Reel to Reel Tape

would agree with topoxforddoc and RUSSE41. Good LP is better than digital and tape blows away both LP and digital.

The big problem with tape is its an addictive drug... . once you start listening to it, you want more and more of it. Its very tough to listen to tape, then revert back to digital and even LP. Digital becomes akin to a transistor AM radio. All you will want is more and more of that tape sound.

I have both 15 and 30 ips masters, and many copies. Also do live to 2 track recording on the weekends.

If you want to do a simple test, have a few friends over, set up set of mics and record to both digital and tape. Even the conversation in the room will work.

Then play back both copies, you can A-B. You will be shocked at how good the tape is at reproducing what you experienced live.

best

orpheus, don't waste your breath in debating. some folks are mainly spec driven and some can really hear.

all a person needs to do is listen to a live mic feed, then A-B to tape and A-B to digital. The digital always sounds like a copy. The tape always sounds so close to the mic feed, its tough to tell which is which. 

But recording to digital is much easier and lighter on the back than lugging around a bunch of analog gear.

as for tape suppliers and sources, splicit and tape tape dot com.
tape tape sells single pass reels, which are really good.

for another easy test, go to any audiophile meeting where they are playing hi rez digital files. people will be chatting away. 

step in with a high speed analog machine and play a tape. All side conversation stops instantly.

happy spinning

Dont forget freq response is not the only answer. Need to ask how much data is coming through at a given frequency? sure hi rez digital has an upper freq of 40k or more, but how many samples are used to make that curve? 4 samples?

Also forgot to mention, for tape sources there is also a seller on ebay that sells NOS (new old stock) Ampex 632 in pancakes. If a person is trying to buy new tape and save a few bucks its an option. its a bit cheaper than 911, 900 or one pass 996. i tried a few of them and they were true NOS tape and were fresh. 

Not sure what his inventory is now, but the seller used to have cases of it. 632 is pretty trouble free, no sticky shed issues. Not quite as quiet or as much headroom space as some of the higher bias backcoated tapes, but sounds quite good if you are spinning at 15 or 30. If you do a search on ampex 632 you should be able to find him. 

Right before Quantegy ended tape production, they claimed they had fixed the binder issue, so I bought 4 cases of the brand new 456 with the binder fix in place. Was good for about a year, then the same old problems started to re-appear. At that point I had used 1 case out of the 4. Threw out the remaining 3 cases of tape. By that time, Quantegy had exited the tape biz completely, so really had no recourse. I still have 6 masters on that "fixed" 456 tape that I have not transferred over yet. so have to bake them just like the 1970s ampex tapes in order to play them.

and if you are doing any tape baking, forget the oven. one of the larger food dehydrators works very well, and has good temp control.


 

Hello rauliruegas,

No problem on the fdbk and thanks for the input.
I am out 2-3x per month to attend or record live acoustical concerts, so while I may have become accustomed to analog sounds, I also have listened to countless hours of live music, so have a pretty good perception of what real music sounds like.

The other piece of the recording pie that has not been mentioned is what happens after music has been captured (either in the analog domain or digital domain). It always gets edited, and processed.

On digital recordings its dumped into a work station. here the data bits are transformed, compressed, and smoothed.

On analog recordings it gets processed with added effects, compression, a bit of reverb, etc.

I have spent a lot of hours in studios listening to session masters and then listening to edited masters (both analog and digital). sometimes the final product (post editing) is nothing like the original. all depends on how much additional processing was done to it.

What comes out the other end is usually a distant relative of what went in.

Depending what type of music you listen to, some is highly compressed, and other types are not as much compressed.

for those interested in digital playback, if you can find would suggest you pick up a copy of the resolution project. Its a DVD- Audio disc created for the pro audio industry a few years ago.  the disc contains live mic tracks recorded at different bit depth and sampling frequencies. Will also allow you test how good your DAC is and see if you can tell 24/96 apart from 24/192.
 
best to all.
 
J

three items I forgot to mention,

1. the heads make a huge difference. If JRF has heads for your deck, send him the head block and get at least their top end playback head.

http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/
2. Athan ball bearing rollers and guides.

https://www.athan.com/
will lower the wow and flutter and give smoother running of the tape acorss the heads.  They also sell on ebay for more common units.

Head load resistors - Use Vishay VSR foil resistors to load the head. Also works wonders on MM/MC cartridge loading positions too. You will never hear your MC cart be so quiet.

best to all.