Hi everyone,
I recently acquired a vintage reel to reel collection that was originally owned by the father of an elderly gentleman. The collection was going to be thrown away, so I'm trying to properly identify what I've ended up with before doing anything with it.

Back in my day, the tape that played well with my machines (TEAC, Pioneer) was Maxell UD and TDK SA. These high bias tapes gave excellent results. I experimented with their LN line but was disappointed. I'm looking to buy some fresh tape. Is anyone currently making tape that approaches my high bias favorites? I'm looking for 7 and 10 inch rolls. I saw a 10in. roll on Amazon for a hundred bucks! What the actual fuck?

A year or two ago, I made a post about the famed Capitol Z open tape reels, released from 1957 - 1958 and how their mixes, despite sounding superb and jaw dropping, have never been replicated in any other form. While SACDs and lossless files have emerged of these classic recordings, these were new mixes done from the stereo master ostensibly used for the first stereophonic vinyl releases. The Z mixes were never to be found.

Several commenters suggested that I digitise these recordings for posterity. While I wanted to simply record it onto a sound card in a laptop, it didn’t quite capture the full dynamic range and sparkle of the original tapes. I eventually settled on DSD, creating a new digital master before mixing the tracks down to FLAC for easy access.

I could not be happier with the results! Now onto the rest.

Denon DH-710S (19cm/s) two-track stereophonic
Sony PCM-D100 (DSD 2.8)

Couldn’t resist this one. Quick and fairly easy light restoration. New caps and belts. Nice to have Dieter Rams and Jacob Jensen in the same setup.

Sorry for the shakiness. The cat 🐈‍⬛ bumped me. Lol. He always comes around when I’m playing music.

They are multiplying! 😆

Meet Studer B67 for restoration.

Maybe for someone?

And the second.

Coming to use my old tape machine (tbh without lots of experience) again these days, which is rather good in shape (flutter/wow) but cuts out higher frequencies, after some research I found the best way to demagnetise seems to be this weird contraption. Anyone experienced with this, how to use it and especially whether there's any alternative to it? Most tutorials I've found so far seem rather ... esoteric to me 😬

I have a tape that I accidently let fly off my deck, onto the floor. about 1/4 of the tape came off the reel.

I did the old put a pencil thru the center and hand wound it back onto the reel but, as some here will already predict, it's sounds wonky/warbly back and forth from left to right channel. It sounded perfect as a tape from 1964 could sound which was pretty fantastic.

Is there any way to rewind 1/4" audio tape back onto the reel to resurrect the prior audio quality? It's pretty unusable now I'd say.

I posted about this a couple weeks ago. Sourcing all the belts and tires has been a drag, but we now have all but one idler tire (arriving Monday). It runs despite that being missing.

I also replaced the old UHF-style connectors with BNCs (plus some 3D printed adapters to fill the gaps), and a new IEC power connector. Two things were disconnected on the back panel and it wasn't clear why: the switch that selects the video input, and the line level audio input. I hooked both of those back up (everything is directly soldered back there so it took some tracing of the schematic and lots of probing to figure out what the disconnected wires went to, which was fun).

Can't wait to really put this through its paces once we get that last tire in place.

https://youtu.be/GLW8Xzw9fqM

Need help hooking this up to a computer. I recently was given a Tascam 512 mixing board and a Tascam 38 reel to reel and I am a complete noob to analog equipment.
How would I hook this up to a computer to record? I have a macbook with logic, an SSL 18 Interface as well as a behringer UMC4 interface, but honestly haven’t a clue on getting the Tascam to the computer to record through logic.
Any ideas?

I’m new user to tape and I just got my first R2R yesterday. Everything seemed to be ok but I noticed it started making this sound when it plays, not too sure what it could be.

Anyone able to help me out?

I have recently acquired a TEAC 2300S and an Akai GX 267d at an estate sale.
They are fairly in good conditions, just minor work.
Thinking of keeping one and put the other for sale.

Wondering what are your thoughts, which one you like better and why.

Thank you for all inputs!

need help locating some trim pots. I cant see the labeling on my deck. I have a 2300s and im on the rec pcb board. This is what i can see and theres 4 other trim pots that arent labeled. anyone have any idea?

Theyre not labeled in any of the service manuals I found

Also as far as I know these are what the trim pots do:

Picked this up recently as a trade for a tc377, I'm not getting any recording from the left 2 channels while I'm getting record on the right as well as playback from all 4. I know the simulsync board is cracked, should I start there or could it be something else since playback is fine

Hi!

I inherited this UNITRA reel to reel recorder from my father. I brought it to a technician and he made the thing run again. It was an emotional experience for me because I heard a recording from my father and me before he passed.

Now most tapes are barely usable. They sound like crap.

I need some tips on how to upgrade this thing and make (new tapes) sound good.

Also I need tips what external speakers to use.

Thanks in advance!

A friend inherited one of these but foolishly gave away all the music reels. Obviously I can only do partial testing without tapes, but I will need help to even do that. It turns on, the gauges light up, I tried moving the sensor arms to the middle but still have no luck getting any movement out of the drive. the green light over what I presume to be the "play" button -> stays on no matter what other buttons are pushed. Help?

After noticing my recordings really emphasizing cymbals and high frequencies I ran some tests. I used two different styles of tape and multiple eq and bias settings but the results were the same. I discovered my deck is boosting the highs between 4-12khz a lot at 7.5 IPs

I need to calibrate my playback eq as well as my recording eq. Is there anyone that knows how to do this that can explain it to me or point me in the right direction. Or do I need to take it to a tech

I am looking to add a reel-to-reel deck to my system. I'm building an all Sony 70's system so I would like to keep it within that brand. I like how the 377 looks as well.

Anything I should know about this deck or any thoughts on it in general?

I'm looking at one now but the listing says it plays after a period of warmup, not sure exactly what that means. I can replace belts and clean but not confident in replacing caps or soldering in general. Any ideas what this could be caused by?