R2R Newbie with Studer A80VU -

[Verastarr]

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum and this seems to be a good place to ask mod questions for my recently acquired A80VU. I know the RC is the audiophile piece, but I dont want to spend $7K on my first R2R deck. I have a general idea of why the RC is desirable, though I am wondering if anyone can comment on the viability of using the onboard electronics of the VU model with some freshening up and possible mods.

First thing on the list is to get rid of all the Fraco caps. I have found an assortment of Roderstein or Philips aluminum axial can type that are same value and NOS as well. A couple things I wondered were about changing cap style and/or values. I see on the forum people changing values to increase bandwith. I'm also wondering about OPA rolling as well.

Does anybody have any comments or experience tweaking a VU model ??


Thanks so much !!

Mike

 

[Schallfeldwebel]

For the studio world the VU was compatible with all multitrack machines. In fact the VU is just a 2 channel multitrack, because it uses the same channel units. Good thing of that one is, you don't need to creep under the machine to callibrate it. You take off the faceplates and you can go in with your srewdriver and adjust the bias en EQ standing in front of it. Of course the length of wire from sound cards to the playback and record heads is longer, so there is the compromise. In the old days the VU had more status than the RC, that was just a broadcast machine.

There is also a broadcast machine looking like the RC with VU meters, but that is only a meter bridge, the sound cards still are under the machine. But here the audio went also the long way. So the RC without VU meters is the shortest wired machine if you look at head distance to sound cards. I don't think the A80 is the best sounding machine, the B62 sounds better, the tape path is shorter.

For me the best sounding machines are the A812 and A820, but I also talk about recording, and most here only play back tapes.


Anyway, congratulations with your deck.

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

the A80 R dont even have wires from the reprocards enter the motherboard to the directly inserted in/out pcb
apart from that it´s pretty straight fw to add a switch to the reproboards of the A80RC with VU bridge to bypass it in repro mode
best
Leif

 

[Voffi]

I know the RC is the audiophile piece.

That's right. The RC is for me the best of the Studers. But back to your machine. Changing of all elctrolytic caps is best first step. Replace the caps with the right capacity and voltage. The size of the caps of today is smaller than in former time. I would not change the OPAs. I would propose to change all bearings and there are a lot of them in the machine.

Regards,
Voffi

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

8 small bearings in tape tension rollers and 8 bigger bearings in rest of tape path
then 2 in each of the three motors
mains psu caps and and the brownish Rifa 0,47µF are the most urgent on theese old machines
then rest of caps on both logics and audio cards and least but not last the stab card
good luck
best
Leif