How often do you have to service your Studer or Otari deck ? Home not pro environment.

I have 5 studio machines at home, all 2 track - Studer A820 1/2 inch - rest 1/4 inch Studer A807/II, Otari MTR12, & 2 x Sony APR 5000 series machines.

The A820 is just coming back from a repair - blown caps on the AC suppression and motor supply boards - repaired by Simon Griffett at Audio Related in Chesham, Bucks, UK. Simon looks after R2R machines and mixing desks at AIR and EMI studios in London.

One of my Sony APR 5000 machines was refurbed 5 years ago by a good friend, Stewart Emmings, who sadly passed away 2 years ago from bowel cancer at 49. This APR 5002 was a bit knackered and needed heads relapping, motor lube and various other bits to get it back to full working order.

Otherwise, I haven’t had to do any maintenance, other than regular cleaning of the tape path and the occasional demag.

BUT, what I do perform with EVERY tape replay or record is line up the machine properly, to check azimuth, levels (and bias if recording). All my music tapes have line up tones, so the azimuth and level checks are easily done with a set of PPM meters and a scope (if needed).

Charlie

Yes, the 1/2 inch Studer A820 sounds fantastic. The "sleeper" is the Sony APR5003.

Without a doubt, the high end Studers (A820, A812, A810 and A80) had the very best transports with servo controlled precision guidance. Also up with the Studers are the Telefunken M15, M20 and M21.Remember that the tape transport is THE most important bit to get right. No amount of fiddling with special tube pre-amps or electronics can rectify a signal, which has poor time stability.

Other machines use forced guidance for the tape path, which is not as good for providing the highest quality constant tape velocity over the head.

But out of the forced guidance machines, the Sony does an excellent job. Lovely transports, fabulous library wind (very kind to tape with a nice even pack), great sound quality and software driven calibration.