It was one of those absurd surreal days that often seems to occur in Africa.Our state owned broadcaster had dumped a truckload of outdated equipment at a junkyard in one of our coastal cities. Word got around and as I live 200 miles away I duly dispatched my somewhat deaf 75 year old father in law to have a look. Having spent his life around precision equipment ,he is not easily impressed so the phone conversation was difficult: "There is a Sony tape recorder here and losts of other stuff-tape recorders and so on ,big silver things. " Q "Are they Studers?" A "No they are silver" Q (sigh) "Are they well made?" A "Not bad" So it went. Still having cancelled my Monday ,I set off to find:
Somewhat in a daze I bought four Studer A80 Rs, Penthouse from a A80 VU 8 track ,an A810 and some other stuff for the princely sum of $250. Like always I am now sorry I did not take more but the strangeness of it all was too much. Watching a worker casually toss the heads of that 8 track machine in a fire was too much.
Remarkably all the machines were in working order but the A80s were mono. Being non technical I roped in a friend who converted the one into a stereo replay only machine with mastering heads from Flux Magnetics. The mono replay head was replaced with a stereo head and the record head with a 1/4 track Flux Magnetics replay head. Each head is wired to its own repro amp. Initial plans were to use external replay amps but spending time on the internals makes one respect the "Not bad"machines and quality of construction so much that that idea was filed away.Accidentally replaying a MRL alignment tape at double speed and seeing on an oscilloscope the heads and stock (but restored) Studer electronics producing perfect sine waves well north of 20kHz was very impressive.
Haviing now spent time with all the machines I can honestly say that the A 80 R is leagues ahead of the a A 80VU electronics . The A810 has an almost digital quality(albeit good digital) to it with thundering bass, black backgrounds and brutal dynamics. The A80R is so much more gentle-almost tube like. Dynamics build up in a most natural way whereas the almost Krell like bass of the A810 here becomes more of a rolling thunder but very deep and the percussion from the Arnold overtures sent the dogs into a frenzy.
Finally,equally impressive has been the performane of this machine with 1/4 track commercial releases. Being used to my ReVox B77 ,A77 (my pet hate) and PR99s with these tapes the A 80 with the FM heads is a revelation. Of course a rubbish tape stays rubbish but some of those tapes are very good. The $750 invested in that FM 1/4 track head was worth every cent.