New Tube Tape Preamp out soon-

[jcmusic]

Ok here are my inital impressions after about an hour of listening, the Model 222 is a big hit!!! this thing is really quiet, smooth, and liquidy sounding. It is not even broken in yet right out of the box it sounds awesome, the highs are real crisp and fresh with a nice tight bottom end. All this with new production tubes and the caps still need to be formed, looking forward to when they are completely broken in!!! In a brief comparison the BH Tube Repro sounded kinda flat vs the 222!!! As it breaks in and I spend more time listening I can give a better deduction.

Jay

 

[Ogrady]

Tom,
Newbie to this forum;
I read last night with interest your THD performance of reel to reel tape machines. I have found what you are looking for I believe in the comparison of 2) companies ATR102 1/2" 2 track refurbished machines. I believe these 2 machines represent current state of the art in tape recorders and the current state of the art is surprisingly excellent!

http://www.precisionmotorworks.com/MDI_ATR_key.htm

Cheers!
Sean

 

[U47]

How does this performance compare to digital? How does 1/2 inch 2 track at 30 IPS compare to 15 ips/2track 1/4 inch?

Rich

 

[Ogrady]

Ah... now that's the $10,000 question now isn't Rich? How does this performance compare to digital? In the way measurements are done, using analog measurements and applying them to digital, digital always shines, the question I have is why does analog sources, ie; tape and those black round things, (LP's) have such a following with suggestions from those that listen to them that they reproduce a superior, or the most superior rendition of the real thing we have?
I believe our ears respond to some digital reproduction parameters we don't like and now we see industry (finally) addressing, time domain errors in the range above where our ears can hear but fall right into the range where our perception of echo and space are produced, and that is pulse response or the difference in time of say how a sound 15 feet out and 45 degrees off to our right in real life can be determined angularily, very precisely by our ears. This website, http://www.dspguide.com/ch22/1.htm talks of human hearing being able to discern two sound sources as close as 3 degrees apart or a difference in arrival of the same sound to our right and left ear of as little as 30 microseconds. What is 30 microseconds if it is the period of a sound wave? Roughly 33,300 hz. We know digital filters more times than not produce a ringing BEFORE the actual sound is produced. This is not what happens in nature, I'm sure our ears pick this up as a reproduction anomaly and combine that with say redbook CD performance where nothing above 22,000 hz or so makes it through and you are now also missing a lot of the needed pulse response cues our brain needs to locate a sound in space.

I feel the wow and flutter of turntables and tape decks, high as they are in comparison to digital, (using analog measurement principles) is too low in frequency to mess with our brains needed accurate pulse response to assemble a meaningful soundscape so tape and records pass pulse response at high frequencies above our ability to hear periodic waves, (sound), with flying colours, while digital has anomalies, or is missing entirely, (Redbook CD), at these high frequencies, producing errors we call jitter. Whew!
I feel digital is right on the cusp of eliminating jitter entirely from reproduced music to finally deliver what was promised and pitifully absent at the dawn of the digital music age some 25 plus years ago!

1/2 inch 2 track in comparison to 1/4 inch 2 track has double the magnetic material passing in the same time, this improves s/n ratio 3db. Doubling the tape speed, 15ips to 30ips also doubles the amount of tape going by lowering tape hiss due to 30ips high frequency eq, but also raising the frequency of the hiss one octave making 30ips tape hiss so high in frequency as to be almost inaudible.

The latest tape formulations have so much more headroom than tapes of the past. There are +9db tapes and ATR has a +10db tape now so the advantages of 30ips as a need in the past (before noise reduction) is less so now.

Cheers!
Sean

 

[jcmusic]

Anyone done a shootout between all the tape pre's out there currently???

Jay

 

[naturephoto1]

Ok here are my inital impressions after about an hour of listening, the Model 222 is a big hit!!! this thing is really quiet, smooth, and liquidy sounding. It is not even broken in yet right out of the box it sounds awesome, the highs are real crisp and fresh with a nice tight bottom end. All this with new production tubes and the caps still need to be formed, looking forward to when they are completely broken in!!! In a brief comparison the BH Tube Repro sounded kinda flat vs the 222!!! As it breaks in and I spend more time listening I can give a better deduction.

Jay

Hi Jay,

Do you have any more to add to your initial impressions of the Model 222?

Rich

 

[Bruce B]

I'll give you my review in a week or so.

 

[Steve williams]

Bruce

no Doshi yet?

 

[Bruce B]

Bruce

no Doshi yet?

No Doshi yet....

 

[flez007]

As said, I liked what I heard at the Doshi room last RMAF, as well as at DaHavilland with Kara and BH with DocB! - everytime I go back to listen tapes I corroborate what this hobby is all about!

 

[Bruce B]

Ki waved his magic wand with a clean install of a direct head wiring with switch.

 

[RogerD]

Sweet!

 

[MylesBAstor]

No Doshi yet....

I wish my Doshi could playback tape and phono. Unfortunately, they're mutually exclusive in his design

 

[Ogrady]

Concerning RtoR, I have seen a reference (that I can no longer find) that showed that basiclly, at below about 100Hz and above 5KHz the distortion (THD) raises to atleast 3% and more, with about 0.5% at 1KHz.

This assumes bias set for min THD at 1Khz at 0VU I believe. I know there are many variables, but people are always talking about frequency response and not distortion. Any comments would be appreciated, even if only ball park. I saw the gear in your video and thought, ah ha, there is the person who can enlighten me.

Thanks,


Tom

Hi Tom,
I decided to do a quick THD+N test using used but usable Quantegy 456 1/4" tape, and a Lyrec deck with good heads, (not pristine such as freshly lapped) at -10db relative to +6, 355nwb/m 15ips. The test device was an A/D converter feeding SpectraPLUS spectrum analyzing software.
Results.

1000hz, 100hz, 60hz and 40hz THD+N was about the same, 0.2%

at 5000hz, THD+N, 1%
10000hz, THD+N 1.2 ~ 1.5% (Value jumping about, a lot...)
20,000hz, THD+N was 3% area with the value all over the place.

I would say THD+N is negatively effected by the quality of the tape to head contact Tom. With new tape and lapped heads I'd expect the high frequency values to improve.

 

[Ogrady]

When my friends and I recorded to my or other decks, and there were some prosumer decks, from an lp, NEVER did it sound like the lp. Always a layer of saturation, of thickening of the sound. No big deal, no one expected it to be pristine. All of us could hear the benefit to the highs and lows by running at 7.5 vs 3.75 ips, and of course running at 15ips (NOT 30ips...never heard it) you got even better lows but still the "thickness and richness" was still there.

Tom

I have to jump in and disagree with you Tom that tape always adds a layer of saturation, thickening etc. to the sound. For experimentation purposes I've AB'd DSD native (not PCM) files against my Lyrec using Telcom noise reduction at 7 1/2 ips, not even 15ips to answer such a question for myself of can I hear a difference... and... I can't hear any. If I substitute my Sony TC880-2 deck... YES

Indeed, after playing a tape with the Lyrec I don't even want to listen to the Sony, and the Sony's in pristine condition, lapped heads, all caps replaced, tuned up to the nines. Indeed, the THD+N from the Sony is in the same ballpark as the Lyrec but the sound from the Lyrec is stellar, the Sony... not so much.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I have to jump in and disagree with you Tom that tape always adds a layer of saturation, thickening etc. to the sound. For experimentation purposes I've AB'd DSD native (not PCM) files against my Lyrec using Telcom noise reduction at 7 1/2 ips, not even 15ips to answer such a question for myself of can I hear a difference... and... I can't hear any. If I substitute my Sony TC880-2 deck... YES

Indeed, after playing a tape with the Lyrec I don't even want to listen to the Sony, and the Sony's in pristine condition, lapped heads, all caps replaced, tuned up to the nines. Indeed, the THD+N from the Sony is in the same ballpark as the Lyrec but the sound from the Lyrec is stellar, the Sony... not so much.

Tom's only experience with R2R is with prerecorded crappy tapes at whatever speed and less than a studio deck. Plus he only hears what he measures. That would be like leaving weighting out of the equation.

 

[lapaix]

Shannon entropy and sound reproduction

Although I have certainly not read the technical literature, it is clear that every step in signal transmission, from a microphone to the sound waves produced by a speaker, necessarily occurs with a loss of information. This loss is the Shannon entropy, and it's analysis is fundamental to information theory. A "perfect" audio component in any part of the chain is unattainable in principle. It's actually quite amazing good audio equipment sounds.

 

[Ki Choi]

my Lyrec

Can you give us the model info and any mods you might have done to your Lyrec?

 

[Ogrady]

Can you give us the model info and any mods you might have done to your Lyrec?

I have the PTR-1 Lyrec deck. I bought it used from Harold here in Canada. I don't know the history to know if this is bone stock or if it's been mod'd.

I did work on quieting the capstan which in stock form at 15ips is too noisy for my taste. I did succeed in quelling the noise to a large extent but not eliminating it. Other than that, careful bias and eq adjustment to match the tape is all.

Cheers!
Sean

 

[mep]

Tom's only experience with R2R is with prerecorded crappy tapes at whatever speed…

That would be either 3 ¾ or 7 ½ ips 4 track tapes.

… and less than a studio deck.

Way less. Not even in the same league let alone the same arena.