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Well, after taking stock of all the great advice i had gotten here.. having gotten a nice deal on a Revox A77 mk IV from a local Craig Lister (pretty good cosmetics, bonus of very nice silver Revox NAB adapters) and compiling my "starter's kit", if you will -- copious thanks to inmate X2000R, btw, who has been extremely helpful and grabbed some great Quantegy stuff for me upon his recent visit (including tape at factory cost, a bunch or metal reels in great shape, a cool little splicing tool and 2 NOS metal reeled Max. XLI from his private stash).. i was all set to play this past weekend.Well.. i had bad news, than good news and ultimately bad news again.
A little intro., my deck was sent to a restorer who shall remain blameless at this juncture.. just so you all know that the deck was gone over entirely and apparently c leaned, refirbed and run in to factory specs in all areas. Thing is, i couldn't find the time to touch it for several months. It sat in my chilly attic for awhile.. in the downtime, i did get the cables, Revox manual (off of eBay) tape and other supplies i would need to give it an initial go.
I cued a reel of old tape just to get a feel for tape itself.. i also carefully spliced on some leader, just for practice. Long story short.. the capstan wouldn't turn.. FF & Rew. motors were fine.. so that was a major bummer. Just when all hope was lost and i knew boxing back up to a now "dubious" refirber.. i go to the deck again and hear a faint motr noise coming from it.. Low-and-behold, the capstan motor had warmed up and was now good-to-go.
I then was able to play a crappy recording through my system off of the old tape (which promptly broke during its play).. i was a bit suprised that no sensor activity sensed this and shut down the deck.. i was upstairs and the wfe shouted, "your RTR deck has a problem and is going crazy!".. i imagined a spaghetti factory.. but it was mainly just the take up motor spinning kinda madly with the no tape tension.
I was still pretty stoked at this point.First i cued up some old tape that came on a Revox reel that i just got from the UK. Another little leader splice later and i was off to fart around with both my preamp (vintage fisher 400 cx2) and the deck's interface. Well, first i played it and there was nothing on the tape. Then i deceded to try an record something on it -- so i cued up a recently cleaned LP (NY - American Stars & Bars i believe)..
Good news: Am now prety much aware of my cable routings and both preamp settings for making recordings & playback. Also, heard my decks preamp clarity through my system while montoring and trying to get a decent recording.
Bad news: I knew something was up when i had zero, VU meter activity.. no matter what was tried.. they were dead. I figured, screw it, i'll just set my levels at 7 and see if i can get something decent at 7.5 ips.
Well, what i got was muddy, mega-dropout filled playback.. in fact after i tried on the older tape, I then cleaned my heads with some everclear, waited a few minutes and then gave it a crack with some fresh 407. Same exact result.. maybe a tiny bit better, but still something really amiss.
So now i need to send back to the refirber.. he's been very helpful and nice about it all and will send a Fed Ex call tag when i have the unit boxed properly -- still a major bummer nontheless.
After all, i am still feeling pretty good about handling tape for the first time. I feel good about the future of this new aspect of my audio hobby.. just can't wait to get a healthy deck to play with.
I can see why you guys dig it so much -- also how things can drive you bananas. With my chin up, i'll post back about what is ailing my deck and the continuation of my fledging RTR operations.
Thanks for listening guys & girls.. and big props again to X2000R for answering so many of my ???s and hooking my up with a great deal on quality supplies..
cheers, marc
Follow Ups:
Hi, Marc:One or two more points:
You **DID** connect signal cables properly before you punched in to record, and you **DID** select the proper input for either low-level input or high level before starting the recording process. And you **DID** pressing the buttons immediately to the left or right of your meters, didn't you, to activate the record mode?
Incidentally, in a stock ReVox A-77, the recording meters are designed to read level only on RECORD and NOT on PLAYBACK.
I would look into the possibility that your rec /play circuit boards may be knocked out of their contact slots or even mixed up!
I highly recommend accessing the manual and double-check to see if everything is inserted in its proper place before going much further.
Again, thanks and good luck to you!
Hi, Marc:First of all, I really was touched by your note and truly felt sorry that you have had such a disappointing experience with your ReVox A-77 MK IV.
I still own two ReVox decks, both A-77's, one a Mark III and the other, a Mark IV, like yours.
I want to offer some advice before you give up.
ReVox machines, though considered truly "portable" in their day, were very well made devices. They were not perfect, however. I am about to list some of their weaknesses, purely from my own personal pespective, as your mileage may vary:
1.) Relays are somewhat unreliable in SOME versions of the machine.
2.) Vibration in shipment will cause major problems with performance
a.) The circuit boards, which sit in little sockets and are held in place by a long slotted retaining bracket of aluminum, can work their way loose and cause malfunctions of all sorts.
b.) If you are careful, you can remove the back of the machine, remove the retaining bracket across the boards and REMOVE each one (one at a time only, so you do not mix them up) and clean the contact surfaces gently with a pencil eraser, followed by application of high quality contact cleaner. Clean or spray out the socket and reinsert / remove several cycles and replace the reatining bracket.
3.) The end-of-tape sensor needs a working light source to function. If your lamp is burned out, it will not work at all. If the lamp is working, you either have an inoperative sensor, opposite the lamp itself or the circuitry associated with the end-of-tape function is at fault.
4.) The fact that you had other problems connected with record / play, probably has more to do with bad trimmer potentiometers onboard the rec/play electronics cards than anything else. If the small delicate wires are firmly connected to the backs of the erase, record and play heads, I would suspect that the old carbon-type miniature adjustment pots on those cards have become flakey, which they do in old decks like these.
a.) In restoring a ReVox A-77, it is recommended that all of these trimmers be removed and replaced with equivalents made by Bourns or another good quality product. Of course, this means that all of the adjustments (bias and eq, for starters) will need to be recalibrated. I would also remove and replace all of the capacitors and miniature electrolytics on those same boards before you give up.
b.) Or...get another working deck!
Genuine ReVox 10.5" reel hold-downs with the flanges, are worth a lot of money to ReVox owners, so you can get cash out of those easily, should you go another way with open reel.
So, basically, severe vibration in transporting a vintage ReVox, can be your worst enemy! One big whack on a deck like yours can fracture delicate carbon trimmers. Bourns turnpots will not suffer the same fate.
5.) The circuit which controls the speed of the capstan has a monitor head which reads grooves on the side of the spinning capstan motor hoursing as it turns. This can also cause speed problems in a ReVox A-77 series deck.
Otherwise, they are pretty nice sounding decks!
By all means continue to post follow-ups letting us know how you come out!
Meanwhile, PLEASE Hang in there!
Glad to be of some help on the supplies. Glad you like them even though now you can't really do much with them. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the Revox decks so I wouldn't be of much value in attempting to troubleshoot with you. It definitely sounds like there are major internal issues with the deck. It looks like you tried process of elimination through all of the obvious, but to no avail. I should however point out that the long storage in the attic *MAY* be at least in part to blame for your woes. I'm not saying it is, but it definitely could've been a factor. Most solid state electronics like this do not hold up well to extremes of temperature. People tend to think of hot warehouses or damp basements but chilly garages and attics in winter can be just as devastating to everything from the pinch rollers to the transistors to the solder on the circuitboards. I have 5 decks in all, but only two are in actual use. The other three are wrapped in plastic and cloth and are in storage in a closet adjacent to my listening room. So they are still in "comfortable living environment" where I try and keep the temps fairly steady and within a normal range.
If you have in writing that the deck was supposed to be in some kind of proper working order, i.e. a warranty, you should be able to go back to whoever sold it to you and ask for some kind of recourse-at the very least the cost of shipping it back to the shop. If he is unable or unwilling to fix it, then you should be able to demand a refund.If, on the other hand you bought an "as-is", well that's a whole other ball game. But let's not go there. Because if you did, then you have only a handful of options. All of them bad. So let's hope you get the deck fixed.
Otherwise, we can always help you out in procuring an alternate deck. And just a personal comment here, I'm not sure why you were persuaded to buy an A77. That's neither here nor there, but from everyone I've talked to about the Euro models (Revox, Tandberg, etc.), they are much like their automobile counterparts: Very well designed, built, and have impressive operating specs. But when it comes to service life, actual maintennance, troubleshooting, and reliability, they are dogs. Frankly, had you consulted with me prior to your purchase, I would've made a strong case for a Teac, Tascam, Technics, Akai, Pioneer, or Otari.
The deck was stored in my third floor guestroom, but for all intent & purpose.. it really is the attic level of the house and i turn the heat valve off up there -- this wasn't a factor at all until very recently (we've had a really mild Winter here in the NE corridor until the last few weeks).But i agree with what must be a transistor, circuit board, electrical failure as being a very likely culprit for the decks issues.. Sometime just when vintage gear sits idle.. which with my schedule, it was for several months after the refirb. Case in point, how the capstan came to life after some electronic heat..
Luckily, the work on my deck is waranteed by the restorer for a few years and he has issued a Fed Ex call tag for its transit back to his shop. So while i have possibly myself to blame for not immediately firing the sucker up, it should get some nice service to get me up back and running.
My start with the Revox has been more of a false start, but i can already see where more logic controls and frankly, auto-reverse are already stuff i'd like to have -- i guess i'll see with the reliabilty thing.. can't exactly run out to the local joint to get it serviced in the future. I do like that their are still parts and support for the old Revox decks.
I would really consider a newer deck in the future. Of the ones you mention or haven't Teacs, Pioneers & Tandbergs seem very interesting to me.
I'll post about how it goes --
I bought 2 B-215 cassette decks and I sent them both off to:JM Technical Arts
313 Rembrandt Dr.
Old Hickory, TN 37138
(615) 754-8323
email:JMTArevox@cs.comWhat a revelation, prompt professional service at a reasonal price.
Sounds like your "restorer" is seriously at fault. Good luck.
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