Reel to reel deck directly to power amp ?
Yes, I was thinking about output/input match, but Ralph didn't mention there might be a problem. It should be fantastic sound, especially if you play good two track master tape dubs. But even recordings from vinyl will sound excellent. I make a lot of compilations, play them on my Nak 682ZX, I rarely play entire albums, I don't have many that I would want to play entirely and I don't enjoy moving the needle all the time. Nak recordings sound okay but far from vinyl, with reel to reel deck I will fix it, this should be very close. When playing records thru deck by way of separate phono you can adjust volume with both volume control and recording level knobs. The you use tape monitor switch to listen to either deck or turntable. There may be a slight drop in the resolution compared to running phono signal to top level preamp instead of a deck, sure, but at the same time you will lose some resolution when playing deck connected to preamp as opposed to running it directly into power amps. Unless, of course, power amps have two inputs, so you could run deck directly and phono thru preamp and then to amps. But in this case I would need to connect phono and deck directly, not thru preamp's tape-outs, to make best quality recordings from vinyl. Not too much work, though. Anyway, I will start without preamp. There is currently a pair of Clayton M70 monoblocks for sale on usaudiomart. That would work with my current and almost certainly future speakers. I keep my hands off credit cards, you won't find overall better amps for $2200, I guess. |
Adjusting volume with a big bloody screwdriver would be cool ! I prefer tubes as well, we'll see. Next step could be asking Ralph to custom make playback head tube preamp or maybe playback head/phono stage unit, and match it precisely to his amps, and match the amps to speakers. Now that would be high end. |
Ralph will probably respond tomorrow. Right now it appears that all this would require a careful match, which is not bad but can be complicated. Would you spend $5k more on deck or on power amp ? Studer A810 is at least that much more expensive. But it should be more versatile in terms of match They are both toys compared to this, I guess. https://www.ebay.com/itm/EAR-Yoshino-STUDER-C37-One-Inch-Two-Track-Tube-Master-Reel-Recorder-SUPERB/... |
Ralph, that's good to know. Do you offer both IEC and NAB equalization ? Do I need both ? At least for pre-recorded tapes, I guess. In what way do they differ ? The deck must be modified to use outboard head preamp, I think it can be modified to include a switch for use with both internal and external playback head preamp. But..with Ralph's preamp I would have to use tape-outs to record from vinyl, something that I like to avoid, unless of course Ralph will guarantee that there will be virtually no signal loss. Ralph, do you think your 30 watt/ch amps would drive something like Harbeth or Dynaudio, thinking medium size room and not thinking insane dbs ? 60 tube watts should be no problem, not forgetting speakers' impedance curve. |
One more cable plus transformer - this will degrade the sound. Separate phono with appropriate output impedance will be better. What is the good range of output/input impedance proportion, 1/5-1/10 or so ? I still don't understand IEC /NAB real difference and whether or not I may need both. Both Studer and Otari electronics do have both. Anyway, there is so much that I don't know or even have no idea of when it comes to open reel decks. |
Ralph, unless I got confused - one cable goes from preamp's tape-out to transformer and another from transformer to deck, as opposed to from separate phono directly to deck. I think, my Nak's input impedance is around 50 kohm and my Acoustech's output impedance is close to 10 kohm, very high. They match very well, I can tell this. Hard to find phono stage to impedance match pro or semi-pro deck... Unexpected complication. |
Many preamps have 10kohm RCA line level input impedance, just like pro reel to reel decks. I haven't heard of many difficulties of matching separate phono's output impedance to that, though not all of them would match, of course. I think, both Al and Ralph exaggerated on this point. XLR line level input impedance, speaking of preamps not decks, can be much higher, I've seen figures of 40kohm. There are not many phono stages with XLR outs, though, and most that do are not inexpensive. Anyway, I see it as a very workable minimalist idea and will get to it at the right moment. My thanks to all participants. |
