Reel to reel

How do you quantify this phenomenon? There is frequency response, wow and flutter, distortion and noise; but where is this tape width thing quantified?

Width allows for a wider track, which means the head can have more output. So you get lower noise and greater headroom both at the same time. Higher tape speed allows for greater modulation as well and also gives you greater bandwidth. These things are quite measurable- it should be no surprise they are audible as well.

The quality I speak of, would be even more pronounced in a reel that used 1 inch or 1/2 inch tape. Is there anyone qualified to speak on this issue?

2-track 1/2" tape at 15 inches is amazing. But be forewarned- you won't want to listen to 1/4" tape after that...
1/2" 2-channel is a common mastering format. 

Well one thing led to another and he offered me a mint B77 high speed unit for what I considered a very fair price considering he was shipping it from Switzerland to the USA!

A capstan adapter can be used to change the speed on a deck. A number of pro audio decks use this to do 30 inches but it can also be used to go from 7.5" to 15". If you've ever wondered why many machines (such as Ampex) have a threaded hole in the top of the capstan, its there for a capstan adapter. You might run into an issue with equalization but NAB 7.5" and 15" EQ is the same.

Silly question possibly but.....
Is there any way to increase the output voltage at the deck or to increase it going into the amp.
Obviously without having any deleterious sonic effect.

Often there is. As I mentioned earlier with most consumer decks the output is calibrated to 1 volt. But they can do more than that and there is usually a potentiometer that is used to set the output voltage. You can probably guess where I'm going with this. The problem is volume control but there are solutions for that. With some tinkering you might be able to install a volume control on the deck itself (it it doesn't already have one).

They didn't. But the output is set by a trimmer control and it may have been set up to be a little hotter.

If I had one criticism it would be its relatively low output to my amp, but I think that is likely fairly common issue in most vintage tape decks.

Consumer decks (including cassette) are set to a 1.0 volt output generally. There was an expectation to be used with a preamp. Pro decks are a bit different and have a lot more output.

Grand Master shows up in the manual as 2 Bias, and 2 EQ, the same as Benjie recommended.

All the new tape formulations are set up so you don't have to tweak the bias or EQ. The Ampex Grand Master became the gold standard in the old days so its a good bet that any new tape you get is aimed at that performance.

This is the tape I'm purchasing;


        https://www.atrtape.com/products/mds-36-14-x-3600


Now I'm trying to figure what bias and equalization I set on the RS1506 for this tape?

If you've been using Ampex Grand Master 456 this is a really similar formulation. Also corresponds to 3M 996

^^ +1

That piece of s... Technics with Grado is nothing really, DJ toy at best.

@inna

Yes- precisely the point. When mastering an LP you can't do it so that only the very best pickups will do the job. The groove you cut must be easily played on an average machine and the Technics is a pretty good 'average'.

I am afraid that I just cannot agree with a blanket statement like that.

@uberwaltzYes, its all about provenance.
@benjie The 3rd harmonic in tape machines has to do with the nature of the record and playback heads, both being inductive devices. If a 2nd order shows up, its a sign that something is wrong with the machine.

Ralph, I don't fully trust your hearing and your neutrality and objectivity. Tape is overall superior to any LP pressing in real world. As for theoretical possibilities, I don't know, but there is always an issue of playback. Put $200k vinyl set-up against $25k Studer and the vinyl will lose big time, not just lose.

@inna , I run a recording studio with a number of tape machines as well as a Scully lathe equipped with a Westerex 3D cutter. My perspective is probably a bit different from yours. I play master tapes, dubs, cut lacquers and play them back on my system at home. Test pressings we get back are variable but its clear that QRP rules the roost with making the pressings with the lowest noise- a noise floor with which tape simply cannot compete. I can record 35KHz easily on LP, but can't do that on the tape machines. We use a Technics SL1200 with a Grado Gold for playback in the studio; any LP we cut has to be able to play back on a machine like that. So I don't agree at all that $200k vinyl playback can be bested by tape; a lowly Technics can beat tape easily. But it all has to do with provenance, which I apparently did not do a good job of explaining to @benjie 

atmasphere you seem to be talking out both sides of your mouth here. In earlier posts you praise the qualities of vinyl and the downfalls of tape. In response to my question about a master tape I have vs the vinyl album you now list all of the problems with vinyl and talk about how great tape is and how much you love tape. You seem to want to have it both ways to support your position....

....All of the quotes that I have listed in my previous posts which are directly from manufactures and magazine articles, you state them as "false". You know the saying, " You only know what you can show ". Well I am showing my evidence to support my position. All you are showing me is your opinion and ***a bunch of technical facts*** that really don’t mean anything in the real world of listening to music on a home stereo.

My position is, Analog tape is king!   Prove me wrong.

(emphasis added) 'Technical facts' are like other kinds of facts, things that are real. That is why we (and you) use the word 'fact'. Again, you are confusing provenance of individual media, construing it with **all** media of the same type. Its easy to find plenty of reel to reel recordings that really aren't that good! Not to say that they were bad, but a lot of pre-recorded reel to reel stuff done back in the 60s and 70s just wasn't up to snuff with the LPs of the same thing. But! If you were to get a dub of any of those recordings today on 15IPS you might find that it sounds excellent and better than the LP.


Pre-recorded cassette tapes also were terrible, but if you recorded the cassettes at home off of the LPs, they sounded just fine. 


The reason is *provenance*; where and how the individual example of the media came into being. I gave you facts about why the LP is a superior media in terms of noise floor, bandwidth and distortion, but at the same time gave you reasons why its often not realized. But one must not make the mistake of assuming that just because its often not realized that it therefore is inferior.

Anyone using 1/2" or 1" deck ? Big difference ?

Yes. When you hear what 1/2" brings to the table you won't want to go back to 1/4". BTW, 30i.p.s. has problems playing bass.
@cleeds 

That some here have noted some of the inherent limitations of tape doesn’t mean we think it’s "so flawed." As you stated, there is no perfect recording method.

When creating a newly remastered LP, it makes sense to start with the original analog master. No copy made from that master can be higher quality than the original. That’s not to say that you might not prefer a copy of the original, but it can’t contain musical information not present on the master.

^^ This +1

You may well be correct - but not necessarily. After all, the LP wasn’t made directly from the master tape, right? It would have to go through an RIAA EQ network, and almost certainly some amount of limiting or compression, if only to protect the cutter head.

LP does not need limiting or compression compared to tape. But it often gets used to reduce mastering costs. The head can be blown up by carelessness and limiting or compression has nothing to do with that.
@gusser

One of the reasons I gave away most of my cd's was the engineer who mixed the cd used either compression and/or did not allow the original mix to shine through.

CDs employ compression as there is an expectation they will be played in a car. Its an industry thing and part of why analog usually is more dynamic and interesting bycomparison.
@benjie 

I am sorry but I can’t go with you on this one. I have restored both of my R2R decks, Techincs RS-1500 2 track and Revox PR99 MkII. And I can say without a doubt that there is no "euphoric distortion" generating circuit in either deck. I don’t think the term existed 35 or 40 years ago.

When in record mode the primary distortion component of reel to reel (at 0 VU) is the 3rd harmonic, which the ear treats very much the same way as the 2nd; it adds 'richness'.
@inna 

Walter Davies of LAST, nice man by the way, said that he had used his own preservatives for all his reels and decks for many years.

Yes- very nice. He might still have a letter from me about the LAST head preservative I sent to him many years ago. I was doing an on-location recording and my machine had a worn head; I used LAST on the head to improve head wrap and it worked a charm- no loss of high frequencies and the recording was successful. Good stuff.

I have a first gen copy from the master tape of Talking Heads "True Stories" album. Honest, it is the genuine article. I also have the vinyl lp, the CD and a HIGH Def 96/24 download. With my system I can play all 4 versions at the same time. I can select from the preamp which version I would be listening to at that particular moment. Without a doubt the tape version blows away all others. I mean it is not even close. I have performed this test many times with friends and never has anyone selected anything else but the tape as the best sounding version of the music. It really is that obvious. My question is, how can the worst technically as far as distortion, bandwidth and background noise sound so much better than the far superior vinyl and digital formats?

The issue here is confusing the media with individual situations. If you recall, I had to refute the idea that there is no degradation with analog copies. There most definitely is! The first thing you have to sort out is the source of the LP. While LP is a higher performance medium, it does have its own issues. One of them is the stamper; since its Talking Heads the stamper was probably made though a 3-step process. But how many stampers were made? The first stampers made are the best sounding; like anything analog successive generations degrade; if you are on the 50th stamper its just not going to be as lively as the 1st.
Then we have to sort out the provenience of the tape that was the master for the LP mastering. The reason you have a 2nd gen copy is likely because several were made so that the LP could be mastered and pressed in several plants in the US (and overseas as well). Which plant did your LP come from? If not the country of origin, its likely not to sound as good- in the country of origin there is a feedback process where a test pressing is sent to the artist and producer to sign off on. If your LP came from somewhere else this may not have happened.

If the label was pressed for time or if they were about their usual affairs, the last thing they want to do is pay $400/hour to the mastering engineer to sort out how to make the best lacquer of the recording possible without processing. Its much cheaper to throw a compressor and mono bass processor in the signal chain (both of which will degrade the sound as they are adding distortion and reducing bandwidth); that way they minimize the LP mastering cost; they’ll get something acceptable and it won’t be the ’best’.

Of course there is the issue of your LP playback which has a lot of variables as opposed to a pro audio tape machine which arguably has less.

I can go on but I think I’ve made my point several times over. And this is why I am a fan of tape, because it does offer the opportunity to get closer to the master, and while its performance is measurably and audibly inferior to the LP, the fact is that most of the time getting closer to the master recording makes it the medium of choice.
BTW my Revox is down the road to its new owner. Thanks to all that contacted me.

I don't have "tape hiss"; evidently you were not doing proper maintenance, or bought cheap tape.

Tape hiss is inherent with all analog tape and all analog tape machines. It is caused by the random magnetic states of tape particles as they move past the playback head. If you can't hear it that's a different thing but its there nonetheless.

"There is always a loss when copying from one analog source to another." That’s false.

This statement is false. There is a loss of bandwidth and increase in distortion with each additional generation of analog copy.

Absolutely nothing is better, including amps, pre-amps, phono amps; just different. A top of the line ARC amp of 30 years ago, would sound as good as a brand new one; assuming both amps had brand new parts

So is this one. If you do things differently, it is possible to bypass problems that other equipment may have and yield a performance and audible improvement.

"What makes tape such a smart choice? For starters, it has greater dynamic range than vinyl, with extraordinary sound at the frequency extremes: the treble and bass. Next, consider the amount of signal processing that each medium requires. Vinyl: a lot. Tape: very little. Signal processing is the enemy of hi-fidelity.

I’m a fan of tape, but geez! This statement is false. The LP has bandwidth from about 12Hz to about 40KHz and with lower distortion. It also has a lower noise floor. That this is a fact should not be hard to ascertain! Anyone with an LP from the 70s or earlier can hear when the tape is started at the beginning of the LP- the background noise increases. The noise floor of an LP can be very nearly -90dB if everything is set up properly with the lacquer and the pressing machine does not vibrate as the vinyl copy cools. An example of the latter is the QRP pressing plant in Salinas KS. We did a job through there a few years ago with surfaces so quiet that quite literally the electronics was the noise floor, not the LP.

It helps to understand how vinyl and tape albums are manufactured. To make a record, the MT signal must be compressed to match the dynamic limits of vinyl. Some of the highs and lows are slashed in the bargain. All the other audio tricks needed to shoehorn a signal into those tiny grooves compromises the signal even more.

This statement is false. The reason compression is used is two-fold. First, there is an expectation that the LP might be played over the air, second, its a lot **cheaper** to engineer the LP if compression is used. You literally turn it on and read a book while the cutter head does its job. When no compression is used you have to be more careful to avoid overcutting prior grooves and making sure that the groove you cut can be played back without the stylus jumping out of the groove and such. But if you do that properly, the dynamic range of vinyl is greater than that of tape. Direct to disc recordings demonstrate what this is about. The limitation in LP dynamic range is in playback, not record. As reproducers have improved over the decades, so has the dynamic range that is possible.


The reason a tape recording of an LP can sound better than the LP itself is simply because quite often the speakers aren’t playing when the recording is made, and a tape machine is unaffected by room-borne vibration while a turntable is. My friends and I used to use this trick all the time in the old days to make better cassette recordings.
BTW, I have a Revox B-77 that runs although it could use some minor service (tape counter needs a belt). Its mounted in a travel case. Speeds are 3 3/4" and 7/5" although it could be used at 15ips if a capstan adapter were used in the high speed mode. Free if you pay the shipping.

If you are looking for new tape,  Full Compass Systems is were I get mine.

https://www.fullcompass.com/
Not saying they stock it; I had to wait a month to get some reels of 1" tape. I suspect they have the 1/2" and 1/4" in stock but I've not checked.