Vintage gear...TLSguy, you are invited.

[Davemcc]

I prevented this gear from being dumped. I suspect that it is all high end. It looks mint and I also suspect that it all works perfectly. It was owned by an elderly family member who was a fastidious engineer, an audio buff dating back at least to the 50's and an RAF veteran. I have this stuff but I don't need it, don't have a place to hook it up and can't protect it from cat hair properly if it were hooked up.

Let's start with "what is it?" beyond the obvious reel to reel answer. Then, "who can use it?"

The first one.

The second one.

Closer view of the second one.

The controller for the second one.

I have a box of reels as well, presumably with a great deal of classical music recorded on them.

 

[TLS Guy]

I prevented this gear from being dumped. I suspect that it is all high end. It looks mint and I also suspect that it all works perfectly. It was owned by an elderly family member who was a fastidious engineer, an audio buff dating back at least to the 50's and an RAF veteran. I have this stuff but I don't need it, don't have a place to hook it up and can't protect it from cat hair properly if it were hooked up.

Let's start with "what is it?" beyond the obvious reel to reel answer. Then, "who can use it?"

The first one.

The second one.

Closer view of the second one.

The controller for the second one.

I have a box of reels as well, presumably with a great deal of classical music recorded on them.

The Concertone is low end, and not worth much.

The Ampex looks interesting, but I will have to research it. It is a professional machine with external tube tape preamp. It takes 10.5 inch NAB reels.

All old tape decks need the loving hand of the restorer.

Noe if these units will fetch a lot. The Concertone about $35. The Ampex more but I'm uncertain as condition unknown. However to make that unit exhibition quality, it will take a lot of time and money.

Do not try and plug the Ampex in. It needs checking out and starting on the bench. It is an interesting exhibit. Ampex were the best of the US machines.

 

[Davemcc]

Thanks Mark. I thought they might be something you would be interested in. I'm not looking to sell them. Just trying to find them a good home. Failing that, I'll just drop them off at Alex's house.

 

[Alex2507]

Just trying to find them a good home. Failing that, I'll just drop them off at Alex's house.

... but this is a good home !!!

I'm more interested in the music but since the gear goes with it, I'm out. Having to start that Ampex up on test bench a is pretty much a death sentence for it. I've had dealings with a couple of shops in my area and am here to tell you that they are #1 unreliable and #2 expensive.

I just came to realize that this EQ I have is producing a hum and I'm not sure what to do with it.
The b!tch of it is that I just got through giving it the love.

... after the love

The good news is that the amp is clean! I had previously suspected it of being dirty.

The last things I took to a shop were there for a year and came back to me unrepaired
and still cost me $60 just to have them look.

Good luck finding a home for that gear. Audio Karma would definitely have some guys interested in that.
Mulester should still be around over. I wonder about the music you have on the tapes.
Curiosity is an uncomfortable thing.

 

[Davemcc]

I wonder about the music you have on the tapes.
Curiosity is an uncomfortable thing.

I'm pretty sure it's all classical music. I hate to think that among the tapes are secretly recorded MI5 surveillance of JFK's assassination conspirators and I just gave it away. They could be worth millions but I'm pretty sure it's just classical music.

 

[Alex2507]

I'm pretty sure it's just classical music.

Which works, what orchestras, which soloists and conductors?
When were they recorded? What equipment was used to get in on tape?
That's part of what I like about old classical albums. There's a story and a history. It's not like rock where all that can be said is 'in the artist's third year of banging heroin he wrote this tune on a paper towel at a Denny's in Idaho.'

 

[TLS Guy]

Thanks Mark. I thought they might be something you would be interested in. I'm not looking to sell them. Just trying to find them a good home. Failing that, I'll just drop them off at Alex's house.

Dave, can we have more pictures? In particular pictures of the head block are vital I think the deck is a 300, but I'm not certain.

I think you have a 300 deck with a 354 preamp. That would put it circa 1960.

If it is the 300 deck it would be two track stereo. A few had four track play back heads as well as a two track one.

Now I suspect your relative had the Concertone to play the prerecorded four track tapes. The question is, are those tapes you have marked as two track or four track? The issue is important as most likely the Ampex is two track only (tape only goes one way). The Concertone is almost certainly four track (tape turns over and goes both ways)

As far as value. I can't find a sale of the deck which I think is a 300, but the 354 preamps fetch around $300 sight unseen and around $700 fully restored. The 300/354 combination was aimed at the radio station market. The 354 was apparently known for overheating problems.

Both were made at the Ampex Redwood California plant.

I have searched for anybody that might have circuits or service manuals for those items, to no avail. I can find the Eq circuits for the 354.

What do you want to do with these units? As far as I can tell the deck seems quite rare now, there are a few 354s most in bad shape. Both of these units should be restored and preserved if possible.

If you want I can talk to the Museum of broadcasting and see if they would want those units as a gift. I would be happy to assist them with restoration. As you will see they have some fine exhibits. Pride of place is a huge Western Electric cinema horn speaker. This was the forerunner of the Altec Lansing speaker company, and the ancestor of the Voice of the Theater.

You have inherited an important enough item that it should be taken in hand.

 

[walter duque]

... but this is a good home !!!

I'm more interested in the music but since the gear goes with it, I'm out. Having to start that Ampex up on test bench a is pretty much a death sentence for it. I've had dealings with a couple of shops in my area and am here to tell you that they are #1 unreliable and #2 expensive.

I just came to realize that this EQ I have is producing a hum and I'm not sure what to do with it.
The b!tch of it is that I just got through giving it the love.

... after the love

The good news is that the amp is clean! I had previously suspected it of being dirty.

The last things I took to a shop were there for a year and came back to me unrepaired
and still cost me $60 just to have them look.

Good luck finding a home for that gear. Audio Karma would definitely have some guys interested in that.
Mulester should still be around over. I wonder about the music you have on the tapes.
Curiosity is an uncomfortable thing.

I guess I owe you $60.--. Is the EQ working now? Rack looks good, working or not,

 

[darien87]

Both were made at the Ampex Redwood California plant.

So that's what they do at that big building with the Ampex sign just off the 101 in Redwood City. I always thought it was some kind of computer company.

 

[TLS Guy]

So that's what they do at that big building with the Ampex sign just off the 101 in Redwood City. I always thought it was some kind of computer company.

Magnetic tape recorders, except for Mike Spitz of ATR, are pretty much a thing of the past. ATR services refurbishes and remanufactures the great machines of old.

Here is a history of Ampex.

They are a great company. They invented the video recorder.

They were the first to manufacture magnetic tape outside Germany and that is great story in and if itself.

Ampex now make high density digital storage systems. They also make the "Black boxes."

As is the curse of this country and the west, this great company are emerging from a bankruptcy in 2008.

Make no mistake we are heading to join the ranks of third world nations fast.

 

[Alex2507]

Now I suspect your relative had the Concertone to play the prerecorded four track tapes. The question is, are those tapes you have marked as two track or four track? The issue is important as most likely the Ampex is two track only (tape only goes one way). The Concertone is almost certainly four track (tape turns over and goes both ways)

This is putting a lot of performance pressure on Dave.
Don't push him too hard. His Powers of Procrastination are legendary.

So the 2 track Ampex and the 4 track Concertone play completely different tapes or would the Concertone be able to play both 4 track and 2 track? Down in Ft. Worth at Greg's audio dealer they have somewhat of a museum. The salesman gave us the tour of what they thought was cool enough to hang onto and display in their retail space. I found it pretty interesting and thought it was a worth while pursuit. I also think a museum of this sort is worthy of our (meaning Dave's) support.

So Dave, are you able to identify the tapes and determine what they can be played on?

No pressure ...

 

[TLS Guy]

This is putting a lot of performance pressure on Dave.
Don't push him too hard. His Powers of Procrastination are legendary.

So the 2 track Ampex and the 4 track Concertone play completely different tapes or would the Concertone be able to play both 4 track and 2 track? Down in Ft. Worth at Greg's audio dealer they have somewhat of a museum. The salesman gave us the tour of what they thought was cool enough to hang onto and display in their retail space. I found it pretty interesting and thought it was a worth while pursuit. I also think a museum of this sort is worthy of our (meaning Dave's) support.

So Dave, are you able to identify the tapes and determine what they can be played on?

No pressure ...

Here is the head block of my two track stereo Revox A 700, (in Europe referred to as half track), recorder.

The small head to the left is the erase head. The head in the middle is the record head, and the head to the right the playback head. This allows for off tape monitoring of a tape as it is recorded.

This is the track format.

Now here is the head block of my Brenell Mk 6.

This machine was built especially to my specification. Note there are four tape heads.

Form left to right, 2 (1/2) track erase, 2 (1/2) track record, 2 (1/2) track playback and then that extra head 4 (1/4) track erase. So this machine will record and playback 2 (1/2) track stereo tapes, but can also playback 4 (1/4) track stereo tapes.

This is the track format for 4 (1/4) track stereo tapes.

Then we have the issue of equalization. North America used NAB curves, the UK had CCIR and continental Europe largely DIN. CCIR and DIN curves are close, but NAB very different. All my machines are NAB.

Now speed, reel to reel machines have various speed options. Speeds are 1 7/8 inches per second, speech quality. 3 3/4 ips often used on consumer grade machines, but below Hi-Fi quality, 7 1/2 ips much better quality and what most of us used to use for recording from radio. Most pre recorded reel to reel tapes are 7 1/2 ips 4 (1/4) track stereo. Older ones before RCA invented the 4 (1/4) track stacked stereo head are 2 (1/2) track stereo. These are sought after and sound better than the later four tracks. These are hard to find. At 7 1/2 ips you can not get to 0 db full modulation out to 20 kHz and have to calibrate the machines at -10 db. So there is HF saturation and fall off in HF response.

So for professional recording we all used 15 or even 30 ips2 (1/2) track. At these speeds you can fully modulate a tape to 20 kHz and down to 20 Hz. So you calibrate the machine at 0 db. The problem is that a 10 1/2 NAB tape reel only last 30 min at 15 ips and 15 min at 30 ips. So you have to switch from one machine to the other at the recording session and have the machines very closely calibrated. This is also very expensive. Good master tape was never cheap. I used to switch between my Brenell and Revox A 700

Now we get to the next incompatibility, noise reduction. Reel to reel tapes for pro use can have Dolby A and dbx 1. There were also a few others such as the Telefunken system.

On the consumer end there was Dolby B and dbx 2.

If you go back to the early to mid fifties, the right and left channels were on different heads, so called staggered head stereo. The problem was that there was no agreed head spacing and every manufacturer used a different head spacing! I have one staggered head pre recorded tape in my collection, what I call the museum.

All of this gives the tape collector a wonderful excuse to have a lot of machines!

The machine on the left is 4 (1/4) track stereo. It is a Revox A 77 Mk 4 and has Dolby B available to it. Speeds 7.5 and 3.75 ips.

The next to the is the Brenell Mk 6 2 (1/2) track stereo record and playback plus 4 (1/4) track stereo playback. dbx 2 noise reduction available. Speed 15, 7.5 and 3.75 ips.

The lower machine a 2 (1/2) track Revox A 77 Mk 1. Speed 15 and 7.5 ips. Dolby A noise reduction available.

The machine to the far left is a Revox A77 Mk 2, 2 (1/2) track stereo machine. Speeds 15 and 7.5 ips.

The Revox A 700 2 (1/2) track stereo recorder. dbx 1 noise reduction available. Speeds 15, 7.5 and 3.75 ips.

So that is an excuse (really need) for lots of machines. And you think we have compatibility problems now?

For Dave's machines his Ampex will be 2 (1/2) track stereo 15 and 7.5 ips.

The Concertone will be 4 (1/4) track and have speeds of 7.5 and 3.75 ips and may be 1 7/8 ips.

So I would be certain there are tapes that play on one machine and not the other.

 

[Alex2507]

Oh my goodness ... I think Matt warned me about you being able to belt out some text!

I got get a block of timer together before I tackle that subject. I mean I was bored enough a minute ago and was going to post something useless in the boring thread real quick but I have something to do after that ... like in 10 minutes. Your post is most appreciated. I will just have to get back to the other 75% of it.

 

[Swerd]

Oh my goodness ... I think Matt warned me about you being able to belt out some text!

Agreed. Little is more interesting than TLS Guy talking about his favorite collection of gear, especially on this cold rainy Saturday morning.

The only thing I can say about magnetic tape recording is that my brother's late father-in-law was the design engineer who designed and built early 4, 8, and 16 track record heads for studio tape recorders in the 1960s. His name was Arthur Gruber and he worked for a company in New York named Scully. He installed them in many recording studios in the US and Great Britian. He also was the treasurer of the AES for many years.

Art once told my brother that during WWII the British, who closely monitored virtually all German radio signals, had heard a German commercial radio broadcast of a symphony (Art knew which one, but I forget) that was complete without the expected interruption coming when the LP record had to be turned over. They eventually found out that it was magnetically recorded on wire, as magnetic tape was not yet used. Was that among the first magnetic audio recorders?

When I was in the Navy (early 1970s) we had Ampex audio tape recorders that ran at 30 ips with 16 track record heads. We recorded certain undemodulated Soviet military radio signals on them. The tapes were 1" wide and on reels large enough to last 30 minutes. We used pairs of these recorders to maintain continuous coverage. We kept a shelf of tape reels large enough for a 48 hour backup of recordings before recording over them again.

 

[TLS Guy]

Agreed. Little is more interesting than TLS Guy talking about his favorite collection of gear, especially on this cold rainy Saturday morning.

The only thing I can say about magnetic tape recording is that my brother's late father-in-law was the design engineer who designed and built early 4, 8, and 16 track record heads for studio tape recorders in the 1960s. His name was Arthur Gruber and he worked for a company in New York named Scully. He installed them in many recording studios in the US and Great Britian. He also was the treasurer of the AES for many years.

Art once told my brother that during WWII the British, who closely monitored virtually all German radio signals, had heard a German commercial radio broadcast of a symphony (Art knew which one, but I forget) that was complete without the expected interruption coming when the LP record had to be turned over. They eventually found out that it was magnetically recorded on wire, as magnetic tape was not yet used. Was that among the first magnetic audio recorders?

When I was in the Navy (early 1970s) we had Ampex audio tape recorders that ran at 30 ips with 16 track record heads. We recorded certain undemodulated Soviet military radio signals on them. The tapes were 1" wide and on reels large enough to last 30 minutes. We used pairs of these recorders to maintain continuous coverage. We kept a shelf of tape reels large enough for a 48 hour backup of recordings before recording over them again.

Thank you for your kind words.

Scully were another fine American firm, who made fine recorders and LP cutting lathes. My acquaintance with Scully was in Grand Forks, were there were Scully recorders at UND in the Josephine Campbell recital hall. I fought a loosing battle in training the student to maintain and record these machines and they were eventually scrapped.

For professional use 1/8 track widths are standard, so a four channel recorder uses 1/2 inch tape an eight track one inch a six teen track two inch and a 32 track four inch.

Tape as opposed to wire recoding was developed before the war in Germany by BASF. Sir Thomas Beecham who had a great interest in recording technology, made the first classical recording on magnetic tape in Germany in 1936.

So it is a mystery to me that the discovery of tape recorder in Germany after the war came as a surprise.

Fortunately one of the greatest audio pioneers in the UK turned his attention to radar. This was Allen Blumlein, the son of German immigrants.

He was the inventor of stereo. Luckily for western civilization he turned his attention to radar. Everyone recognizes the sacrifices and bravery of the "few" in preserving western civilization. However without the contribution of one of our own audio pioneers, Alan Blumlein and his team, the Battle of Britain surely would have been lost. As you will seeing the information on his home page I linked, he died in the line of duty testing on board radar.

This was something German intelligence did not have a clue about, and could not understand how the RAF always new where the "Hun" boggies where.

It's ironic that the Germans were done in by one of their own.

This is another strange story, and I think this one could only happen in the UK.

It is the story of how the very eccentric Lady Houston saved the Spitfire.

There is now a campaign to get a memorial to her in Trafalgar Square.

 

[Swerd]

Thanks for those fascinating links.

It is possible that I remembered details wrong with Art's story about the German recordings. It may have been tape and not wire. Unfortunately, Art died a number of years ago, so I can't ask him about that.

I never knew about Allen Blumlein, although the story about the British breakthrough in using radar for air defence is now widely known. There are several other examples of German immigrants or even refugees from the Nazis, who became instrumental in the war effort. A number of nuclear physicists, including Albert Einstein, contributed to the development of the bomb.

It's funny how both Germany and the UK/US allies both developed stuff that the others had ignored or written off as not possible. Germany knew about radar, but primarily used it for ship detection at sea and naval gunnery. They ignored its applications to air defence. Of course they also believed their communication encryption was unbreakable, and they ignored the possiblilty that Britian was reading their secret radio messages. Radio intercept, decryption and radio direction finding were as instrumental in anti-sub warefare as was airborn radar.

I guess the lesson is never understimate your opposition.

 

[Davemcc]

This is putting a lot of performance pressure on Dave.
Don't push him too hard. His Powers of Procrastination are legendary.

Hey, we all have to play to our strengths.

Thanks for the fascinating discussion. I like the museum idea. Cosmetically, I think they are in museum condition. I'd be willing to bet that they also bench test well when taking their age into consideration. As I mentioned, the gentleman that owned them was an engineer and a perfectionist.

I will take some better photos.

 

[Davemcc]

I tried to get some good shots of the heads but it's hard with the door that's covering them.

This thing is a beast. It's too heavy to remove from the box but this may show it's cosmetic condition better.

 

[Davemcc]

Here are some photos of the other piece.

 

[TLS Guy]

Here are some photos of the other piece.

Thanks Dave! Those pieces do seem to be in fine order. I wonder what the speeds are. It has tow speeds. I wonder if it is 15/7.5 or 7.5/3.75. Since they were for radio stations, I bet you could order them either way, like the Revox A 77 which was the backbone of radio stations around the world.