Message Board

I don't think there are nonmusical or only hobby-level musical types hoarding Pultecs yet, I know for sure there are a number of people who have no use for recording gear but are buying it up and selling on e-bay. Even old audio transformers as used in classic pieces of gear. They are amazingly kno...

The 535 is supposed to be the most "transparent" although it has the least power. They are rated at about 65W RMS per channel but actually put out quite a bit more (some people claim 85 W but my measurement says about 70-75W). But all of them are quite decent amplifiers. The series two supposedly ha...

Another vote for the FD2. The more I use it the more I like it. If you want some extra coloration and grind a RAT works great and its stupidly cheap compared to other stuff. But my experience is that its virtues are found not in running the distortion up high but adding just a pinch of grind and set...

I've heard great stuff come off both types of machines and have experience with both myself. The real issue here is what kind of shape are the heads in (these are very expensive to replace), as well as the mechanics (not even sure if you can get rollers/idler wheels etc. for these anymore). It is li...

Thanks for the warm welcome and some good advice. So a recap, rechip and a new PSU too.... Crumbs, that's a job and a half! I'm right in the middle of moving house so I think this one will stay on the "to do" list for a bit longer :D I know exactly what you mean. I have several of these type of pro...

There is lots of room for improvement on these before you need to bother with replacing opamps. Even if you don't replace opamps a bigger, extenal supply makes a HUGE difference. The supply that is in there is barely adequate in my estimation.Proper bypassing (as mentioned) helps. Caps. must be repl...

The newer ones (not sure where they were made) are far worse than the old ones in terms of sound quality. Probably less clean than a Mackie (not to dump on Mackie). The older ones certainly weren't API or Neve and some of them had issues but some sounded better than they get credit for. Exascerbatin...

I had one of the older ones (don't remember the model). As said already, mic. preamps are OK, EQ actaully is pretty good. The pushbutton switches can get noisy or intermittant. Having said that the one I had sounded way cleaner than a Mackie (yes, I did a direct comparison) even though the Studiomas...

If it's a newer Studiomaster, skip it. If its an older one they are quite colored, but I would still rate it as more transparent than say a Mackie. I've heard some nice mixes come off the older ones and had one myself but.... they do have reliability issues. In particular the push button switches. A...

The first thing you need to do is check to see if your power supply is running too warm. The power transformer should not be running hot. The rectiifier diodes should not be running hot. Regulator chips sometimes run a little warm to the touch, but again, if they are running hot you may be pushing i...

I had a Studiomaster 16 channel board . The board sounded pretty good, much better than a Mackie and the EQ actually sounds decent. The Studiomasters have a somewhat colored sound (kind like puting a thin coat of caramel on everything) but I've heard some nice mixes come off from them. The pre's are...

Dynaco A-25's are cheap, easy to find, work well with low powered amps and receivers and make excellent monitors.

Having worked as an audio service tech during much of the 70's and an avid audio junkie during the 80's I went deep into the world of the rabid audiophile for a while. While I never had the money to go completely over the top like many have, I found over the years that it became very easy to over em...

I'm surprised no one's mentioned things like the Silvertone 1481, Kalamazoo Model 1 (a Champ eater), small old Gibsons (many still cheap), Audiovox. A lot of these make great recording amps and I use these old cheapies as much as my 64 Deluxe Reverb. Many of them take pedals extremely well too. For ...

I used to have one of these (actually I still do, its been in storage for many years). I have a fair amount of experience aligning tape machines and the 80-8 was always a touchy beast that you could never seem to get perfectly dialed in. In some cases the best you could do was 'kinda close'. Like Br...