Reel to reel

@Uberwaltz, if you choose to pursue Ralph’s good suggestion, you can find the service manual for your deck at hifiengine.com if you register there, or if you are already registered there. It is linked to on this page:

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sony/tc-377.shtml

On page 20 of the manual (per the page numbering of the manual itself, not the page numbering of the pdf) it is indicated that R316 and R416 on the "Playback Circuit Board" adjust the maximum line level output voltages. A photo illustrates where those pots are located. There is no indication, though, of how much range those pots provide.

If your deck is presently adjusted per the procedure the maximum output voltage is 0 dbu, which is only 0.775 volts. And that is with a 100K load impedance; if you are driving a low impedance such as 10K or 20K (10K is the recommended minimum) that voltage would be a bit less.

Another possibility I thought about but rejected, btw, would be driving your amp from the deck’s headphone output, using an adapter. However while there is no indication of how much voltage the headphone output can supply, at least one of the two headphones recommended in the owner’s manual has an impedance of only 8 ohms, which I think makes it unlikely that that approach would help. If the deck were designed to drive high impedance headphones the maximum voltage of that output might have done the trick.

Best regards,
-- Al

Al

Yes I did find Ralph's suggested method to be a good place to start and with the info you have provided it should indeed be possible to see if there is any more voltage to go.

As far as headphones go I did think of that as well but as with my easy to drive cans even at full output the volume was still low I discarded it for same reason.

This is a project I will undertake tomorrow morning and hopefully the pots are not maxed out. I doubt it as it looks like this deck has seen very little use or even been opened up.

Thank you!

For the last few days, I have been listening exclusively to the reel with tapes recorded at 7.5, and they sound just fine.

I've got some new tape ordered, and when it arrives, I'll record at 7.5. Regardless how good 15 IPS sounds, the time is half as much, and the cost is twice as much; I can live without it.


Enjoy your reel.

The more things change the more they stay the same!

Sometimes wish I could just stop and settle at one project at a time but alas no!

What am I babbling about?

I was the member who Ralph shipped the Revox b77 too for just the cost of shipping. I had every intention of placing it into a home worthy case and getting it running correctly and to this end I was communicating with an eBay member in Switzerland who had a stock case. Well one thing led to another and he offered me a mint B77 high speed unit for what I considered a very fair price considering he was shipping it from Switzerland to the USA!

So with that being said I feel it is only fair to pass Ralphs B77 onto someone here if they are still interested. Obviously not looking to make any money on it but not looking to lose any either and I did pay $85 to have it shipped so I think that plus actual shipping to you is reasonable?

I did manage to check a few things out on it, ff and play seem to work well, one meter does not work, rw is very slow and I had headphone output in both channels so as Ralph said it likely will not take a lot of work.

It is in a flight case right now and that is how it will ship inside another cardboard box just for a bit of extra padding.

Message me direct if interested and my apologies for possibly taking it from other members in the first place, it was not my intention to have it end up like this.

Ok thanks!

Glad to say the Revox has found itself a new home already.
Thank you