I just realized I promised more pictures of 35mm magnetic film recorders. Here are the master music/sound FX/dialogue recorders at Warner Hollywood studios. This is a bygone era - it's all Teac digital stuff now. 
Sonorous ATR10 MMK II
- Thread starter Philip O Hanlon
- Start date
So back to Sonorus ATR10 MkII ... I have one on order and it should be here somewhere around the end of the year. Looking forward to getting this in my system after hearing it at the dealer. Was an enlightening experience for me as that was the first time I had really listened to a good R2R and comparing to a really high dollar digital front end was really no comparison at all with the same albums. I'll post my impressions once it arrives and I have some time with it.
George
George
I would be interested to know how this compares with a refurbished B77 or PR-99 from a specialist such as Nagravox, wired to an external PB head preamp or using an upgraded PB card from Audvance. The cost of the ATR10 is substantially higher.
I certainly can’t speak to those other solutions as I didn’t audition those … I can only imagine though that the ATR10 would have some potential advantage in that the higher end electronics being internal are connected directly to the playback head and not as an add on solution. That said the ATR-10 is an amazing piece of playback tech and I certainly can’t wait to get it in.
I am also curious about this. Soren Wittrup rebuilt my PR99 and I have tape head out so a tape pre might be interesting down the road...
How do you like the PR99 ? Have you compared it to other machines ? If you have not upgraded the electronics, you should investigate this: https://audvance.com/PR99.html Not expensive and worth a try.
I love it! Soren rebuilt and updated so much of the electronics but that is an interesting page. Mine has tape head outs and an IEC/NAB switch.
Any update on your experience with the ATR10 would be appreciated. I saw this at AXPONA and very much enjoyed listening to it. There are not many reviews available.
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Going back to 35mm magnetic film, I have now collected 30 Everest classical titles on 4-track tapes. I would say I have pretty much all of the classical titles worth having on that label. These tapes are uniformly of very high quality. Everest was the first record company to record on 35mm magnetic film. After they closed shop, Robert Fine bought the equipment and used it to make some recordings for Mercury and Command. These Everest tapes must be the best kept secret in the audiophile world !
This looked really intriguing at Axpona last month ... would you please
give some sonic impressions? Specifically compared to your vinyl?
So I have sold my entire vinyl setup and am now only digital and R2R. My digital setup is the Esoteric D1Xse Grandioso Dacs using an Esoteric Transport and Aurender W20SE for file playback. The vinyl setup I had was a VPI Avenger with transfiguration Proteus cart and the VTL phono pre. For my part I’ll say that the Sonorus ATR10mkII is sonically superior to either of those other two setups .. easily. It’s not something you have to really do critical listening to hear the difference.(like when I was trying to decide on which DAC I liked the best). The two most striking things to me are 1) the overall beautiful tonality on every tape I listen to 2) The absolutely incredible soundstage size all the way around … height, width and depth. I’ve never heard anything like it. For me I get totally immersed in the music and am lost. So far these are all tapes that I’ve sourced from Sonorus as well. So compared to the vinyl setup I had … when I had great vinyl the vinyl was still clearly better than the digital front end and the tonal richness was similar in the vinyl and the R2R although the R2R was better here by a small margin. On soundstage size … the ATR10mkII is the winner here by a long shot. I sold my vinyl setup because I was having a very difficult time sourcing new vinyl that was super quiet even from some of the audiophile sources. With the Sonorus ATR10MkII I don’t miss the vinyl at all and my Estoeric Grandioso stack doesn’t get nearly as much use as I thought it would. Hope that helps and good luck!
Well... vinyl is not just a sound source, it is also a library of great performances, many of which are not available anywhere else.
I don't listen to vinyl as much any more, but in some cases that was the only place I was able to find the particular recording.
That is why many of us have thousands of records, that perfectly coexist with other recording media.
I don't listen to vinyl as much any more, but in some cases that was the only place I was able to find the particular recording.
That is why many of us have thousands of records, that perfectly coexist with other recording media.
I still listen to digital more as I only have about 35 tapes so far. Probably 70/30 but I'm going to work on adding more tapes this fall when I should have a bit more time to listen again and a bit more money as I'm going to pick up my new Porsche Macan GTS this weekend!
My audio dealer wasn't happy with me when I told him I was going to buy a complete Burmester Audio system ... just not one for the house!
Master tapes or 1:1 copies are quite limited in availability, although if you know the right people, many of the great recordings from the 1950s to the 1970s can be found. That is why I got into 4-track tapes, in order to fill the gaps in my tape library. The quality of some commercial tapes can approach that of master tape copies, and is clearly superior to vinyl. These tapes retain the naturalness and flow of the best tape recordings, and can give that elusive illusion of a live performance. For example, I found an ultra rare set of Readers Digest Beethoven symphonies, conducted by Rene Leibowitz. These are Kenneth Wilkinson recordings made in Kingsway Hall, and the quality of the tapes is tip top. Produced by RCA Special Products Division, i have yet to hear these works better recorded. I wonder which other recordings this division has released Another astounding label is Everest, which apparently developed their own production equipment for these tape releases. I think these present the best value currently available as far as physical playback media is concerned.
I still listen to digital more as I only have about 35 tapes so far. Probably 70/30 but I'm going to work on adding more tapes this fall when I should have a bit more time to listen again and a bit more money as I'm going to pick up my new Porsche Macan GTS this weekend!
My audio dealer wasn't happy with me when I told him I was going to buy a complete Burmester Audio system ... just not one for the house!
Finding and purchasing tapes is the most challenging part. There are tapes to be found but many of one’s favorite albums just aren’t available. It does vary among rock, blues, jazz and classical but it isn’t’ like LPs or digital where you can pretty much find anything you want.
Bab Attiyeh of Yarlung Records uses Arian's machines to do his recordings and tape copying. I have all of his tapes, including the most recent releases that were done with Arian's tape recorders, including his latest machine. I first heard Philip O'Handlon's earliest machine from Arion around 15 years ago when he brought it up to the Bay area from LA and also a tape called Blue Moments by Sabina Hank (I ended up ordering a copy from Europe). I had a recent release from Tape Project that I brought along.
The Yarlung tapes are certainly worth a listen. They are all recorded by Bob in the LA area. Most are excellent - ranging from some classical to jazz and other genres. Some are on top tapes lists.
Larry
The Yarlung tapes are certainly worth a listen. They are all recorded by Bob in the LA area. Most are excellent - ranging from some classical to jazz and other genres. Some are on top tapes lists.
Larry
Having my pair of ATR-102's both with 1/4" and 1/2" head blocks, I have been able to play several 30ips tapes (mostly 1/2") recorded by my friend Dave Haynes when he was a young engineer working for Ampex when they were still refining the ATR-100 series back in the late '70's. He recorded them on Ampex 456 (since he was working for Ampex). All now have sticky shed, but all have responded very well to baking, even several times over the years. I dubbed many of them to 15ips 1/2" tape. Adrian's comment about the 16 minute time length of the the tape means that a whole album normally takes 3 reels or more. Dave did a few copies of master tapes when he took the machine to LA and visited a few studios. A couple of the albums that I dubbed from his 30ips 1/2" tapes - Ronstadt's Living in the USA and Carly Simon's Spy are missing the last two songs on each album, since he only used two reels to record them. Also, 30ips normally is recorded using AES EQ. My Merrill and my former Doshi both have AES EQ as a choice.
Larry
Larry
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