Help me w/reservations about taking the R2R tape plunge...

[rockitman]

One thing about tape decks: they have orders of magnitude more mechanical parts than turntables! Tons and tons of complexity to handle bi-directional control of the tape at different speeds. And gentle handling of the tape. The enemy of all of this is lack of use. If you do get the deck, you need to use it often. Otherwise the mechanism will gum up and start to act up. And that acting up can result in nastiness like your expensive tape spooling on the floor!

If it does fail, think about where you have to send it to be repaired. We are fortunate to have tape guru Ki Choi next to us. If you do not, think about that a bit before taking the plunge.

Gumming up ? How often are you suggesting using them and what brand of tape deck ? I don't think I agree with your statement. I rarely use my Otari MTR-10, both Studer A810's, Technics 1500 nor my Otari MX 5050. No gumming and the decks work just fine giving them some exercise once every 6 months or longer in some cases.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Gumming up ? How often are you suggesting using them and what brand of tape deck ? I don't think I agree with your statement. I rarely use my Otari MTR-10, both Studer A810's, Technics 1500 nor my Otari MX 5050. No gumming and the decks work just fine giving them some exercise once every 6 months or longer in some cases.

That begs the question...why do you even have them? It may sound a bit cheeky, but I think it's a fair question, no?

 

[amirm]

Gumming up ? How often are you suggesting using them and what brand of tape deck ? I don't think I agree with your statement. I rarely use my Otari MTR-10, both Studer A810's, Technics 1500 nor my Otari MX 5050. No gumming and the decks work just fine giving them some exercise once every 6 months or longer in some cases.

How fast the lubricant dries up/gums up is a complex thing dependent on temperature, humidity, use, etc. My Otari already has a shaft that has done that and I have to move it by hand. Been too lazy to open it up to fix it . As I mentioned earlier, I fixed a ton of decks in 1970s and this was by far the most common problem (next to starter caps dying). Once a month would make me cringe. 6 months is way too long to keep them working reliably.

 

[rockitman]

That begs the question...why do you even have them? It may sound a bit cheeky, but I think it's a fair question, no?

They were the road to the logical SOTA conclusion I ended up with..UHA Phase 12 with Outboard Power Supply. The Technics and Otari MTR10 have wired out heads for use with my King Cello tape pre. Those two decks sound very good through outboard electronics..The UHA considerably better. I suppose I could sell the others...I guess I am a RTR deck hoarder....fortunately not to the degree of Ki.

 

[rockitman]

How fast the lubricant dries up/gums up is a complex thing dependent on temperature, humidity, use, etc. My Otari already has a shaft that has done that and I have to move it by hand. Been too lazy to open it up to fix it . As I mentioned earlier, I fixed a ton of decks in 1970s and this was by far the most common problem (next to starter caps dying). Once a month would make me cringe. 6 months is way too long to keep them working reliably.

That makes sense. I guess I will exercise the other decks more frequently.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

They were the road to the logical SOTA conclusion I ended up with..UHA Phase 12 with Outboard Power Supply. The Technics and Otari MTR10 have wired out heads for use with my King Cello tape pre. Those two decks sound very good through outboard electronics..The UHA considerably better. I suppose I could sell the others...I guess I am a RTR deck hoarder....fortunately not to the degree of Ki.

The road to your ultimate choice of the UHA sounds logical and while I'm not a gear hoarder, I suppose I could thin out my Alan Parsons, Pink Floyd and Supertramp collection of almost 200 recordings.

How often do you play tapes?

 

[KeithR]

spirit- two years ago I posed basically the same question to the forum about RTR. i discovered for rock music people, there frankly isn't any catalog. the tape project catalog only has a few titles i would pay $400 for. also, a lot of ebay stuff is bogus (digital to tape and shady stuff)

i love tape look and feel, i love the sound of tape...but chose to stick with vinyl. although my latest dac accepts all the DSD formats so may fiddle with that a bit.

 

[astrotoy]

I have over 100 15ips 2 track tape albums (both one and two reelers), all purchased from the current vendors - Tape Project, UltraAnalogue, Yarlung, Opus 3, and others. One issue is that most of them, other than Tape Project most notably, are issuing their own material. So for these, the big orchestral pieces are much more difficult to do than chamber or solo, or small jazz combos. Opus3 has a few orchestral pieces as does MPS, which has released the Oscar Peterson set. Yarlung is looking to release their Mahler 5. All of these are with lesser known orchestras and conductors. Tape Project has released a few classical titles from Decca and Reference Recordings, which feature big name orchestras and conductors (and soloists). They also have several Blue Note titles.

However, getting rights and the original master tapes from which to make copies is not easy. Often many months of negotiations end with nothing, or worse, getting the master tape and finding it too worn or damaged to copy. There is also the problem of getting not only record company permissions, but also artists and sometime estates of artists. I had some experience here which followed my Decca book that I wrote for Winston Ma and First Impression Music. During the research, I found that one of my interviewees, John Dunkerley, has been the engineer for one of my favorite albums, Arnold English and Scottish Dances on Lyrita, with Arnold conducting the LPO. Decca did the production and engineering for Lyrita. It is one of the great sonic masterpieces. Anyway, I spent considerable time, at Winston's behest trying to get the rights for FIM to reissue the album, with lengthly conversations and correspondence with the Lyrita people. In the end, after a promise that the subject would be discussed at their next board meeting, all I received was silence, and more silence. The transfer of ownership of companies (and their rights) has made things more complex. So staying with your own artists, as Ed Pong (UltraAnalogue), Bob Attiyeh (Yarlung), Opus 3 and others do, makes some sense.

And it does cost a lot of money - I've spent as much as a nice new Prius on tapes, not including the two tape recorders I have. Of course, I also have 15,000 records and other tapes.

Larry

 

[rockitman]

The road to your ultimate choice of the UHA sounds logical and while I'm not a gear hoarder, I suppose I could thin out my Alan Parsons, Pink Floyd and Supertramp collection of almost 200 recordings.

How often do you play tapes?

I usually start out with vinyl...once a little too much wine or beer has been consumed, I switch to tape and if I over do it all together....I stick a CD in the transport....lol

In general tape about 30-40% of the time. I obviously have much more variety to hear on vinyl.

 

[spiritofmusic]

spirit- two years ago I posed basically the same question to the forum about RTR. i discovered for rock music people, there frankly isn't any catalog. the tape project catalog only has a few titles i would pay $400 for. also, a lot of ebay stuff is bogus (digital to tape and shady stuff)

i love tape look and feel, i love the sound of tape...but chose to stick with vinyl. although my latest dac accepts all the DSD formats so may fiddle with that a bit.

Keith, we agree on two things, our love for Zu Audio spkrs, and the frustrating mirage that is 15ips tape when it comes to more commercial material/rock.
Both hemispheres of my brain are in conflict on this, one side just wants the intoxication, the other is holding the chequebook, both are sad re the lack of must-buy material.

Look guys, I'm going to stop harping on about this. It is what it is. I spoke to Bob Yarlung today, and had a fascinating discussion about the blind testing he has been party to re tape v direct to vinyl v dsd.
But more importantly, he was sanguine about the catalog out there. The expense of acquiring masters, licensing, raw tape costs, no economies of scale etc means that a cottage industry is what tape is and likely will remain, although he is bullish the range will gently expand.

 

[Blizzard]

Keith, we agree on two things, our love for Zu Audio spkrs, and the frustrating mirage that is 15ips tape when it comes to more commercial material/rock.
Both hemispheres of my brain are in conflict on this, one side just wants the intoxication, the other is holding the chequebook, both are sad re the lack of must-buy material.

Look guys, I'm going to stop harping on about this. It is what it is. I spoke to Bob Yarlung today, and had a fascinating discussion about the blind testing he has been party to re tape v direct to vinyl v dsd.
But more importantly, he was sanguine about the catalog out there. The expense of acquiring masters, licensing etc means that a cottage industry is what tape is and likely will remain, although he is bullish the range will gently expand.

What did he have to say about the blind testing between DSD 256 and tape?

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I usually start out with vinyl...once a little too much wine or beer has been consumed, I switch to tape and if I over do it all together....I stick a CD in the transport....lol

In general tape about 30-40% of the time. I obviously have much more variety to hear on vinyl.

Haha...that's funny, but I hear ya! At 30-40% that's a good proportion of listening time.

How about others? How much time is spent listening to tape versus other formats?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Blizzard, I'm not going to quote him directly, it was a private conversation, but they sounded different. There was no real consensus, and Bob is self confessed "format agnostic".
What was most fascinating was that everyone loved the vinyl, incl engineers who don't normally hold any particular candle for lp.
What this tells me is that there is a cognitive ease issue w/analog that even the best current stage of digital is yet to breach.
This cognitive ease is my term for the ability of the brain to truly switch off when enjoying a piece of music. It may be that vinyl, and definitely tape, will always maintain this last frontier of naturalness that digital in the form of quad dsd will just not manage.
But quad dsd in ten years? Interesting debate.

 

[spiritofmusic]

That begs the question...why do you even have them? It may sound a bit cheeky, but I think it's a fair question, no?

Multiple R2R deck ownership by so many here, Christian and Mike primarily - I've never QUITE got my head around this.

 

[rockitman]

Haha...that's funny, but I hear ya! At 30-40% that's a good proportion of listening time.

How about others? How much time is spent listening to tape versus other formats?

Digital only for live grateful dead, otherwise vinyl and tape...virtually anything I have on cd, I also have on vinyl...so I rarely listen to studio cd's...but there are some cd's I listen too like Pat Matheny, Chic Corea fusion stuff that are only on cd.

 

[Bruce B]

Haha...that's funny, but I hear ya! At 30-40% that's a good proportion of listening time.

How about others? How much time is spent listening to tape versus other formats?

Tape 60%
Digital 30%
Vinyl 10%

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Multiple R2R deck ownership by so many here, Christian and Mike primarily - I've never QUITE got my head around this.

first off; mentioning multiple tape decks without a shout out to the grand puba Ki Choi is sacrilegious. he puts us all to shame.

all audio gear is cool. RTR decks are way cool. something about those spinning reels.

being able to dub tapes one to another allows you to share them.

1/4" or 1/2" is handy.

chicks dig tape decks.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Multiple R2R deck ownership by so many here, Christian and Mike primarily - I've never QUITE got my head around this.

I think Christian explained it quite well though and I can understand that. No different than people owning several vinyl front-ends.

 

[Bruce B]

Multiple R2R deck ownership by so many here, Christian and Mike primarily - I've never QUITE got my head around this.

I've got 5 Studers now and trying to thin the herd!

 

[spiritofmusic]

I have over 100 15ips 2 track tape albums (both one and two reelers), all purchased from the current vendors - Tape Project, UltraAnalogue, Yarlung, Opus 3, and others. One issue is that most of them, other than Tape Project most notably, are issuing their own material. So for these, the big orchestral pieces are much more difficult to do than chamber or solo, or small jazz combos. Opus3 has a few orchestral pieces as does MPS, which has released the Oscar Peterson set. Yarlung is looking to release their Mahler 5. All of these are with lesser known orchestras and conductors. Tape Project has released a few classical titles from Decca and Reference Recordings, which feature big name orchestras and conductors (and soloists). They also have several Blue Note titles.

However, getting rights and the original master tapes from which to make copies is not easy. Often many months of negotiations end with nothing, or worse, getting the master tape and finding it too worn or damaged to copy. There is also the problem of getting not only record company permissions, but also artists and sometime estates of artists. I had some experience here which followed my Decca book that I wrote for Winston Ma and First Impression Music. During the research, I found that one of my interviewees, John Dunkerley, has been the engineer for one of my favorite albums, Arnold English and Scottish Dances on Lyrita, with Arnold conducting the LPO. Decca did the production and engineering for Lyrita. It is one of the great sonic masterpieces. Anyway, I spent considerable time, at Winston's behest trying to get the rights for FIM to reissue the album, with lengthly conversations and correspondence with the Lyrita people. In the end, after a promise that the subject would be discussed at their next board meeting, all I received was silence, and more silence. The transfer of ownership of companies (and their rights) has made things more complex. So staying with your own artists, as Ed Pong (UltraAnalogue), Bob Attiyeh (Yarlung), Opus 3 and others do, makes some sense.

And it does cost a lot of money - I've spent as much as a nice new Prius on tapes, not including the two tape recorders I have. Of course, I also have 15,000 records and other tapes.

Larry

Larry, I salute you as a true holder of the analog flame w/so much investment in tapes and vinyl too. I'm at a "lowly" 2000 lps, and a BIG BIG consideration here is that I could buy shed loads of esp classical and jazz on lp for the sort of tape budget envisaged.
It's a hard argument to reconcile in favour of tape.
Maybe bowing to the beauty of tape, and taking the plunge is almost an initiation rite to demonstrate if one has what it REALLY takes to be an analog junkie.