[icefox]

Friends

Rcenty experienced the power of reel-to-reel in an audio budies system, it triggered the upgrade bugs of mine internally. Geex, I am now doing research on this beast.

I have short listed the following,

- Revox G36
- Studer B67
- Revox PR99II mk2 or mk3
- Studer 810 or 807

I would love to have any form of comments on this stuff from you guys. Feel free to share.

[Bill Baker]

Hi icefox,
  I don't have a lot of experience with the models you mentioned but do have a few reel-to-reels lying around here. Mine are all older tube units that I am planning on rebuilding.

  Reel units still have a small (very small) following but it can be a very enjoyable experience for those who prefer the analog sound.

  I still run one in my system which consist of all tubes. It doesn't get a lot of use yet as I need to go through the piece and replace some tubes but it will remain in at least one of my systems. Reels are good for a night of casual listening allowing you to forget about all your gear and just enjoy some music. I put a lot of my favorite vinyl onto reels.

  Good luck and enjoy your analog!!

[DVV]

Friends

Rcenty experienced the power of reel-to-reel in an audio budies system, it triggered the upgrade bugs of mine internally. Geex, I am now doing research on this beast.

I have short listed the following,

- Revox G36
- Studer B67
- Revox PR99II mk2 or mk3
- Studer 810 or 807

I would love to have any form of comments on this stuff from you guys. Feel free to share.

I currently use my trusty, old Philips N4520, which I bought in 1981 and which I service and maintain myself. I don't use it much these days, but once a week is mandatory.

I have been an open reel freak ever since I swiped my dad's Uher 4000L, a mono tape deck, way back in 1964. That was what started me out in audio. Later on, the guy who used to sit next to me in high school went on to become one of the greatest rock singers around in Serbia, and was big even in old Yuogoslavia. Fooling around with him took me to professional recording studios, where Studer decks were the norm, but machines from MCI were also around, and, being technology orientated, I took every go at them I could manage.

On basis of that, from the above list, my choice would be Studer's B67. It has an outstanding history, even for Studer. Find one in a reasonably good condition, try it out and chances are you'll be spending heavily on rejuvenating it.

In return, you will hear a sound unlike any other you have ever heard in the analog world (unless you have experience with other open reel tape machines of that caliber). Somehow, it's middle of the road between delicate but typically unsubstantial phono RIAA EQ stages, whose finesse is second to none, but which lack body, weight and gravitas in many instances, and the analytical, clinical digital, which has body and weight, but lacks the spirit, the nuances of the analog.

A well adjusted and calibrated open reel deck will unite these two seemingly opposing qualities and roll them into one. And you might well find yourself standing in awe.

But in all honesty, open reels always were a very expensive hobby, and these days are even more so. This pleasure will cost, and cost a lot. For a start, quality tapes were never cheap, and today must be more expensive due to small volumes made, in addition to which you will probably want to use greater speeds, namely 7.5 or 15 ips, which eat up that tape awful fast.

You have been warned - but don't let that stop you.

Cheers,
DVV

[4ears]

Icefox,

What you are going to use an open reel machine for. To record? Only for playback? You seem to be wanting half-track, not quarter-track?

[nathanm]

So what was the usual SOP with reel to reels back in the day?  Did people make copies of their vinyl records onto them?  Commercial albums were never released this way, were they?

After hearing what my old old cassettes were capable of; playing through my Nakamichi ZX-9 (with the most extended frequency response and pitch stability I ever heard) I can only imagine what big reels must offer.  To me cassette on that deck is superior to vinyl.  Tape hiss can be controlled with Dolby, but there's no cure for mechanical crackles and such from records IMO.   I suppose that a reel to reel deck would have the same amount of tweaky setup\maintainence issues as a turntable would though.

[satfrat]

I still have a Teac A6010 reel to reel left over from my service days. I used it to record all my buddies vinyl with my Garrard/Shure combo. I don`t recall any pops to speak of, just real pure music. But then again, I don`t recall much of anything from those days. Anywho, the Teac has a special place in my heart, and in my closet. Haven`t used it close to 25 years, since I had hair on my head. Regards, Robin

[Tonto Yoder]

I saw a Teac reel recently for about $30 (which seems to be the going price, judging by auctions on eBay). I considered getting it just because I never had a RTR in my audio life.  I thought it might be better to experiment with an inexpensive deck to see if it's worth the trouble/space before plunking down serious $$ for a more serious deck.

[4ears]

By comparing only the specs of reel and cassette, lots of people actually thought cassettes were better. Don't believe that for one second! I don't know how to describe the superiority over cassette except to say that, like the name says, the sound is open. Cassettes, and I've had or used plenty of the best decks, do not come close to getting the air around instruments. Sure, you can hear what's being played and sung, but in no way, shape, or form can a cassette recording equal a reel.

Reel machines need some maintenance, far more cleaning and demagnetizing, for instance. But there are still plenty of Revox A77's kicking from the 1970s. My favorites were Crown of Indiana and Revox. Never had a Studer, but Revox was sort of their home/semi pro branch.

Yes, you could tape a friend's records on your open reel. I used them before DAT to trade audience-recorded tapes. One huge advantage of reel over cassette for trading with other people is that the azimuth from one reel machine to another is usually pretty close. Cassettes can be wildly off. That's partly because cassette adjustments are much finer, and a little out of alignment means the treble is shot. That led to many people trying to compensate for loss of treble by playing the tape back with Dolby off or with 120 EQ instead of 70. What they really needed to do was adjust the azimuth of their play head until the treble sounded natural.

Also, few people used Dolby on reel recordings, which meant no incompatibility between different Dolbys. If you've ever traded with many people on cassette, you'll know that everybody's Dolby settings are way off from each other. Quite rare to find one that sounds natural that wasn't recorded on your own deck and played back on the same deck. With reel you had none of that nonsense.

There were indeed commercially sold open reel tapes, but they were never anywhere near as popular as 8-tracks and cassettes. Most people played records only, or used the tape recorder for taping music off the radio or a from a friend's collection.

[Tonto Yoder]

A humorous reel to reel story???  A relative of a relative went out to buy a "Good" stereo in the 70's (back when Quadraphonic was popular). Got the four speakers, the receiver and a quad r-t-r, but he thought the way to record an LP was to put a microphone in front of each speaker and play the LP.

[icefox]

Icefox,

What you are going to use an open reel machine for. To record? Only for playback? You seem to be wanting half-track, not quarter-track?

Hi 4ears,

Main purpose of the deck would be playback. Currently, content would be classical concert off my radio statio. You may be surprised, recorded copy of CD from good digital in fact is quite analogue to my ears.

[Marbles]

Main purpose of the deck would be playback. Currently, content would be classical concert off my radio statio. You may be surprised, recorded copy of CD from good digital in fact is quite analogue to my ears.

Just to be sure I understand, does the digital sound more analogue from the RTR than from the CD?  

On most RTR's, is there a marker for the beggining of songs so you can skip ahead like you could on some cassettes?

[DVV]

Main purpose of the deck would be playback. Currently, content would be classical concert off my radio statio. You may be surprised, recorded copy of CD from good digital in fact is quite analogue to my ears.

Just to be sure I understand, does the digital sound more analogue from the RTR than from the CD?  

That's exactly it, Rob. Analog recording at some decent speed, say 7.5 ips, kills the digital sound and leaves just the sound. Exactly how and why, I never found out. It just does. Take even a notoriously bad digital recording, tape it on an open reel deck, and it will sound at least half decent and far less offensive.

The open reel format seems to round off the signal, make it more palatable and listenable.

I also own a Sony TC-K808 ES series cassette deck. You know, dual capstan, three head, quartz lock, manual calibration for tapes and recording, Dolby B, C and S, the works, and while it can sound truly impressive, as good as any Nakamichi except the legendary Dragon, it still cannot compete with the unfettered dynamic range of an open reel deck. Not even the Dragon could, though it came awful close and gave most open reel manufacturers a nasry high voltage jolt.

On most RTR's, is there a marker for the beggining of songs so you can skip ahead like you could on some cassettes?

As far as I know, not on most, yes on some.

Ciao,
DVV

[Bob A (SD)]

Not mentioned here but definately worthy of consideration are the Tandberg TD-20A and TD-20A SE as well as the Technics RS-1500US series.

I continue to use my TD-20A and have a Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck as well.



System now also sports a dAck! and an Odyessy Tempest is en route.

[Marbles]

How were the Pioneer RT 909, and 707 units regarded?

I see they have selenoid switches which were much better than the older mechanical ones.   These RTR's look nice on the outside, and their prices on ebay seem to lean towards the high side.

[satfrat]

How were the Pioneer RT 909, and 707 units regarded?

I see they have selenoid switches which were much better than the older mechanical ones.   These RTR's look nice on the outside, and their prices on ebay seem to lean towards the high side.

      My Teac 6010 has those selenoid switches, but then it was a semi-professional R&R back in 1970 and it WAS high end for that day. To think I was only 18 and had such equipment, just to wait til I was 52 to return. Guess it was a much different story financially when the Army was taking care of me,,, Regards, Robin

[nathanm]

Do the reel decks make a fair amount of mechanical\acoustic noise when they're running or are they pretty quiet?

[satfrat]

My 6010 was damn quiet, both mechanicly and acousticly. The seleniods made operations silent and the tape noise was negligible. R&R was state of the art recording, period. But you alwys had to keep the heads cleaned and demagnitized and the tape would break and generally just not hold up. Not a very good shelf life. I do miss the splicing tho, back then it made me feel like a recording programmer. Regards, Robin

[DVV]

How were the Pioneer RT 909, and 707 units regarded?

I see they have selenoid switches which were much better than the older mechanical ones.   These RTR's look nice on the outside, and their prices on ebay seem to lean towards the high side.

Depends who you ask, Rob. Pioneer's last series were decks intended for rack mounting in what amounted to 4 standard heights (4 HE). They sure looked sexy, but if you ask me, their sound was barely average for a tape deck.

The above comment is - of course! - influenced by my requirements of a tape deck, as any answer to your question will be. Their reduced size meant nothing to me, but their inability to accept large tape reels was a strong downside for me. Ask people from FBI and CIA and they could well tell you the opposite - small size was a big plus, and their inability to do music well (in my view) also means nothing to them, all they want is the human voice range, for as long as possible on any given reel size.

Rob, what you must understand about tape decks is what they were (and still are for some of us) to most serious users - they were ACTIVE audio. Sure, you put in a tape, press the REC button and you are in business; to some, that was that. To others like myself, tape decks were THE serious part of audio. We like calibrating them (if the deck allows the user to do so, which frankly, most didn't), cleaning the tape path, stabilizers, pinch rollers and the capstan, demagnetizing the heads (I still use my Sony 60W demagnetizer I bought in 1978), and so forth. You had to do all that regularly if you wanted it to perform as well as it could.

Some called it playing with audio, others thought of it as the right way to use them. Kind of like a classic sports car - it doesn't have one quarter of the gadgets they build into cars today (some of which are admittedly very smart stuff), it uses multiple carbs instead of electronic fuel injection (so you have to clean 'em up and adjust them once in 3-6 months), consumes a lot of petrol, but sit in it, put the pedal to the metal and man, you really feel it go and grow on you. Harder to drive (no way you could find power steering in a thoroughbred sports car!), but much more fun to drive than current models. So it is with tape decks.

Cheers,
DVV

[4ears]

I once owned a Pioneer RT-707. It was okay, but nowhere in the class of Crown or Revox.  But the Pioneer was around $500 retail, the Revox around $1500, the Crown $2000 and up (depending what year you bought them). Crown suffered from a big fire in their factory and they opted not to rebuild their reel-to-reel line after all the damage.

The Pioneer RT-909 *did* accept 10 inch reels.

The Crown made a lot more noise running than a Revox, especially at 15 inches per second. Could be a problem depending on where you had it located and what you were listening to. I can't recall exactly what the noise was from. I *think* it was from a heavy duty fan in back.

Remember, you may luck out and get a reel machine for dirt cheap, say $30. But if it needs a service call, expect to drop $100 if it just needs a little adjusting and cleaning. Way more if it needs heads or brakes or, especially, if its transport controls/logic controls are bad. I'd recommend paying more up front for a machine that is in excellent shape and has recently been serviced. It might very well be less expensive than dumping hundreds of dollars into a unit of questionable origin.

[Fathom7]

Interesting to see someone else investigating the wonder of R2R.  I keep coming back.  Over the decades   I jumped in and out of audio.  Now that I am back I had to have a deck to play the tape that I recorded in the 70's containing some great stuff off vinyl that you just alomost can't get any more.  So, into the dregs of auctions and other things I went.  I wound up with a match for what I used to perform the original recording with.  ReVox A77 Mk III with Dolby.  Not the TOP OF THE PILE even then but then was a lot of $$$ ago.  It meets my needs and plays well.  I'm picking some music off my digital stuff now and recording it.  Playback should be interesting.  Vintage stuff to be sure but somehow part of the fun.  You've got the right idea -- IMHO try for the ReVox Gear -- B77 came in 1/2 track if you really want upscale the 99 is the choice from the Swiss.