Dyna MkIII used to go for $40 each. Shattuck Ave. had some other little stereo stores too. The good old days! Thanks for the blast from the past.

I was making live recordings as well as recording LPs. At that time leopolds records also in Berkeley, had a tape club . You paid 25 cents to "rent an lp" to take home and tape it. They had an area set aside for tape club records. If the lp you wanted to tape as not available you could grab a new one for 50 cents and when returned it went into the tape club for others to rent. It was a great way to build up a music library.

I think the pacific stereo on Shattuck was the first in what turned out to be a pretty schlocky chain. It was a different place than what the chain ended up being. And I to loved the used section in back.

Another cool thing at the time . If you bought speakers you could turn them back in and get the full purchase price back towards a more expensive pair. I remember starting with a pair of BIC s and ending up with Jbl l100 s in just a few years.

Fun memories. What was the name of their house brand of receivers? Was it Concept? I cannot remember

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Shattuck Ave. had some other little stereo stores too. The good old days! Thanks for the blast from the past.

The Sounding Board, for instance. Moving on to streets other than Shattuck, my favorites were those with highly articulate sales people who were also engineers, including Don Helmholtz at Pro Audio (Oakland) and Joe Minor and John Curl (now the genius of Parasound), at Berkeley Custom Electronics..

Another Bay Area audiophile. I never met JC in Berkeley, but I did meet him at a CES show in Chicago. Did you know J. Peter Moncrief of Sound Advice mag and then later the Audio Journal?

Didn't know Moncrief.

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At that time leopolds records also in Berkeley, had a tape club . You paid 25 cents to "rent an lp" to take home and tape it. They had an area set aside for tape club records. If the lp you wanted to tape as not available you could grab a new one for 50 cents and when returned it went into the tape club for others to rent. It was a great way to build up a music library. I think the pacific stereo on Shattuck was the first in what turned out to be a pretty schlocky chain. It was a different place than what the chain ended up being. And I to loved the used section in back.

Oh Leopolds! I miss everything about the Bay Area except the traffic and the earthquakes.

I think the Pacific Stereo in Berkeley was the first. For the first (very) few years, it was called Pacific Electronics, then morphed.

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