The dangerous world of Reel-to-Reel Tape
It feels like I re-entered the world of tape knowing full well of all the downsides, yet I did it anyway. I spent much of my youth glued to my dad's decks, making recordings. As cassette and digital came of age, I always appreciated the sound of tape.
Whether this adventure is worth it is a subjective exercise. For folks who plop down $500-$1k on cables or those who swap gear often, tape is really not that expensive, relatively speaking. Titles are limited though.
The sound quality and experience is quite something. Before jumping back into R2R, I had 4 versions of Muddy Waters' Folksinger. Hearing Chad Kasem's firm's work on it in 15ips it's just something else. Body, size, and presence are just different than very good vinyl and digital. And this is with the stock reproduce board from a Revox PR99 MKIII. I can only imagine what's going to happen when I rebuild that card, put in a modern one, or run directly from the head out to a preamp.
Maybe I'll see some of you in R2R Rehab, where I'll try to get sober from tape.
Well the 993 was supposed to fix the “ Dr killer “ reputation of the 911. …. As to using an HQD ( good as it was at the time, i owned at that time a version of it ) and a 30 year old sonic memory to judge a format….is like the knee jerk throttle lift of a…. dr… i do, occasionally regret selling the 993, except for the wonderful smell of aircooled hot oil and leather, the X-50 was better in every way…. |
Dare I try to offer an explanation of why some perceive R2R to sound better than the source when a vinyl or CD is put to tape. I think it's about the lens at which we listen to music. R2R, like vinyl, takes a tiny signal and blows it up onto a big canvas (or at least it does with good machines/preamp circuits). It makes everything lifesize. The fact that the lion's share of recorded music before say 1990 was originally committed to tape in the first place might mean that getting the music back on the original "canvas" type can put everything closer in place to the original recording. The perspective of tape and vinyl, I think, is what makes some people perceive it to be more pleasing than digital. That can happen despite noise. With regard to the sub master reel tapes made from the original masters or safety masters (e.g. Chad Kassem's work, Tape Project, etc.), it does seem that most listeners find them to be very present, clear, and musical. Currently, I'm rolling Oscar Petersen's "We Get Requests" in 15ips. My EQ is set at NAB, which is incorrect for this recording. I haven't had the opportunity to address changing the resistors on the playback board for CCIR/IEC2 equalization yet. Guess what? It's stupendous. While I certainly agree there's tiny amount of 15ips reel-to-reel recordings out there that we can easily access, those that are out there give me hope that we will see more and more added. If I could get 15 recordings in each of the big genres (say jazz, rock, folk, country, etc.) and those recordings were classics (think Waltz for Debby, Dark Side of the Moon, Willie Nelson/Waylon Jennings, and so on) I'd say this is a worthwhile exercise. Tape sounds present, large, dynamic, powerful, clean and lovely. If done right it takes you there. I have no issue committing time and resources to it. Frankly, I think high quality tape has shown me (subjectively) I'm better off playing in tape than buying "better components" over and over. |
We all now the 'cone area' comparison (neglecting the effect of the throw to determine SPL) for woofers.
Does this also play into the midrange cones? My concern: bookshelf speaker plus subwoofer(s) to "FILL" (SPL) large room with sound in the low to mid range (above say 100 Hz when using 2 subs, above 60 Hz using just one sub)? Is that were larger, multi-driver speakers have an inherant advantage?
How to calculate cone area Cone area = pi x (r x r) pi = 3.14 r = radius of sub One 8" = 50.27 One 10" = 78.54 One 12" = 113.1 One 15" = 176.71 One 18" = 254.47 Two 8" = 100.53 Two 10" = 157.08 Two 12" = 226.19 Two 15" = 353.43 Two 18" = 508.94 Three 8" = 150.8 Three 10" = 235.62 Three 12" = 339.29 Three 15" = 530.14 Three 18" = 763.41 Four 8" = 201.06 Four 10" = 314.16 Four 12" = 452.39 Four 15" = 706.86 Four 18" = 1017.87 |
@oldschool1948 This is the shedding to which I was referring in my prior post. Tapes that have this problem, if not too severe, can be baked in an oven at low temperature to chase out the moisture that is causing the shedding. About 175 degrees works; you need at least 2 hours. Its better if you remove the tape from the reel (this have what is known as a 'pancake') so the moisture can leave easier. But I've baked tapes without doing that and its worked fine. We keep a toaster oven in the studio for this purpose. |
