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Tape Trail Reel to reel, cassette and other analogue tape formats. |
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Tape Trail Reel to reel, cassette and other analogue tape formats. |
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In Reply to: What R2R brands are appreciated most by critical audiophiles and why? posted by little help? on December 16, 2006 at 12:56:50:
I'd say the top would be the Studer A80 and A800 but these were made for high speed 15 and 30 ips and their heads show very wide pole pieces for good bass response. The faster you move tape the higher the quality because you're spreading flux out over much more oxide but also the faster the tape moves the wider the pole piece of the head has to be. Studer, I think made the best heads followed by Ampex. Studer's Revox heads were also good. I know of no Japanese deck that can compete with the Studer/Revox machines. The Nagra is in a class by itself built like a swiss clock with jeweled ruby bearings. Analog tape electronics is a very weak area partially because it was the spoils of war taken from the Germans. The Americans basically just copied the first German machines and didn't ever vary much from the original design of the first AEG Telefunken Magnetofon. Tape formulation and coercivity changed with each new tape but the electronics in tape recorders hardly changed. They still applied record bias the same way except for Camras and the cross field head and some attempts by Keith Johnson and the focused gap head which never caught on universally.
Also analog tape recording produces distortion (modulation distortion) and it increases with each generation. Signal levels might stay the same but the noise floor moves up about 6 db every generation. Nothing sounds as good as a 1st generation master.As to your question of what you are liable to hear in difference, not very much! Ray Hughes
"I take you as you are
And make of you what I will,
Skunk-bear, carcajou, bloodthirsty
Non-survivor.
Lord, let me die but not die out." THE LAST WOLVERINE by James Dickey
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- Re: What R2R brands are appreciated most by critical audiophiles and why? - grhughes 13:58:53 12/16/06 (0)
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