is buying a 1" 8track a good idea?
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Mark Alan Miller
- dead but not forgotten
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I used to have the pleasure of mixing to one of those (well, a 4-track one) that had been modded to 1/2" 2-track. Unvelievable sounding at 30ips. Simply incredible.
he took a duck in the face at two and hundred fifty knots.
http://www.radio-valkyrie.com/ao/aoindex.htm - download the new record (free is an option!) or get it on CD.
http://www.radio-valkyrie.com/ao/aoindex.htm - download the new record (free is an option!) or get it on CD.
If I end up digging this deck as much as I think I will, I'm looking at new heads in about 1000 hours +/- a few hundred hours and another $2000 
Hi Tony,
I understand that to be true only for repro heads. I quote from http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/headtrip.html
"Interestingly, the performance characteristics of a properly reconditioned playback head will actually improve as it wears. As the tip becomes shallower, the head becomes more efficient. The best performing playback head in the world is one that is just on the edge of going through the gap. So, if your playback head has a good surface, it's okay to keep using it right until it wears through.
Record heads are a different case as they approach the end of their working life. The signal is applied with the flux trying to bridge the record gap, but with only a sliver of tip depth remaining, the pole tip can saturate. This leads to increased distortion, biasing problems and, because you are driving the record head harder, increased adjacent channel crosstalk."
Doug didn't say exactly, but I am assuming he went with AMP rather than JRF due to scheduling. He told me to rest assured, that AMP knows what they are doing. And you know Doug, he wouldn't just let anybody mess around with a client's heads.
I understand that to be true only for repro heads. I quote from http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/headtrip.html
"Interestingly, the performance characteristics of a properly reconditioned playback head will actually improve as it wears. As the tip becomes shallower, the head becomes more efficient. The best performing playback head in the world is one that is just on the edge of going through the gap. So, if your playback head has a good surface, it's okay to keep using it right until it wears through.
Record heads are a different case as they approach the end of their working life. The signal is applied with the flux trying to bridge the record gap, but with only a sliver of tip depth remaining, the pole tip can saturate. This leads to increased distortion, biasing problems and, because you are driving the record head harder, increased adjacent channel crosstalk."
Doug didn't say exactly, but I am assuming he went with AMP rather than JRF due to scheduling. He told me to rest assured, that AMP knows what they are doing. And you know Doug, he wouldn't just let anybody mess around with a client's heads.
Knowing what I do at this point, I wouldn't spend money on a Studer 1" 8 track unless it was a really good deal.
The reason is there are a million parts in those things that are hard to track down if they fail. Both hard to track down in terms of availability and actually diagnosing which part has failed you.
I'm not the most tech savvy person though.
But I bought a 1" 8 track Ampex 440 and the thing it has going for it is the transport is just motor driven, non full servo. Yes it's not as smooth, but you can pretty quickly tell what's wrong when things go wrong. And the electronics are really basic. Plus all the cards are right on the front so it takes literally seconds to find out something is wrong on one of the cards simply by swapping one for an adjacent channels'.
What I've heard before is that when Studers are setup properly, they run quite well, and of course you can do all sorts of fancy stuff with the transport, but when they go down it's a bitch to get them up and running again and parts are generally more expensive.
Plus they probably cost a lot more than an Ampex 440 1" or a Scully.
Anyway, I think Studers were really great because of the options and the smooth transport. But they were meant to be used every day and maintained in a studio environment when studiios still had actual techs that only did tech work. At this point, if you're using a tape machine in tandem with a digital setup like most folks, an Ampex would be less of a hassle even if it's more basic.
The reason is there are a million parts in those things that are hard to track down if they fail. Both hard to track down in terms of availability and actually diagnosing which part has failed you.
I'm not the most tech savvy person though.
But I bought a 1" 8 track Ampex 440 and the thing it has going for it is the transport is just motor driven, non full servo. Yes it's not as smooth, but you can pretty quickly tell what's wrong when things go wrong. And the electronics are really basic. Plus all the cards are right on the front so it takes literally seconds to find out something is wrong on one of the cards simply by swapping one for an adjacent channels'.
What I've heard before is that when Studers are setup properly, they run quite well, and of course you can do all sorts of fancy stuff with the transport, but when they go down it's a bitch to get them up and running again and parts are generally more expensive.
Plus they probably cost a lot more than an Ampex 440 1" or a Scully.
Anyway, I think Studers were really great because of the options and the smooth transport. But they were meant to be used every day and maintained in a studio environment when studiios still had actual techs that only did tech work. At this point, if you're using a tape machine in tandem with a digital setup like most folks, an Ampex would be less of a hassle even if it's more basic.
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moogplayer
- steve albini likes it
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- Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 12:39 pm
- Location: San Diego, CA
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I owned a 3M M56 2" 16-track for 4-5 years. It's a really nice sounding deck. Low end for days. The isoloop design really hugs the tape close to the heads. Resulting in stellar sound at the cost of being hard on the heads. Your deck is in nice shape - it's worth the time + effort to get it right. Check those pesky cards too. I've had a few smoke on me simply because the edges get corroded over the years and can short on contact.
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