reel-resilience

Press Play> Episode 28: Buying A Reel-To-Reel

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 11:24:47 GMT

Press Play> Episode 28: Buying A Reel-To-Reel

The transcription of this episode to help digest the information contained in it:

This is an audio version of a PowerPoint presentation that I deliver to audiences at audio shows and hi fi shows across the UK and it's on buying a real to reel tape recorder. I've been working in the format since 1988 over 30 years and it's probably easy to assume, and it's a mistake really, (that) there is a certain level of knowledge by people getting back into this format: We know what the different types of tape are, the different track formats, what the speeds are and what machine you'll need to place say pre-recorded tapes. Or if you're planning on creating your own.

So really the salient points that you need to consider are application are you going to use it for playback only or to record and play? Because there are some machines and new machines available because they are making new machines there as at least four to my knowledge on the market now, but one of which is a playback only machine. So that's something to consider. Are you going to create your own collection on tape after that we've got real size. What size of reels do you wish to play? They come in a whole selection from 3 inch, even up to 14 inch or have to say I wouldn't touch 3-inch diameter reels. They're really only for sort of not taking machines that were created in the 1950s through to the 1970s and big 14-inch reels, you can no longer buy the tape for them. and they only go on specialist machines. but between there you've got say 5-inch reels, 7-inch diameter reels and the ones that seem to be most desirable, 10.5-inch diameter reels. They will obviously dictate the recording time based on the tape, speed of the machine. And I'll come through to that in a minute.

After that track layout. Do you want two or four tracks? Now when we come to four track machines there are two formats of four track. There are two tracks and then turn the tape over to play the other two tracks. Much like a record, you play side one and then you play side two. On side one it will play track one and three which is the left and right track respectively of the stereo recording, turn the tape over and it will play track two and four left and right track respectively of the other side. Now that's not to be confused with 4 track multitrack machines that are used in recording where perhaps you can put a backing track down on track one of a guitar or a keyboard and then on track 2, 3, 4 you can sing along to it or add other instruments. They are really specialist machines used for multitrack recording and are outside the scope of this presentation. You've also got two track machines. They're the one that's most common. They will play a stereo track. But how they put that left and right track down on the tape is as a already mentioned. Is it a double-sided machine or does it use half of the tape to play the left track and the other half of the tape to play the right track?

Tape speeds: 3.75 through to 15 ips. They're the only tape speeds I would consider. Three and three four is the slowest speed I would consider for any decent quality. There are machines that will even go half that speed, but I really discount them. They're really kind of getting into almost I said note taking machines or ones that were I would not class as even semi-professional. The vast majority machines will run at seven and a half inches per second. And this is what a lot of the pre-recorded tapes of the 1960s through to the 1970s were recorded at. And finally professional format of 15 inches per second. There is a 30 inches per second format machine that is for professional use only. So you've got 3, 3 quarter, 7.5 and 15 inches per second. Earlier I spoke about reel size. You've really got the amount of tape obviously held on a reel and the tape speed that it's moving past the heads at would dictate the recording time you're going to get on a reel. To give you an example a 10.5”-inch reel running at 15 inches per second if it's fully full of course with tape would give you half an hour of recording time.

After that single or bidirectional play machines. This is what I mentioned about double-sided tapes playing tracks 1, 3 and 2 and 4 bit. To play it the other side you physically have to turn the tape over. Some machines will once they get to the end of one side will usually by metal foil that's in the tape will bridge a contact and tell the machine to go into the opposite direction and it will play that other side of the tape. The tape instead of the conventional left to right direction it will move it from right to left and it'll play the other side of the Tape in the opposite direction, and you can get some machines that will both record and play in either direction. Alth though the vast majority of bidirectional play machines will play in either direction but only usually record in one direction which is usually the conventional left to right tape movement.

EQ that is a whole subject for discussion NAB or IEC which is also, you might read CCIR IEC and CCIR EQ is exactly the same thing. That's something you need to consider. if you're buying pre-recorded tapes it will have an effect on the replay quality but quite honestly not a massive amount. But I'll talk about that.

And finally new or used which also has an impact on your budget. Of course, now the vast majority of machines will be used and I'd only consider ones from say the 1970s through to the 1990s. Tape machine manufacture really dropped out by 1992. That's when everything stopped. Although Atari did carry on making machines a little bit later than that. But the vast majority of tank manufacturers finished by 1992. from 1970s onwards they started to use transistors in the audio and control and you're also getting software control on the transport Instead of having mechanical switches to put the machine into record and play. There were soft touch buttons, and these are the machines I would consider machines such as Akai and Revox. Those kind of machines from that era 1972 to 1990 are the ones to consider if you're going for the used market if you have the money. as I said there are new machines being made, you could consider new, but they are considerably expensive. The actual manufacturing and the size of machine dictates the shipping costs, that kind of thing. you could consider new ones but be aware you're not going to pick those up at any cheap price at all.

So, let's look at our application: Reel Size.

As I said we've got 3-inch suit to 14-inch reels but really consider reels of tape either at 5-inch, a 7-inch or 10.5” inch diameter. The other thing to look at is of course the tape type I mentioned earlier that you can at 15 inches per second with a full reel of tape on a 10 and a half inch diameter spool get half an hour s recording to that's with standard play tape you can actually get double and triple play tapes which will extend that recording time through to an hour or even 90 minutes running at 15 inches per second. Although I would caution using triple play tape, because the way they get more tape on the reel is to make the oxide on the tape, the actual rust basically that holds a magnetic information, the magnetic signal and the backing that it's stuck to. They make those two things very thin, in order to fit a lot more tape onto the reel. And that means the tape is not mechanically robust. And if you're shuttling the tape backwards and forwards, it can mean sometimes you can easily damage the tape if the machine snaps or snags or it might run off the transport. With triple play tape being so thin, it is very, very prone to damage. Double play tape is okay. There's a company called RTM Recording the Masters. they're a French company and they make a brand of tape called LPR35, which is a long play tape. And you'll probably get about 45 minutes to an hour of recording time on a 10 and point half inch reel using double play tape. But the main tapes I would consider using are standard play 1.5mm thick recording tape, which will give you that 30 minutes of recording time at 10.5”-inch reel. On a 7-inch reel it'll give you about 15 minutes running at 15 inch per second. And on a five inch, about seven and a half minutes of recording time. Of course, if you're halving the speed, say to 7 a half inches per second, you just double rows recording times. So, you'll got an hour at seven and a half inches per second on, on a 10.5”- inch reel through to 15 minutes and a 5-inch reel and again half your tape speed, again three and three quarters. You get half an hour on a5-inch reel, up to nearly two hours on a ten a half inch spool using standard play tape. But of course, there's always that trade off in audio quality. the lower tape speed you are prone to increase tape noise. And if there's any dropouts, if there's effectively any holes in the oxide, which means you can get a slight reduction, even no audio recorded on that hole. It depends how big the, the imperfection in the magnetic surface of the tape is. Of course, the longer the tape speed, the larger the dropout is going to be because obviously it's taking a longer time to pass the recording. Head track layout.

Two or four tracks: Well, the machines I would consider are two track machines. The vast majority of machines you will come across run a two track I'm thinking of particularly such as something like the Revox B77. That will be a two-track machine. It will take a quarter inch wide tape and effectively divide it in half. It's not quite in half, it's actually smaller, because we have got things called guard bands either side of their two tracks, to protect the two tracks from interfering with each other. But it'll take a quarter inch tape roughly divided it half the top half of the track. As you look at the tape going past the heads will be the left channel and the bottom track will be the right channel. When we get into a four track machines, which will have side one and side two. They further divide the machine into four. I said even less than that because we have our guard bands to take into account. As you look at the tape on the heads, the top track is the left track of side one. we then jumped around to the third track which is the right track of side one. And then up a little bit, jump up we have the right track of side two and right at the bottom of the tape we have the left track of side two. So in other words when you turn the tape over we have got a left and right track in the right position to replay the other side of the tape. When you get into machines and bidirectional, so they'll play the tape in one direction and then reverse and play it in the opposite direction. They invariably have a second head which is set where the replay heads are set slightly lower to pick up the left and right tracks appropriately on the other side of the tape. So, when the tape is played in the opposite direction, it replays the audio on that side of the tape in the correct way.

Tape speeds: I've touched on 3.75, 7.5 and 15 inches per second. The general rule is the faster the tape speed, the better you get lower tape noise. The effect of tape dropouts is minimised, and you do get a better high frequency response. Basically, you're getting lower tape noise. So tape noise is effectively the magnetic particles scraping across the head, plus the audio electronics which all tend to be at a higher frequency. They can mask the higher frequencies of the audio that you want to record and replay. But the higher the tape speed, the lower the tape noise and therefore you're getting this bonus of a better HF response. The cons of a higher tape speed are well the general rule, the faster the tape speed the shorter the recording time on the reel, I've touched on that. Unless you're going for a long play tape, you're only going to get half an hour's recording time on a 10.5”-inch reel at 15 inches per second you get increased cost per inch. This is something we have to bear in mind. A reel of fresh tape. I touched on that 10, a half inch diameter reel of tape that's going to cost you around 50 pounds, $50 and that excludes your shipping cost in any local taxes. And if also if you want it on nice aluminium reel because they do actually apply it on cheaper plastic reels, if you want it on a nice aluminium reel, it's going to cost you a little bit more than that and you are going to get a slight reduction in the LF response. It's strange that the faster the tape speed you get a better HF response. But you do get a slight reduction in the LF response. But it's really only relative to when you're running the machine at 30 inches per second, which is outside the brief of this particular webinar. Yes, some purists will say it will start to suffer the faster the tape speed, but I wouldn't really take that as a major issue. Go for your fastest tape speed you possibly can based on the cost of the tape and of course the recording time that you want off that particular diameter sized reel.

Single or bidirectional play machines: The pros, yes. You get a long playback time, you've no need to manually turn over the tape. You can play a tape perhaps on a pre-recorded tape running at seven and a half inches per second. You get half an hour, maybe even 45 minutes on one side and without changing the tape physically, the machine will get to the end of side one and automatically reverse and play the other 45 minutes of side too. There is a compromise though. In my experience of working on bidirectional machines, I have never found both directions to be equal in quality. There is always a compromise. You can set the tape up to run say from the conventional left to right. It will run past the erase head, run past the record head, run past the replay head, all nicely through the transport and you can set the machine up for the optimum there. When you have a bidirectional machine, invariably you have a second replay head which as I said earlier, the heads are slightly in a different position relative to the other head. So when the tape is played in the opposite direction, it can pick those two, other tracks up from the other side. You're moving the tape in the opposite direction and perhaps your pinch roll is not in the optimum direction. Some bidirectional machines do have twin pinch rollers. Got to take that into account as well. You've got a pinch roller will need replacing. You've got a two pinch roller machine. That's double the cost. But I've just found both in tape speed or tape handling, but also the audio quality. Both sides are never identical in each direction. There's always compromises, to be made. It's not necessarily that the conventional direction left to right is worse than the reverse direction of right to left. It could be the other way around. It could find that the reverse direction is actually better quality. The machine is. It just sounds that little bit better. But basically, you pays your money and takes your choice. Do you want that long playback time and ease of use or do you say no, I want the best quality I can possibly get out of my machine.

Well, there are New Machines. I've touched on that. About four manufacturers. there is a company called Ballfinger from Germany. a man called Roland Schinder is producing some great machines. Now Ballfinger, it's a great name, isn't it? But it came originally from Roland who was a designer, created a very strange light, sort of a desktop light. It was a very thin upright sort of bar and then there was a large ball on the end, and it was called the ball Finger Light. Well, he's a designer, German designer and taken his experience to tape machines which he always wanted to create. And the machine he's created, or one of the machines he's created is the Ballfinger MO-63 machine. It's a lovely machine. It's available in both replay only and record. And replay. Replay only on a tape machine is not that complicated. Once you ve crack the transport of moving, the mechanics of moving the tape from left to right, the actual audio side of replaying a tape is not that complicated. When you start getting into recording though, you, as well as your extra recording amps, your extra record head, you've also got a thing called your BIOS amplifier and you need to make other changes to the machine, to accommodate the recording side. So the complexity goes up. So he makes a replay only machine and a record machine, but correspondingly they vary in price. And obviously doesn't take a genius to work out that recording machine is a lot more expensive than the replay only machine. Thorens make the TM1600. Now this is actually made by Ballfinger. It's a badge engineered machine using parts of their transport of their MO-63 but it's replay only. If you're checking my past episodes of the Press Play podcast you will see an interview I recorded with the CEO of Thorens and I asked him why it was a replay only machine and he told me Thorin's philosophy is they make turntables, they replay only devices and therefore the Thorens reel to reel tape recorder offering will be replay only. Some people think well, why replay only? Well obviously it can take advantage of the many pre-recorded tapes that were produced either vintage ones from the 1960s through say to the 1970s or you can get now pre-recorded tapes, audio file grade ones at record companies and recording companies are producing to play on that machine. So you've got your new machines. There is also a couple of tape machines from a company called Metaxis and Sins Costas Metaxis. He's a chap, living in Greece now but I believe he held from Australia. Again, searched through the Press Play podcast past episodes and I think it's around episode 13. I did a two part podcast with Costas about the machines and his philosophy of bringing these beautifully engineered machines to the market. He bases them on the Stellarox machine, which was a Swiss machine, a beautifully engineered like typical Swiss watch type engineering. The Stellavox and Nagra, they are a similar genre machine. He bases his machine called the TRX on the Stellarox. Ah, beautifully looking machine, lots of milled aluminium in both natural silver but also anodized red. And he's also produced another machine called the Papillon if I remember, which is French for butterfly. And the actual design of the machine, very skeletal looking design. He's produced that and I think he's produced that in limited numbers. These machines though, they are not cheap. I mean I mentioned the Ballfinger. I think you're looking at something like $25,000 or something like that for the replay only. And I'm probably heading towards $30,000 for the record version. I think the Thorens machine is probably about 14,000 dollars if I remember or something like that. Costas' machines are even more than that. He told me the Papillon was about $80,000 to buy, and he was making that in limited quantities, and he was selling them. So, it shows that there is a market and people prepared to pay that kind of money.

If your budgets a little bit less than that. Well maybe you'll consider where the vast majority of machines will come from. Those being used machines hailing from the 1970s through to 1990s I'm thinking such as the TEAC A series and the X series. But also, there's the Akai machines as well. Pioneer, they made some lovely machines. The RT 707 and the RT 909 and of course Studer had their Revox brand. You could consider the A77 or B7& from Revox or look at their Studer offerings which are further up the scale such as the B62 or the B67 or indeed the A807. If you really want to spend a lot of money, then you can go up to the studio A810 which is a fully professional studio machine. But even a good quality one of those is going to cost you about £4,000. And if you want a pristine one you're looking at least six, a half thousand pounds. Six half thousand dollars for one of those. Pioneer, they do produce the beautifully looking RT909. lovely big blue display, big counters, bidirectional machine finished typically in pioneer 1980s style silver finish. They are fetching around $1,000 to $1,500 now for good quality ones. People like them because they look nice in their listening rooms, nice in their living rooms. TEAC A series, they produced a whole range of machines. The TEAC A2000 machine up to the 7000 series were all 1970 style with wooden side cheeks on the very simple machines and very well built and quite nice sounding machines as well. But you will be looking probably around $350 to $400 plus probably up to $1,000 for a good one of those. The other thing to consider is you might get the machine running well. Good transport, handling, good tape speed, tape runs through the heads nicely, good audio quality to both record and replay. But if you then want the machine to look pristine on the outside with no scratches and damage because you've got to remember these machines are heading towards 50 years old. Some of them with the earlier TEAC A Series you've got to realise that that kind of finish on the machine start to cost where you're Looking for replacement panels or wooden side cheeks to be made or refurbished. the other desirable ones are things such as the TEAC X-2000 and X-1000. The TEAC X-2000 was the machine that appeared in the cult film Pulp Fiction and a result of that has got quite a following and people are after those. They're very desirable machines. A little bit lower down in spec but please don't dismiss it is the X-1000 they did an X-1000R which is reversible. You can consider their semi-pro offering such as the X-10 which is quite a nice machine and some of the Tascams, because TEAC morphed into Tascam. Some of the Tascam machines such as the semi-pro Tascam 32 and 32B are certainly worth considering.

Akai produced some lovely machines, their GX range. a lot of people get into the entry level machines such as Ah, their GX4000 series. Mainly they were mechanical in the way that they moved the tape. You had big sur of switches and levers to put the machine into play or record or fast forward and rewind. Although the electronics are still very good. Quite a small compact machine to have in your listening room. They date from about the early 70s. nice little machines but they're starting to show their age in terms of mechanics and they do need some work done internally to grease all the mechanical parts because it's all rods and levers that are moving underneath the deck plate. Moving into their later GXs such as their 6635 which is a very desirable and nice-looking machine. that's certainly something to consider. Bigger footprint, quite a large heavy machine but does look very nice. I mean indeed some of the Japanese machines like the Pioneers and the Akai are nice to look at. Whereas perhaps the TEAC A series and the Revox A77 and B77 nice as they are and I wouldn't dismiss them, they do look a little bit industrial. So that's something to consider. But you're looking probably prices from anything from $350 easily $2,000 for pristine one of those.

The Revox B77. We can't do any presentation without mentioning that the most desirable one of the Revox B77 range is the Mik2 high-speed which means it runs at 7.5 and 15 inches per second. As I said can be quite an industrial looking machine for some people taste, all silver edging and then sort of this grey green facia finish, both top and bottom. But they made nearly 500,000 of these machines and they are actually quite simple to maintain. So as a result, there's a lot of them around, there's a lot of parts available for them and indeed there's companies now making new boards using new electronics, new electronic components, which are probably actually quieter and better with the components they've used than the original one that Revox used in the 1980s. But they're still very, very nice machines. Very solid, quite simple to use, a no-frills machine and the audio quality is very, very nice as a result.

EQ NAB or IEC CCIR: NAB stands for National Association of Broadcasters and IEC stands for International Electro Technical Committee, if I remember, the former is an American organisation, and the latter is a European or Pan European organisation. When recording formats were introduced in say the late 1940s through to 1950s, it was realised that magnetic recording is inherently nonlinear. You can't just put a frequency of say 100Hz in at one particular level and then put 1Khz or 10Khz a higher frequency at the same level and expect it to go onto the tape in the same volume or the same level as the other frequencies. It is inherently nonlinear in the way the magnetic recording process works. The other issue they had in the 1950s with audio electronics, there was potential for mains hum and other electronic noises when some of these machines were valve technology before they moved over to transistors and IC devices for the audio and control electronics. And they were inherently noisier, there was more hiss coming out of the electronics and thus going on to the tape. So the NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters, decided there'd be a tone control curve, effectively an EQ curve. EQ stands for equalisation in both the record, the way that the audio is treated before it's put on the tape and then similarly in replay, the reverse treatment as it comes off the tape to give you a pleasing replay result. And what they decided to do was in record they would boost the lower frequencies and reduce the higher frequencies of the audio that was recorded. It reduces the higher frequencies by about 10 dBs at about 20 kHz. Don't worry too much about that. But it does effectively roll the audio off from about 2 a half kilohertz upwards in a gentle slope up to 20 kHz. this was to get over some of the tape hit issues in replay. It reduces that low frequency replay level to compensate for the boost that was done on recording. In effect also reducing the mains hum that might be evident the on the tape. And also boosted the HF in the quieter electronics rather than just recording the material flat onto the tape with the idea that it would then make the replay sound a linear frequency response from the lower frequencies through to the higher frequencies. Tape technology moves on through to the SOR19 60s and it was decided by the IEC, the International Electrotechnical Commission in Europe that you didn't need to worry about the low frequency boost anymore that the NAB had introduced. And they just put that low frequency just untreated as it came out of the amplifier. It went straight through the record amplifiers of the machine and onto the tape with the hf. They still rolled it off a little bit as part of the equalisation curve. And then in replay the HF boosted slightly to compensate for the drop in HF when they recorded it. Now if you have an NAB recorded tape and you play it back on an IEC EQED machine or vice versa IEC recorded tape on a NAB recorded machine there will be some slight replay differences but not a major one. If you have an IEC tape and play it on an NAB machine it will result in the low frequencies being at a lower level by about 2 decibels or vice versa. So if you have an NAB tape played on an IEC machine the base frequency will be about 2 decibels higher. It will be slightly noticeable if you know what you're looking for. But really 2 decibels is not going to be a great shake and I wouldn't worry too much about it. The high frequency roll-off on and recording and boosting on replays is really pretty much the same so that shouldn't have any effect. You will find though a lot of pre-recorded tapes from America will be recorded to the NAB standard. And if you live in Europe, you're likely to have an IEC equalised machine. some machines are ah, switchable machine I'm thinking in particular is the Revox A77 that has a switch on the front for either IEC or nab and that's to replay IEC or NAB tapes. It will only record in the amplifier equalisation that it's set up for and that will usually be a sticker on the back that will say IEC or NAB record amps. However, if you've got a pre-recorded tape that's been recorded in, say, America in the 1960s to the NAB standard. You can switch your A77 to NAB and it will return play, okay. Or vice versa and IEC tape. You can switch it to IEC and it will, happily play there.

The vast majority of Japanese machines and European machines, such as your Akai, and your TEAC, your Studer/Revox’ will all be IEC record and replay. But I said they might be switchable as well. American machines such as your Ampex’, which you might come across will more likely be NAB. But I'm also thinking machines such as purely professional ones here, MCI, they are switchable between NAB and IEC equalisation curves.

Stock faults: These are things you might need to look out for if you're planning to buy a, used machine. All these machines are a minimum of 30 years old now. As I said, they stopped making reel-to-reels in around 1992 and as a result they are well passed their manufacturer's expected lifespan. Machines being electromechanical devices will wear out. The rubber parts will dry out, the electronic components will dry out. Capacitors especially, there's no such thing as, as a permanent seal. And what can happen is the electrolytic, as it's called, within the capacitors can leak out and the capacitors can fail and sometimes go pop with great effects. Smoke piles out the machine. Not the end of the world. Just switch the machine off if it does it. But you will need to consider to get those capacitors replaced before they go pop. it's a thing known as recapping. And you'll see a lot of people talk about that on the various social media forums I mentioned about rubber, your pinch rollers, some machines such as a TEAC and your Akai and Pioneer’ have rubber belts inside them to drive the capstan from the motor ages rather than use is really, the enemy of rubber belts. People say, oh, it hasn't been used in about two years, yes, but that means the rubber belt has sat in one position. I've literally seen the belts as they go around, have a kink in them because they've been, turned around the rollers and just been left on the roller for so long that they've got their own sort of shape. And of course, rubber will dry out. Some rubber, bands as well also turn to goo. It turns to like a tar substance and I've had that just wrap itself around the inside of the machines as well and sprays all over the inside and it takes quite a long time to clear all this tar-like muck off.

These are electro-magnetic machines. They've got a lot of mechanical moving parts inside them. I mentioned about the little Akai GX4000s with lots of rods moving around. The problems they have is the grease they used on the machines dries out and it goes solid and doesn't do its lubrication job anymore. And therefore, the poor old machine is very creaky and you have to consider stripping all that old grease off. You clean it all off and then re lubricate it with new usually lithium grease which is a high temperature grease that doesn't run. So, you've got those things to consider to keep the machines working. And these are the stock faults that you might well find on some machines.

The other thing that people do get concerned about is headwear on a machine. Tape running across a metal head that's effectively rust iron oxide stuck on a backing on a metal head. It's like a file. It's actually wearing the head down as the tape runs over and it will put a wear patch into the machine. you can get the heads, what's called, re-lapped which is putting the profile back onto the head. It does take some hours off the head when you do a re-lap but it will improve the transport and restore the frequency response of the head. But that's only if the head has got enough life left in it to be relaxed. If the head is so worn that you try and attempt to re-lapp it, you can actually just wreck the head and it's dead. It's past its life expectancy. Re-lapping is not that expensive to do albeit you then have to set the heads back up on the head block. If you have to buy new heads, heads are being made, but they're not that readily available. They are available if you know where to look for them. But you'll still be paying several hundred dollars for a complete set of heads. Remember some of these machines might have four heads on them and a raised head, two replay heads if it's bidirectional and a record head. some machines like the Akai GX-77 which is a bi-directional machine, will record and replay in both directions. Meaning it has a complete set of two replay heads, two record heads and two e raised head. Six heads on the machine all being in contact with the tape and being worn regardless of the tape direction. So as a result of that, you could be up for replacing all six heads on a machine, which will not be cheap.

So lastly, you've got to think about what your Budget is, when you're buying a machine, not just the purchase price. And you might think you've got a great deal there, but what's the actual cost going to be once you've bought the machine? Don't think within age of these machines of a minimum of 30 years old, sometimes up to 50 years old, that you're going to get a machine that's fresh out of the box and you can just sit it on your shelf, plug it in and listen away. I'm afraid with this format it doesn't work like that.

Well, I hope this, audio version of this presentation of buying a Realtor Real Machine has answered a few questions. I'm more than happy to take questions. If you wish to drop me a line, you can do that via my Facebook page, Real Resilience and through Facebook messenger or if you go on my website realresilience.co.uk there's an inquiry book, a repair form. Please send me your inquiry that way and I’ll aim to get, in touch with you within say, 48 hours or two working days, not over the weekend. If you send the message on a Friday, expect the answer by hopefully Monday or Tuesday the following week and I'll be more than happy to offer my advice there.

Getting the Flux Out of There: De-Magging Heads and Erasing Tape - Part 2: Erasing Tape

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 11:24:45 GMT

Getting the Flux Out of There: De-Magging Heads and Erasing Tape

Part 2: Erasing Tape

Like the questions concerning de-magging, tape erasure is also surrounded by myths and hearsay too. “Will my machine erase the tape? Or should I look at getting a bulk eraser? are common ones. “Yes“ is the answer to the first question. That is what the erase head is for. (Remember the recording process will not wipe the tape. It will just add the recording signal to whatever is on the tape. As for an answer to the second question: It depends upon your application.

Running a tape through a machine is both wasteful in head life and time consuming. I’d recommend a bulk eraser if you are using tape in the professional environment. If you have a few tapes you cycle through at home or you have previously recorded tapes say in a quarter-track format and you are reusing them on a 2 track machine (or vice versa) you may wish to get them bulk erased as there is the risk that fringes of previously recorded audio tracks will still remain after passing over the erase head and could be replayed with the new signal.

For the professional or those using a wider tape than quarter inch, you will have to consider the sized of your eraser too. My Tom Clancy paperback book sized one will simply not be up to wiping anything greater than a quarter-inch wide tape (and even then, as I have found, it needs a second or third go to fully wipe it!) I can’t speak in authority for suitable models than anywhere other than the UK. Here the Wiercliffe bulk-eraser is, if you can find one as they are no longer made, the one to go for.

Contained in a wooden case, it is about the size of a large microwave oven and weighs three times as much. (No exaggeration). It will handle 2” wide reels with ease and blast any audio off them in short order. The issues to look out for are they are all now at least 35 years old now and can suffer from various issues.

The erasing action is switched on via a spring-loaded vertical door that you press down with one hand and slide the tape into the aperture to wipe it with the other. The switches on these doors can fail meaning the unit will not work. You will know it is working as the tapes make a metallic buzz when being wiped. But, worse, the switch can fail on and the de-magnetising coil can burn out. The other aspect to consider is safety. Keep wanted tapes away from them as they will be affected. Don’t wear a watch, or have your phone nearby, as it will destroy them. Lastly, and most importantly, don’t use one if you have a pacemaker fitted. On an aesthetic level they are ugly to look at too, so it’s not the kind of thing you want to have on display in your listening room!

Otherwise, you could step down a notch and look for a Tom Clancy book-sized one. Mine was made by Akai and was found on eBay. The same conditions apply to bulk erasers as buying a de-magger:

1. It is designed to operate on the mains voltage of your country

2. Does it work.
3. Is it safe?

Of course, you could just adopt a position of de-magging is not for me and my quantity of tapes means I am happy to let the machine wipe them. If so, then just put a tape on your machine, press play and enjoy your reel-to-reel. You may even want to settle down with a book too: The Hunt for Red October perhaps?

(Wiercliffe bulk eraser image https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8355666/weircliffe-model-7-bulk-tape-eraser) .

Getting the Flux Out of There: De-Magging Heads and Erasing Tape - Part 1: De-Magging

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 11:24:43 GMT

Getting the Flux Out of There: De-Magging Heads and Erasing Tape

I have a tape bulk eraser. It’s quite a meaty thing. About the size of a Tom Clancy paper back novel. It has a spigot at one end to mount 10.5” diameter reels of tape, allowing you to rotate the reel evenly over the coil to wipe everything clean.

A while ago I sold some previously recorded Maxell XL1 quarter-inch tape on 10.5” diameter reels on an auction site. Not wishing to infringe copyright by selling the music on the tapes, I rotated them a few times on my Tom Clancy bulk eraser and sold them on. A few days after the sale the feedback came in: “Top seller. Fast delivery. The music on the tape was unexpected but worth a listen.”

So much for my “bulk eraser”!

The eraser does work, in case you are wondering. Except if you are planning to successfully wipe a tape with it. A few turns of the reel won’t be enough. You really have to fry the tape!

And that’s the rub: Those new to this format often treat their tapes like a newly completed jigsaw. Carefully moving them around in case any of the little magnets of sound shake off. Of course, best practice is not to be lazy in how you look after your tapes: In 35 years of working with reel-to-reel I have lost count of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of reels of tape I have seen stored in damp basements and outhouses or stacked up, like a collection of dinner plates, on top of a speaker. But here’s a thing. The majority of them, subject to the tape itself not suffering mechanical degradation (which is another issue entirely) all played well. No dropouts, no hf loss, no funny phrasy stuff you can’t quite define. In truth it’s quite hard to wipe the contents off a tape.

Just look at the erase function of a tape machine to see this in practice. A 100kHz plus signal at 2 to 4 times the amplitude of the signal the record head sends to the tape, imparted into the tape as it slides over the erase head, with no other tape in the way to protect it. And even then, depending upon the format of the heads and how the machine is aligned, may not entirely wipe the tape. That’s how tough a job the machine has to do to blast a tape clean!

To de-mag or not to de-mag: That is the Question.

When asked “How often should I de-magnetise my heads?” it’s a little like asking me “How often should I pray to my chosen deity?” You see, I don’t know! Starting a conversation like this is a little philosophical. For others? Well, they just like to pull the pin on a discussion grenade and walk away! Yes, I do de-mag the heads of machines. Of the hundreds I have worked on, not one do I know its operational history and the care in ownership it has had, so I am not going to risk putting my expensive alignment tapes, of which I have spent thousands on over the years, on an unknown machine. Others I know, who have a lifetime of experience in the format, say it’s snake oil and you shouldn’t bother. My position is: It can’t hurt provided the de-magging process is done properly and with the right tool for the job. The actual technique for de-magging the heads of any tape-based recorder from 2” multitrack machines to a micro cassette is exactly the same, just the scope and size of de-magger changes. There is a video on the Reel Resilience YouTube channel titled “Machine Preparation” detailing the technique I use. It can be found at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt-7nvjAPro

Why do heads get magnetised?

The consensus seems to be that, unless there is a fault in the electronics (more on this aspect later) there seems to be no reason the de-mag the heads of a machine. If you consider the magnetic recording and replay process, it’s only, by definition, that the record head is like to suffer any residual magnetism. It is the one generating the magnetic flux that is imparted into the tape. The replay head is just picking it up off the tape. This flux level is so small anyway that if the replay head did get magnetised in any way by the flux coming off the tape, then that imparted into the coil of the head would be so small that the reproduced signal would be in audible.

The most likely cause of head to be magnetised is that a DC voltage has leaked into the coil of the head and caused a permanent magnetic “charge” within in it. And for it to do this means the Record or Replay amplifiers have developed a fault.

To allow the AC signal voltage swing within an audio amplifier to have equal level in both positive and negative directions, the centre of the signal has to sit at the midpoint between the two extremes of the amplifier supply voltage. If the amplifier was supplied with both positive and negative supply voltages of equal level this mid-point would be 0v. However, such positive/negative supply rail design increases the complexity of the circuit and the power supply. The easier solution is to supply the amplifier with a single, usually positive, voltage supply and then design the circuit so the AC signal sits at the midpoint of this supply rail. When the signal leaves the amplifier “blocking capacitors” are used to stop the mid-point DC voltage from leaving too and effecting subsequent amplifier stages. Take a look at the circuit schematics of any tape recorder audio amplifier and you will see the symbol of a capacitor as the first component the signal encounters when entering this stage and the last thing it passes through as it leaves it. This is especially important with a record amplifier that passes its signal to the record head of a tape recorder. If the blocking capacitors fail, or partially fail, (known as going “leaky”) then the mid-point DC voltage will escape into the head and impart a magnetism into it. This is more likely to happen in the record head as the amplifier design final stage will have a signal sitting at a DC mid-point. In a replay amplifier the signal is just coming of the head and being fed to a circuit stage which will then sit at a DC midpoint.

How do magnetised heads manifest themselves?

The effect of a magnetised head is the presence of high frequency noise on the signal. Some say that de-magging the heads of a tape recorder will “restore the highs” (frequencies) of your machine. It won’t. But a magnetised head exhibiting this noise will mask the high frequencies. De-magging won’t restore high frequencies of your audio, it just pulls the veil of noise off of them.

To my recollection, in 30+ years of supporting the tape format I have only encountered magnetised heads twice. The effect can be quite subtle. In one instance the audio appeared unaffected, but the measured noise figure on ONE channel was awful: Easily 20dB worse than the other one. Replaying a blank tape found the tape noise to be equal on both channels. But on Record the magnetised head was imparting this noise into the recording. It probably was affecting the recording, it was just so high, other amplifier stages were filtering it out, but that’s not the point. It was still affecting the recording. Also note it was on one channel only. The DC in the head was on one track coil only, it wasn’t spilling over and effecting the other head coil. That is how small the flux level is that causes a head to become magnetised.

De-magging the head caused the coil in the head to lose its magnetism, but it returned within a VERY short time as the failed blocking capacitor let the DC signal through and “charged” the coil up. Re-capping the board (another area outside the scope of this article) solved the issue.

A magnetised record head does not seem to effect pre-recorded tapes. Of course, the magnetised coil of the head does represent a permanent magnet, but for the same reasons outlined in the beginning of this article on my attempts to bulk erase a tape, its effect is so small it had no impact on the material on the tape. A magnetised head will not act like a Whylie Coyote’s cartoon horseshoe magnet, with anything ferric nearby, and not bolt bolted down, sticking to it!

I mentioned the Reel Resilience YouTube video on de-magging, and this is where I agree with those that say de-magging carries a risk greater than what it is designed to eliminate. I.e. an incorrect de-magging technique can impart a magnetism into the head and make things a whole lot worse. Follow the best practice outlined in the video. Have a practice with the de-magger switched off just to make sure your technique is ok.

What de-magger is best for my machine?

I have around 10 de-maggers of various types: From the cassette-based ones and small devices designed to access heads in such decks to what I call my “Looney Tunes” de-magger that will take on a 2” head and win. Provided the correct procedure is observed (see the YouTube video) here is nothing wrong in using such a device on a cassette deck, although accessing the actual heads may be an issue. But the converse is not true: You need a hefty de-magger for a large head. The other thing to note is make sure the metal tip of the device is covered. You do not want risk scratching the surface of the head.

Reel Resilience sells new de-maggers that are ideal for heads up to those using quarter inch-tape. These seem to be the only ones readily available now and before I stocked them, I made sure they could do the intended job. This involved using my large de-magger in the wrong technique to magnetise a worn-out head. I checked it had been magnetised by placing a compass near it. I then used the same model of de-magger I now stock to successfully “clean” the head. These de-maggers can be found in the Reel Resilience shop at this link: https://www.reelresilience.co.uk/shop-1?page=2

For de-maggers larger than this I recommend the Handi-mag. They are not made now but do come-up for sale on auction sites. Just make sure:

1. It is designed to operate on the mains voltage of your country

2. It works.

3. It safe!

How often should I de-mag my heads?

As I said, I don’t know! An equally useful answer could be “When they need it.” There are schools with the audio fraternity who are adamant that “analogue is best” and “there is a warmth in vinyl.” I’m not getting into this debate; all I will say to these statements is “it depends upon what kind of distortion you like.” It’s the same with the frequency of de-magging. If you think it needs doing every month to maintain the sonic purity of tape, then so be it. Remember heads on an unused machine will not magnetise themselves. They don’t draw it out of the ether like a sponge. If you are a sporadic user of your machines, then save yourself so effort and ease off the de-magging cycle. That said, if you are a regular user (which carries the impact of increased head wear, which is far more detrimental to the whole recording/replay process) then perhaps you want to increase the regularity? Whatever path you choose, just make sure the process is carried out correctly.

Part 1: De-Magging

Press Play> Podcast Ep 17: A New Reel-to-Reel from Thorens

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 11:24:42 GMT

Press Play> Podcast Ep 17: A New Reel-to-Reel from Thorens

In this episode we introduce the forth new reel-to-reel machine to arrive on the market. Thorens show their confidence in the resurgence of reel-to-reel by the launch of the TM1600 player. Gunter Kürten, CEO of Thorens, talks about why he wanted the Thorens name on a reel-to-reel , who the machine is aimed at, why it costs what it does and, the question most asked, why a player only.

You can find this episode and the other 16 so far here.

Press Play> Podcast Ep 11: Talking Heads - Part 1

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 11:24:41 GMT

Press Play> Podcast Ep 11: Talking Heads - Part 1

Tape heads: It all stops with a head when the audio is recorded on to the tape and starts with it on replay. Fortunately magnetic heads for audio recording are still manufactured by at least three companies across the World. Press Play > talks to two of them. In part 1, of this two-part podcast, to Peter Van Rompay, of AM Beligium http://www.ambelgium.be/en and in part 2, to Federica Galantino and Andrea Babuto, of Photovox Technology of Italy https://www.photovoxtech.it/ . We talk head re-lapping, butterfly heads and toll machines on subways and roads.

In my conversation with Peter Van Rompay we spoke about the benefits of butterfly heads over standard "parallel" ones. Peter very kindly consulted his expert colleagues at AM Belguim who provided me with the following:

The generated magnetic flux generated in a record head is strongest at the head gap and decreases rapidly outward.

That is why magnetic heads have a circular profile: the leakage flux is severely weakened and it can only influence the tape very little.

Leaking flux is not welcome in audio recorders, because it will distort the recorded signal.

The ends of the core should be as far away from the tape as possible to avoid unwanted audio noise.

The first solution to overcome this is shape the magnetic core with extended ends and the vast majority of audio heads are made that way.

A second solution is to have the cores with extended ends, placed in V shape in the head. In this way the ends are even further away from the tape you get a little less edge effect and a littl e more realistic sound.

Press Play> Podcast Ep 10: Righteous Reels

Sun, 07 Jun 2020 11:24:40 GMT

Press Play> Podcast Ep 10: Righteous Reels

John Farrar runs Righteous Reels based in Dalton, Pennsylvania https://www.righteousreels.com/ where he produces a range of simply awesome aluminium reels for tape machines. Here are the links to the Youtube videos mentioned in the Press Play> podcast Episode 10 - "Righteous Reels"

Mind hunter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffSwcZfqoVA

Tech Moan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfUBOVhKlEo

Pulp Fiction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKqEWmeZl2Y

Press Play> Podcast Ep 9: New Studer A810/A812 MPU Boards

Tue, 05 May 2020 11:24:38 GMT

Press Play> Podcast Ep 9: New Studer A810/A812 MPU Boards

The following is a transcript of my conversation, in Episode 9 of the Press Play> podcast, with Steve Fensome. He has created and excellent new product for Studer A810 and A812 machines: The MPU card. They are available for sale in eBay, via his Facebook page and also on his website Studer-MPU-boards.com. I started by asking Steve about his involvement with tape-recorders.

Steve Fensome

It's purely a passion, which has been for ever since I can remember really, as a kid, always messing around with stuff like that. In my professional background, I'm a heating engineer by trade. I've always got my head stuck in a boiler that's not behaving itself. This is just something that I do for pure joy. And I've done it for so many years now, when I left school, I did work for a local electronics firm that made opto electronic devices for press machinery. So I lapped-up a lot of information from that, the electronics and everything. But it's something that's just a passion really

Iain Betson

For me, it started off playing around with Dad's hi fi.

Steve

I'd say the same. Yeah, exactly the same anything mechanical, electromechanical, as a child, I got my fingers in it, whether I should have or not. All I remember, from a very young age. I think through some of my teenage years I probably have a misspent youth playing around and stuff like that instead of being out, but I made up for in the later years, so to speak.

Iain

So you've got a collection of machines now?

Steve

Yeah, too many actually.Well, actualIy I'm not so much in the domestic stuff anymore, rather than the professional now, but of course, as you know, stuffs getting it's very scarce now. And it's getting beyond the reach of most hobbyist people. I've got a few identical models, Studers mainly, and a few domestic machines. A couple of A810s in different states of repair.

Iain

When we first started communicating, because you're on so many of the groups on Facebook, we got in a conversation about the BBC lineup tapes and where you went to collect one of the Studers from. Tell me about that.

Steve

This guy in Manchester. An amazing bloke. He had two floors of an old cotton mill in Manchester. Absolutely massive. It was full of video equipment, ex BBC, ex ITV. Video machines and recording equipment on first floor and on the second floor was mainly reel-to--reel tape stuff. And I did I meet up with him at the end of his period there really. He said to me, "I wish I knew you a couple of years ago because he had so much stuff that he had tried to get rid of and couldn't." It was like wow! I got an A812 that done 250 hours. Wow, that's all it has done. I couldn't believe the head was like new on it. It had got the hour meter on the back. It was well, amazing.

Iain

How long ago was this?

Steve

2016/2015, it was probably just on the cusp of the interest. You know,

Iain

I detected last couple of years, interest in the format has kind of gone vertical. And people obviously going after desirable machines. But you know, I thought the way you were talking, with a warehouse full of this stuff, it was probably 2005 because, frankly, you couldn't give some of that stuff away then.

Steve

That's right. It probably was a little bit earlier than that. It was around that sort of time, you know,

Iain

So this guy, as you said, Yorkshire TV and the BBC, he would have been collecting all the cast-offs from the broadcasters?

Steve

Yeah, yeah. Getting rid of it around that kind of time.

Iain

So you've got an A812 off him. You said there were other machines there as well. What was there? Give me an idea.

Steve

Okay, there was an 24 track A800 sitting there

Iain

You should have taken that!

Steve

Oh no, I kick myself now, things I've turned down over the years now. But when stuff's plentiful you think that you just cherry pick. You're not thinking ahead 10 years this is gonna be desirable. He told me he was having three lorries a week delivering stuff to this place. Where he was getting it, through auctions or whether he'd got a contract with someone to get rid of this stuff, I don't know. I've never seen so many A807s in my life. Like a lot of soldiers lined up in a row, out the trolleys standing up there. That must have been 25 to 30, probably more, all lined up.

Iain

I like the A807, it's a simple but sophisticated machine.

Steve

Yeah, that's right. It's a lot better than people make it out to be, and the different ones that there are. I used to pick those up for 100 quid you know. I've a couple here as playback. That was ex BBC with the plate on the front where you'd ring the number if it goes wrong. So yeah, it was amazing place. To be fair it's a fair old truck for me from Northampton to Manchester and he actually rang me before the lease of the building was up and he had got a load of chassis that we weren't much left on them, there might have been a few motors attached and trolleys and he said, did I want them? I said, I'd love to, but I couldn't get up there to pick it up. So what happened I don't know. I'd imagine it went for scrap. I did go up there to get an A80 off of him, and when we got there the lift had packed up and you couldn't it downstairs.

Iain

Nobody was brave enough to come down the stairs with it?

Steve

Yeah, the stairs were like pitch black. Some guys were doing some electric work in the street and electric was off, so the lift was out. He delivered it to me in the end. I think the days are over for bargains.

Iain

I agree. I think it's two sides, really. People have got to be realistic at what they're expecting to pay for a machine but the flip side, I'm also seeing people selling these machines who are being completely unrealistic in what they expect for them. As you just said earlier in our conversation, you're steering clear of domestic machines and it's with regret on my website I've had to say I don't do domestic machines. Anyone knows I love them, but the point is, you're gonna get perhaps, even for a pristine one, 300 pounds, $300 for something like that. But that doesn't reflect on the price that you might have bought, even a junker for 10 pounds, $10, and it's someone's time and effort to strip it down, clean it, it needs parts, and it's just not financially viable. And it's getting to the point now where people want pristine B77s and they're getting to the point where you realize, if you think you're not going to make money on this if you sell it. If you're stepping up to an A810 you can spend, and let's be brutally honest about this, you could spend like $2,000 or so to fix these machines and you still get a profit at the end of it. But you're right, even the A807 is starting to borderline there. You know so it's a shame, but people got to realize the price of these machines going up and what they worth at the end of it.

Steve

That's right. Yeah, yeah, too many out there want ridiculous money and sadly, I did have a Technics RS 1700 at some point, which was a great machine and a guy from Poland, he was so keen he was he came all the way from Poland and picked it up. Amazing. You know, I mean, it's a great machine but at the end of the day it's a 4 track that, yeah, don't get me wrong, it's nice. But if you're looking for that little bit of extra, you know, you're really going with a two track.

Iain

Fantastic machines to look at.

Steve

Oh god yeah.

Iain

As a piece of, sort of, mechanical architecture.

Steve

Oh yeah lovely and pretty, you know. And some of the Akai GX range that's either 747 and I've still got a 646 somewhere, sorry a 636, and to look at, they're absolutely lovely.

Iain

I try and get the podcast away wholly from Studer Revox, but let's admit it, they are dominant in the industry. But they never really went in for too much of the bling, whereas the Pioneer, with all their blue LEDs and that nice aluminium, they looked lovely.

Steve

Yeah, they were built for both performance and looks, to catch that market.

Iain

So what do you use your machines for now?

Steve

It's just pleasure really. I haven't managed to persuade the wife to let me have an A80 in the front room. So in my listening room, as I call it, I've got an A810 and an A812, in a tall rack, which I use to listen on. So the A80s are in the workshop, and I just record on them now again, from digital or a high res file or something like that. Just for fun, really, I mean, and it makes amazing recordings, as you know. That's about all the use they get.

Iain

Do you collect tapes, pre recorded tapes?

Steve

I don't to be honest, I've got a few BBC stuff kicking around, some classical stuff that I picked up which sounded quite good, but I don't collect and I certainly don't buy any of these, I don't know whether you have ever heard of these people that are doing...

Iain

The alleged master tapes? There are some good and honourable record companies out there doing straight to tape and tape masters. I mean, good examples probably are STS and Chasing The Dragon, they're honourable and great quality. It's audiophile stuff. But I agree with you, when you're hearing of 1-to-1 master tapes from the Beatles. You think, yeah, right. Interesting that your listenership of these machines falls into exactly what I do, in that I actually just like the pressing play and seeing all the stuff work, and seeing that tape move. What it plays, sometimes I don't really care!

Steve

I'm the same here. I'm exactly the same. Yeah, I know.

Iain

I know some people like the analogue sound, fair enough. And that's it. It's so great about this hobby that the different sort of levels that people sort of approach it at.

Steve

Yeah. A lot like sound like you. As long as it's decent. I can listen to anything if it's a decent recording in the first place, then I'll listen to it, whatever it is, I mean, there's so many so called decent recordings out there that are terrible. And the stuff that's being churned out over the last, you could probably say, 20 years. Some of the recordings are absolutely dire, quality wise. So anything that's been recorded well, I'll listen to it.

Iain

And if you're playing it back on an A80 or an A812...

Steve

Yeah, even better. Yeah.

Iain

Ohhh that's fighting talk there! Are you saying the A812 is better than the A80?!

Steve

No, not at all. It's different. Yeah.Some people don't like the sound of the A812, it sounds a bit too clinical for them. I personally like it for playback. I don't record on it. But it's preferential taste in the end of the day. You know,

Iain

Do you ever get that fear though that you are playing it back, or you're recording, and you're like, "I'm grinding my heads down. I'm wearing the heads down!"

Steve

Oh, yeah! Because the market for heads is so dried up at the moment. It's gone, basically, you know. If anybody has got any Studer heads for sale, well, you could get two machines for the price that want for it, you know, 10 years ago. Yes, I do. Especially on the A812. I keep thinking "I need to take the record cards out. I need to take the HF driver cards out. I need to take the record head off it." But I haven't, I haven't done it, but because you think well you're just wearing the record headout and never use it. Why not just turn it into a playback machine? It does bother me. Yeah. But I think, at the end of the day, the heads I've got are pristine so it's like, they probably outlive us anyway, you know, the amount of use they get.

Iain

That's a good way of looking at it. One of the reasons why I wanted to get you onto the podcast was because of a post you put way back, a good few months, you've been posting on the various groups, about a new A810 MPU card. Is it just for the A810?

Steve

And the A812.

Iain

You've been developing this? I mean, is it now a product?

Steve

It is. Right. Okay. It originally started with, I had an A812 that I picked up, that was sold to me as spares or repairs. And basically it was in way too good condition to scrap it. Basically someone robbed the cards out of it, just the audio cage and the capsule motor control card, but the other the other stuff was all in there. So I scoured the internet for MPU card, for an A812 or an A820, or whatever, it is basically the same. I couldn't find one anywhere. And if I did find one, I remember now, some miles away wherever, they wanted about 900 quid for it.

Iain

I think for our listeners here, who don't know the foibles of the StuderA810, '12, '20 MPU card, I would say, of all the parts on those machines it is the thing that's most likely to get trashed now because of battery leakage.

Steve

Oh yeah, because of the battery. Especially the A810.

Iain

These cards have got batteries on them. They've been what, minimum 30 years old now, they're leaking, and you can see it's all leaked out and in some cases, I've seen boards where it's stripped the tracks off, it's just completely absolutely toasted the board. As a consequence they are now quite rare, you get a machine that hasn't got battery leakage damage on it.

Steve

So in the end I thought, well hold on a minute. We've done projects like this before, let's have a look at it and, as I've said, I think about stuff for way too long a time, by the time I've made my decision you can forget it, but I thought about it for a while and then I thought "oh okay that we can do this". So we had to sacrifice the MPU card out of the good, working, 812, which believe me, when you're sitting there de-soldering it and cleaning it all off, this better work, yeah! So there you are, with a blank card, and all the tracks intact, because you've been so careful. You know, you're cutting the IC sockets off with a pair of side cutters then pulling each pin out one by one. It's like, yeah!

That's what I did, and then scan that into the computer and build the PCB up from that and then send it off and got that made. And then when they come back, obviously put it together and hey, presto, there you go. Not quite as easy as that, but sourcing the components, so while we thought of doing the 812, so a hold on, A810s, they're the same, they're even worse than the others because you got the rechargeable batteries on the A810. So, I had a spare one anyway, kicking about. So we did the same with that, got some of those made up. And that's how it came about really.

Iain

You are a brave man! Some of the components on those boards are still readily available. Obviously IC sockets and descrete components, but you are talking about EEPROMS on there that need burning. That need their brain installed into them. How did you go about sourcing and doing that?

Steve

Right. I think one of the hardest components to source on there was a good supply of genuine, you got to make this clear now, genuine components. There's a lot of hooky stuff out there. So I think one of the hardest was getting the MPU processor, but I did source some in the end somebody got 130 of them, genuine Motorola ones. They had to be genuine. So we was okay with that. So I picked them up. And now the EEPROMS, 2764s I think, if I remember right now. Yeah, they were a bit more difficult but there was a guy who I got in touch with for some EEPROMS for the 812 which I think has 128s in them. And he had some new old stock of those and they are new, and it's like I couldnt believe it, about about 80 of them. So we managed to get them so basically scouring the country for stuff and then you've got to burn them. So yeah, I've got an old fashioned EEPROM burner that we use. So, as long as you've got the check-sums for the software, which is readily available on the internet, it will tell you the check sums of different software versions, as long as you've got a good set to copy, get them up onto the computer and then just burn them off, one-by-one basically. And away you go.

Iain

So you scoured the world but the sound of it, you've got sort of 130 of this and 80 of that. Is it a finite resource that you've got, or do you think you will continue to search? It strikes me then, if you've got 80 of one and 130 of the other, you've got 80 say full cards you can create but are you looking for other devices?

Steve

Yes. Oh, yeah. I mean, RAM chips are another one, trying to get the static RAM chips it's quite difficult to find genine ones again, I emphasize genuine. I did get some that they said were genuine and it's like, they don't like it and of course they play up, so you know, might work okay for a couple of days and you'll come in switch machine on and it will give you EE 01. Oh great! Here we go, lost all this memory. So yeah, I've learned to tell now for looking at it straight away. I think well, that's genuine or that's not genuine, you get a feel for it. So I've got quite a few of them, but I'm actively looking all the time to see if there's anything else. I mean, I suppose a real, real last resort, I wouldn't want to really do it, but you could recycle the EPROMS. A lot of people will sell socket-pulls and I reckon they're in good nick. You can test them, you know, as long as they've been handled all right, but I wouldn't really want to do that. To be fair. I test them for four or five hours in a machine over a period of a week maybe, you know, on and off, on and off, and you know, straightaway, if it's going to be okay, once it's in, if it works first time it's gonna be okay. 9 times out of 10 you never have one that doesn't, you know. If it's not gonna work, it's not gonna work first time. So yeah, all good stuff, as I say.

Iain

So you've now got a viable product for, you mentioned A812 and A810? And you get that A820s as well?

Steve

Well the A820 MPU is the same as the 812

Iain

Yes, the same electronics at the A820 same transport as the A810. Yeah, a bit of a hybrid.

Steve

So they are, yeah, it's half and half, the A812. Half A810 and half A820. And A816 I think as well. But the MPU cards for the '12 are the same for the audio MPU in an A820. And it's main MPU, just different software, different jumper settings. But I've never had the chance obviously, to try it, because, I haven't got an A820!

Iain

So you've got these cards now and they're available to buy now?

Steve

They are, yeah, they are. Yeah, I mean, I've got about 18 in stock ready to go. And I've probably sold about the same amount already as well, I would think. And what's happened now, because they're starting to go, we've actually put the price down, a bit more realistic.

Iain

I was about to asks that. How much are they?

Steve

They're £295.00 now. Originally they are a bit more than that. And at the end of the day, I mean £295.00, if it's going to bring your A810 back to life, it's nothing is it?

Iain

I think that's excellent. Well, when you think I've paid 400 pounds for a Spooling Motor Control Board on an A810 before because I had to get it, that's a fantastic price. So that really is great. And, you're selling these internationally are you? It's 295 obviously, UK pounds but?

Steve

UK pounds Yes. Yeah, they go all over the place, to be fair, ones have sold already. There's been quite a few actuallyin the UK. China. America

Iain

You must have sold some back to Switzerland. Please say that!

Steve

You know, I haven't. Or I have I?! We've gone Hong Kong. We've gone to Surrey, China, London, Singapore.

Iain

How are people finding out about it? I mean, your website?

Steve

I haven't got a website, just on the Studer (Facebook page). And they're on eBay as well.

Iain

People if you're listening to this podcast please get in touch with me. You can find my details on Reel Resilience.co.uk, you can find me on Facebook. And like I'm talking to Steve here about items that people are creating for tape-machines, we've spoken about Studer Revox quite a lot, but it doesn't matter if you're making for any other manufacturer, or even if it's just accessories that are across the board, such as spools, there's a guy in America and I've tried to drop him a line to say you know, you're making these beautiful spools with all lovely aluminum etching and that kind of thing, you know, let's get in touch, let's talk. So making these parts for machines we love, please drop me a line and we can talk like Steve and I'd happily plug your products you know. So, you're making this card any other ideas for the future, because obviously put a lot of hours into this MPU board. Any other things, such as a Spooling Motor Control Board, Capstan Motor Control Board?

Steve

The spooling motor control board is quite a troublesome bit of kit, but there's no plans at this present moment in time to look at that. It's just getting the components, some of the components on some of this stuff is difficult. And I've found on some of the cards that they're quite fussy about what replaces something, not just a matter of thinking, yes, this is an equivalent, according to the datasheet it should do, because, 9 times out of 10, it doesn't work, or it doesn't work as it was intended to without changing dozens of other components. So, if you going to do something, make sure you can get everything and you can make it work as it should. I mean, I was thinking about this the other day, I mean the next lot, we might even get rid of the charging circuit altogether on the A810 card and just put a lithium in and then you haven't got no trouble with the battery leaking in 10 years time or anything like that. But I'd like to think, if someone goes to bother of puttting a new card in, then they'll be keeping their eye on that, or I say, check it every 12 months if you're not using the machine, like if it says that they hate being sat there doing nothing.

Iain

This is actually an issue I have with, especially with professional users, studios that you know, the reason why tape is lifted off, is off the back of the vinyl revival. And I'm getting studios going oh, we want to use their tape machine again. And I think that what you've got there is like a vintage car. Like an Aston Martin, like a beautiful Ferrari. You've left it in a garage for 20 years with a sheet over the top of it, you now want to just get it out on a sunny Sunday, or whatever, and take it for a spin expecting it to work perfectly, and it doesn't. These machines are electromechanical devices and the oil dries out and the grease goes solid, the batteries go flat on the later machines. You got to run these machines, you got to take them out.

Steve

Yeah, I mean I done some at the weekend, I'll just run a couple just to the fact that haven't been run for a while. My wife says "Why have you got those running?" And I say they're just running, because they need to be run, you know.

Iain

On the first podcast I did my guest was Stuart Blacklock, if you've seen Stuart's collection. And he admits himself, he'll fix the machine and it's running perfectly, but by the time you can cycle, he's got about I don't know, Stuart I'm sure you can correct me on this, 400 machines? By the time could cycle all that lot you know you're back to square one.

Steve

Not a bad hobby is it? You can go around in circle.

Iain

Or find space for 400 machines! But yeah, you gotta just you run them because they hate being left.

Steve

That's right. Yeah, worst thing you can do. worst thing you can do with it. Yeah, yeah. So that's where we're at with them. So they're our they are up and running. And if anybody wants them, then I can look on eBay or they can drop me an email or through the Studers Users group or something like that.

Iain

One quick question. You said "we". Is it just you?

Steve

Well, we is me! It is only me, so I do everything. Yeah, I put them together when we test them. And we do this and we do that, just one man in his workshop doing what he likes doing basically.

Iain

Can't go wrong with that, one man in his workshop.

Steve

Even in this difficult time now. I mean, I'll spend a lot of time up here, which is good. But I did say to my wife I don't really want to get to the stage where I'm going up the worshop because I have nothing else to do, because I come up, because I want to come up here. I don't come up because I've got to. So if I ever get sort of feeling like I don't want to go up, you know, then it will be a pretty sad really, but if everything turns out nice and we can get back to normal.

Iain

Let's just dwell on the nice things of just putting tape on that machine. You are lacing it up. And you press play, and it all goes "clunk". And then you see that 15 ips. We are in heaven.

Steve

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more.

Iain

Steve. Thanks very much. It's been fantastic talk to you. This card's on eBay, or you can find them on the Studer Users Groups. There's no website, but if that's the way you're selling them, then that's the way you're selling them. And yeah, I urge you if you've got an A810 or an A812. Go to Steve if you need a replacement MPU card because it certainly sounds, I take my hat off due to the effort you've gone to producing, effectively, a brand new, retro, call it what you will, card for these machines, great! That you've done it. And had the guts to take apart a working MPU card as well.

Steve

Well, yeah, what's the worst thing that can happen, it ends up in the bin! Yeah. It's been. It's been great talking to you, Iain, Really nice.

Iain

Thank you very much. It's been wonderful talking to you.

Steve

Yeah, goodbye to you. Thank you.