Even the best open reel decks have tape 'wander' through the transport. Look at L/R phase at 10 KHz and watch the pattern wobble and how about those little dropouts and don't forget the wow and flutter. I have an open reel deck too and still have to get around to digitizing the old Dolby B live tapes.
One of the reasons I've been lagging is the group delay (asymmetrical ringing) happens after the Dolby encoding and should theoretically be corrected before the Dolby decoding. Adobe Audition can fix this using the graphic phase shifter. In my insane OCD world I made my own 'reference' tape using a 400 Hz square wave for the azimuth matching and all the tapes are correct relative to that tape. Anybody know of a software Dolby B decoder? I have a Sony NR-335 and an Advent 100A Dolby B unit.
400 Hz square is vastly superior to 10 KHz sine in that it is impossible to move the head far enough to get on the wrong cycle as I saw happen at the TV station I worked at long ago. That cart machine sounded awful before I found that.
G²
Further thoughts
Sam,
To suggest answers to your question, I have to ask a question: have you thought about what you actually might want to do with the recorder? Just playback existing recordings or playback/record and if record - only at home (to transfer existing media) or actually go out and make (location) recordings?
The "answer" should dictate your choice - like if you might want to do location recordings you don't want to be lugging a big pro machine (the kind that comes in a roll-around cabinet).
As has been mentioned, there are very nice smaller (more portable) machines
that also sound very good.
"Ultimate" reproduction/record narrows down the field a lot, as you start getting into the "sound" of the tape heads and electronics themselves (with, from my experience, the electronics actually being the weakest link) .
Oh, and the MCI machines have a lot going for them.
Cheers
Charles
Sam,
To suggest answers to your question, I have to ask a question: have you thought about what you actually might want to do with the recorder? Just playback existing recordings or playback/record and if record - only at home (to transfer existing media) or actually go out and make (location) recordings?
The "answer" should dictate your choice - like if you might want to do location recordings you don't want to be lugging a big pro machine (the kind that comes in a roll-around cabinet).
As has been mentioned, there are very nice smaller (more portable) machines
that also sound very good.
"Ultimate" reproduction/record narrows down the field a lot, as you start getting into the "sound" of the tape heads and electronics themselves (with, from my experience, the electronics actually being the weakest link) .
Oh, and the MCI machines have a lot going for them.
Cheers
Charles
Further further thoughts
TerryO - have you been to / heard Mike Lavignes mancave/reel tape setup and seen Ki Choi's Studer collection (all in suburban Seattle)
imix500 - see you are NW of Lake Ticonderoga. I'm between Albany and Binghampton - will have to get together sometime.
Finally - on the Tanbergs - the TD-20 and its variants (A/ASE) was/is a GREAT sounding machine for both PB and record. Unfortunately the line had problems with lubricating grease hardening up over the years - pinchroller operating mechanism gets jammed up. A good flushing/cleaning can get it good as new.
Charles
TerryO - have you been to / heard Mike Lavignes mancave/reel tape setup and seen Ki Choi's Studer collection (all in suburban Seattle)
imix500 - see you are NW of Lake Ticonderoga. I'm between Albany and Binghampton - will have to get together sometime.
Finally - on the Tanbergs - the TD-20 and its variants (A/ASE) was/is a GREAT sounding machine for both PB and record. Unfortunately the line had problems with lubricating grease hardening up over the years - pinchroller operating mechanism gets jammed up. A good flushing/cleaning can get it good as new.
Charles
Charles,
I was over at Mike's on the 11th of this month for the multimedia event. I've known Mike for many years and have been invited over for a fair number of listening sessions. I've never met Ki Choi that I'm aware of, but I've heard he's the reel deal :^).
Last month, I was invited over to Doc Bottlehead's place with my Focused Array's and we messed around with different gear and (naturally) "The Tape Project" master tapes for source material. My Audio Buddy, Dave Rosgaard (The series crossover Guru) went along with me. It was great fun!
Best Regards,
TerryO
Terry,
Very interesting , Many moons ago there was a speaker system in production, which was very similar to your focused array design, except they were much larger, circa 1988 as i remember, it was about the same time we had introduced our Iso-diametric point source open baffle 4 tower system...
Interesting to see that design again today ...............
Very interesting , Many moons ago there was a speaker system in production, which was very similar to your focused array design, except they were much larger, circa 1988 as i remember, it was about the same time we had introduced our Iso-diametric point source open baffle 4 tower system...
Interesting to see that design again today ...............
Terry,
Very interesting , Many moons ago there was a speaker system in production, which was very similar to your focused array design, except they were much larger, circa 1988 as i remember, it was about the same time we had introduced our Iso-diametric point source open baffle 4 tower system...
Interesting to see that design again today ...............
I hope that the production speaker had a supurb finish. OTOH, there are few that can match the classic beauty and splendor of a varigated finish composed of raw MDF and APTS*.
*APTS: Activated Polyester Tone Sauce.
(Many laypeople seem to confuse APTS with "mere" Bondo)
Best Regards,
Terry
Last edited:
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.