|   Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | rockclassics
Jan 8, 2003 7:54 PM | | I am in the market for a used reel to reel deck that can handle up to 10 inch reels, minimum of two speeds required - 3 3/4 and 7 1/2 ips. I am looking for the newest unit possible. Any recommendations on brand and model numbers? Which were the best and which to stay away from? Thanks in advance. |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | mtandrews
Jan 25, 2003 7:07 PM | | How much do you plan to spend and will it be for personal/home use or critical/archive type recording. mtandrews@hotmail.com |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | mtandrews
Jan 25, 2003 8:01 PM | | If you want get the best consumer deck, consider the Teac X1000-r or X2000-r, which is their top rated decks, they have 6 heads, built in dbx, play\record in both directions (I have one) plus you can still purchase repair parts, manuals, etc directly from teac. Akai's GX series from the 635 on up to the top which are the 747 & 747dbx are also excellent 6 head decks (I have a GX-747 also). If you find one with capstan problems, run away unless you have a tech in your pocket or a spare machine for parts. Pioneer 909 is a good home deck but parts are getting expensive. Avoid sony units unless you just gotta have one(sorry sony). Same goes for Technics. A B77 Studer-Revox if you can get a good deal on one in perfect condition is good. These were the workhorses of radio stations for decades. TASCAM, which by the way stands for Teac Audio Systems Corp.of AMerica, is the pro line of teac gear. Balanced XLR and 1/4 jacks are the norm. These (along with Otari and Tandberg) were and are still the workhorses of music studios worldwide. Look on the back of your favorite album's/tape's/cd's and find "recorded at XYZ studios" i.e. Artisan sound - Abbey road - Gee jam, then put that studio in an internet search engine to find their website and look at their equipment list and I guarantee you will find 2 or more of the decks listed above!! If there are any specific questions that you may have concerning a particular deck stuff, 2,4,8 tracks, sound on sound, typeI,II,III nr, etc, e-mail me and I will tell you what I know. I'm kinda versed in this medium. But I know you figured that out already. mtandrews@hotmail.com aka "the Reel Deel". |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | Night Wolf
Jan 27, 2003 5:04 PM | | it seems weird me asking this, being into vintage gear and all
but what are RTR decks used for? recording music? playing music? I just never really understand the purpos of them, I see them used in comercial things like hospitals to record phone calls etc... but what is the purpose of one for your house? |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | mtandrews
Jan 29, 2003 8:59 PM | | You can use your RTR for whatever you want to use it for. I record music on to mine esp. from my vinyl so I can save my vinyl and hear my music whenever I want. I have 4 track recording whereas I can do multi or sound on sound recording. The majority of your current CD's were mixed,mastered and transferred with a RTR of some sort. Yes, you will see them in hospitals, police and fire stations, but thats for call archiving. You get 384 minutes of music on one tape(try that with a non mp3 compact disc) that rivals,(or in my case, surpasses) the sound quality of cd's. I am getting 96-102 db s/n ratio which is high end cd territory using my Teac RTR with a dbx 224XII and a dbx 3BXII. You can edit,splice, add or remove tracks or whatever with one of these without disturbing whats on the other tracks. Thats how you got those cd's with artist A featuring singer B. For example you can record your drum and guitar section today on track 1,tomorrow record your singers on track 2, percusssion next month on track 3... you get the idea. Can you imagine trying to get David Bowie, Trent Reznor and the drummer from Filter together at the same time at the same place just to record a different version of "the hearts filthy lesson" for the movie Seven!?! I love my CD's but RTR rules!! |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | Night Wolf
Jan 30, 2003 1:09 PM | | hmmm, so you use the RTR for listening to music? you said the quality is good also? you hva eht buy the reels though, right? how much do they go for?
my cdp is 106db SN ratio, but around 100 is real good
so what would you recomend as a RTR deck to try out? manything vintage? and cheap
I don't really understand it yet, like I know now, but you record stuff, say vinyl on the reels, now when you want to play it back, you use the RTR deck and the reels? how does the tape on the RTR differ form a cassette tape etc...
sorry for the somewhat lousy questions, I just never really knew what they were used for, noone ever told me, and now that I found out, I am interested in one. |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | skeptic
Jan 31, 2003 2:29 PM | | Amazing what we once took for granted, is now so rare that some people never heard of it before.
RTR tape recorders was the only popular tape format before the cassette appeared sometime in the mid to late 60s early 70s. Cassettes are a method of packaging. There were others that you either don't know about or fell by the wayside like the 8-track. Reel to Reel tape is wider, plays at higher speeds, and all other things being equal, is capable of higher quality sound. But the difficulty of handling them, their comparative bulkiness, tape breakage, spillage, and stretching expecially if tape decks weren't properly adjusted made the convenience of cassettes compelling especially as technical improvements like Dolby allowed them to make high quality recordings as well. If you do your own recording, there is nothing that allows you to splice and edit like a RTR recorder. Except maybe a computer.
I own several. Haven't even had them out of the box in almost 20 years. (No I don't ever sell anything.) |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | mtandrews
Jan 31, 2003 9:10 PM | | think of a RTR as a giant cassette deck but instead of the tape being in a little plastic box its on a big reel. the less actions a head has to make the better it will perform. the best cassette decks has 3 heads (record, erase, and play). most are 2 heads and your bargain basements have only 1. your high quality reels have 6 heads (2 of each for each direction). On a reel the azimuth is set for each direction using 3 heads whereas a cassette has to comprimise as it uses the same head(s) for both directions. with a high ranked RTR, dont worry about sound quality, you'll get it. As I stated in the other response, the majority of music that you listen to on cds was mastered on a reel deck, even your cds that say DDD, they were just mastered DAT that looks like a conventional reel it just uses 1/2 or larger tape, but thats getting into a whole other realm of audio. |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | skeptic
Jan 30, 2003 1:04 PM | | The Rolls Royce of tape decks was Crown.
The SX824 just might have been the greatest tape recorder available to the public. If you ever have the opportunity to own one, grab it. It will become a prized possession. |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | Night Wolf
Jan 30, 2003 1:10 PM | | I thought Nakamichi owned the tape deck market durrning the 80's, they had the Dragon tape deck and others. |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | skeptic
Jan 31, 2003 2:20 PM | | The Nakamichi Dragon was a cassette deck.
There's a Crown 722 on e-bay. Be careful, it's 1/2 track, not quarter. All of those other decks are very nice, Revox, Teac, Otari, but nothing is in the same league with a Crown. BTW, it was guaranteed to survive a parachute drop in its own case. That's how rugged it is. It's the same Crown in Indiana that makes professional amplifiers today. There tape recorder line was discontinued years ago. The reason they are so cheap---nobody wants them anymore. |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | Night Wolf
Jan 30, 2003 1:12 PM | | or by tape deck do you mean RTR? |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | mtandrews
Jan 31, 2003 9:13 PM | | you are right. the crown was and is a very, very good deck but like the rolls royce not many were produced and of the ones produced only a priveleged few had them, whereas more people could afford a cadillac. |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | skeptic
Feb 12, 2003 11:01 AM | | And there were many fine ones. Especially better decks made by the likes of TEAC, Dokoder, Tandberg, Revox, even Pioneer, Ampex, Mangecord and on and on. But there was nothing like a Crown. |
| re: Reel to Reel Stereo Decks | Toasted Almond
Mar 22, 2003 7:05 AM | | I have a beautiful, MINT, TEAC A-2340R that I am willing to part with. All accessories and some pre-recorded tapes accompany it. I will not ship it. It is available for pick-up only in the South/Central New Jersey area.
TA |
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