Reel to Reel decks

assuming the same speed....7 and 1/2ips, the difference between 2 and 4 track is mainly that 2 track is double the width; which yields a wider bandwidth, greater dynamic range, and correspondingly lower noise floor.

what that does in reality is that 4-track does not quite measure up to better vinyl in my system; whereas 2-track can equal or even slightly better 33rpm vinyl in my system. this is based on the better examples of 2 and 4 track tapes i have heard.

15ips can surpass the best of my vinyl; but not 100% of the time. the source of that 15ips tape must be a 15ips master dub in good condition and the dub needs to be very well done.

i'll grant that there are aspects of tape replay which the 4-track has which i do enjoy such as the continueousness that set it apart from vinyl in some cases. but the 4-track also has a higher noise floor than my vinyl. the 4-tracks i have are very inconsistent.

i almost never listen to a 4-track tape as with 12,000 Lps why would i?

i do have three very good tt's and 2 high quality phono stages so Lps do perform quite well in my system. if i had a more modest vinyl front-end maybe my viewpoint on how 4-track (or even 7 and 1/2ips 2-track) compared might be different.

Mikelavigne, "Wider bandwidth, greater dynamic range, and correspondingly lower noise level" than 4 track. If we assume that high quality 4 track sounds as good as the source, if 2 track sounds better than 4 track; it has to sound better than the source.

I see Buconero has not bitten... ;-)

A few comments. First, tape **Can** sound better than the source. Why? Physical vibration. If you have the speakers playing while making the recording, the tape will *not* sound better than the source, but if you use headphones to monitor and turn the speakers off then it has every chance of doing so. In addition, tape can filter out digital noise quite effectively. Try it!

2nd: Tape is known for compression *but only near saturation*! At levels below that no compression at all.

3rd: physicists figured out that the Reynolds Number that bumblebees use to fly is quite different from aircraft! It was the Reynolds Number that was off when the math 'showed' that they can't fly.

So far, tape is the most practical form of state of the art reproduction. LPs, if done direct-to-disc, can be better, but only under ideal playback conditions. Tape machines, even if marginal like a Teac or Sony, can come very close to creating ideal playback conditions on the tape head. This is worth a lot! BTW I have a lot more respect for Tascam machines than Teac. My main objection to Teac and Sony is the quality of the electronics.

The idea that a blue ray is going to somehow keep up with analog tape is absurd. Anyone who has spent time in the studio with state of the art digital (using the master files) and even a rather pedestrian analog system can tell you that. You can hear it in a heartbeat.

I'm just getting into tape myself. A friend had sold me some boxes of factory recorded 7" reels and it turns out about 60 are 2-track from the 1950's (mostly classical), I informed him of the value and he agreed it was a mistake to sell them to me but told me to just keep them (I offered them back twice, there has to be more than a few thousand dollars of 2 track tapes..at least a dozen of the early rca plain box for example, all early titles).

I bought an otari mx5050 mkii on craigslist for $60 that sort of works then unbelievably I found a technics rs-1500US at a garage sale with a spare headblock for $35 a few weeks later (the headblocks are rp-2224 and rp2422). Had to fix the 2/4 track switch on the installed headblock and got it set up. I have played a few of the 2 track tapes and have been amazed (one of the rca tapes from 1956 has a price printed on the box of $18.95, that is a lot of money for 1956!). A few friends had a chance to listen and had commented that they wish there were some current titles available (more affordable than the tape project tapes).

I plan to do a direct output from the heads on the rs-1500 and buy the bottlehead tape head amp. If I hadn't purchased this collection of tapes however I don't know that I would have pursued tape.