There are many reel to reel machines on eBay, but I think one needs to be cautious as even the best ones, if 25 years or older would almost always need some serious service. Electrolytic capacitors have a finite shelf/use life and trim pots tend to get oxidized to the point where any re-calibration of the playback/record electronics becomes frustrating if not impossible. Having worked for ReVox in the early 1970's I am most familiar with their line of A77 decks and while they were arguably the best home type machines offered at that time and for some years to come, they always need reconditioning to be reliable and capable of performing up to their published specs. If an example presents itself with heads that are evenly and not overly worn, are of the track configuration and speed range you are after and basically works (i.e. can transport tape, no broken knobs, panels, reel hold downs, failed meters), you can expect to spend about $200-$300 for a refurb kit that will replace all electrolytics, tantalum caps, trim pots, motor start capacitors, suppression caps and possibly the three transport relays and some new brake linings. Overhaul takes about 2-3 days depending on your patience and ability. I would be very wary of cheap kits as they often use substandard parts or ones that are even the incorrect values. I have bought some of these A77's on line for relatively cheap prices and have overhauled a number of them with good success.
I've done a lot of location recording over the years with A77's, A700, Tandberg 10X and Nagras. My current flagship RTR is a Studer-ReVox PR99MkIII. Location recording at my advancing state of decrepitude using heavy open reel machines is pretty much out of the question. In the field, I currently use a small digital recorder and have been quite satisfied with the results. No wow and flutter, no tape hiss, conservative record levels, no audible (to my ears) distortion and no mechanical noise which allows me to sit in the audience and actually watch the performance. An added benefit is that I never run out of tape, something that at 15 ips happens more often than you think.
That said, if you HAVE tapes and want to be able to play them, obtaining a machine and maybe having it overhauled might be worthwhile. If you just want to have the joy of watching the reels spin, that might be reason enough to buy one as well. If you have deep enough pockets to buy new dubs of masters at $300-$600 each, and are willing to live with the limited choice of program material, you will need a 15 ips 1/2 track machine and a good one can be expensive. If you don't care about portability and have and extra $5000 plus shipping, you can buy a beautifully reconditioned MCI JH110 from Mara Machines in Nashville. Be aware though, that studio machines do generate mechanical noise that might make having them in your listening room intolerable.
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hypoman,
Thanks. Leaves almost no question unanswered.
The only thing, out of sheer curiosity, is that you mention a number of things to be fixed with those kits. It does read as relatively complex "I assume you know what you are doing" operation and not something a novice should embark on? Is that right, or is it really simple?
Again, thanks for your post.
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glupson, doing an overhaul requires some decent soldering skill, a basic understanding of electronics and above all, patience. The mechanical disassembly of even a well designed machine like the A77 can be challenging. Having a service manual is also a must as there are lots of little traps that can be avoided by doing some reading in advance. Also needed are the proper tools and at minimum a good quality digital multi meter. To actually calibrate everything once overhauled, you would need an audio oscillator, a VTVM and of course, an alignment tape for the speed and equalization standard your machine requires.
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Ya @hypoman real world experience w Studer Revox !!!!
do you have the zoom ? I love mine
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I would add and amend my earlier comment to high speed, half track and IEC EQ |
tomic, my PR99 MkIII is IEC eq (CCIR for us old timers). It lives in the wooden case that was offered as an option and has the confidence monitor amp/speaker unit as well.
My Zoom is the F8n and I also have the FRC-8 control surface which is very convenient.
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The late Roger Modjeski was very fond of Revox tape decks and has several A77s, most not working that were intended for parts or possible refurbishment. However, he does have a working unit which has 15ips speed (original, not modified). Here is an interesting tidbit from Roger about R2R decks and A77s in particular: When the store owner learned I could make an A-77 sound better than new, he
offered a $50 tune-up special. I must have repaired and aligned 100 Revox
A-77's. I still have a few in my museum and find them to be aging poorly. All
those wonderful dipped tantalum capacitors are opening up as the years go by. I
figure it would take several hours to replace them all because Revox hid them
everywhere. They were easy to get to before the mother board was set deep in
the machine. Getting the mother board out is another time-consuming issue.
There I leaned about products that are designed for manufacturing efficiency
with little regard for repair efficiency.
Cars are similar; some starters you can replace in 1/2 hour and some take
three. You know that if you keep the car long enough, you will replace the
starter and the water pump and the alternator, among other things. We don't
throw the car away when the starter quits, but we are tempted to junk the Revox
when 30 hard-to-reach capacitors are all failing. I don't use my Revox anymore,
I just look at it. I still use reel-to-reel every day, an equally old (1971)
Sony whose capacitors are still good because they are aluminum electrolytics.
As you see, I've made a lifetime a study of the reliability of components.
Strangely, if we look at the manufacturers' life rating for many components, we
find things lasting far longer than some ratings would lead us to believe. The
capacitors in the Sony are rated for 1,000 hours, but are now 23 years old and,
given my usage, have probably seen 20,000 to 40,000 hours. There are about 60
of them in there and not one has failed.
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I have nearly 2,000 CDs and I need them all. Doubt most are available on R2R, and then there's the astronomical cost. |
I kind of foolishly fancied that Abbey Road would have used something like a top quality Studer (certainly in the back half of the 60s) but no. Apparently they used a British design instead - the BTR3 (British Tape Recorder 3) to record most of their seminal albums. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Tape_RecorderI also recall a quaint story I heard about when Sinatra came to record in London in the early 60s (I think it must have been the 1962 Sinatra Sings Great Songs From Great Britain/ CTS Studios). Legend has it that he was so unimpressed with the technology available that he had an Ampex tape deck and operator specially flown over for the occasion! Perhaps some fan of Ol Blue Eyes can fill in the details. In any case these mastertapes are still the best source of this priceless music that we have. To have a first or even second generation copy of a favourite album... |
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"Legend has it that he was so unimpressed with the technology available that he had an Ampex tape deck and operator specially flown over for the occasion!" Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen comes to mind. LP from 2014 sounds just fine, really fine. |
"Cassettes can be pricey, too. The 100 most expensive cassettes are...." More ridiculous the title, more likely to be on the list. |
Much of Nebraska was recorded on the Tascam Cassette Porta Studio. ( I owned one ) One of the reasons I advocate serious audiophiles make live music recordings is to discern merits and - of format, mixer, cable, microphone, microphone preamp, etc....
of course Nebraska perfectly suited to the Tascam |
@hypoman right on, have yet to meet a zoom product that sounds bad and does not provide shocking value.
i built an Anvil case for rack mount B-77 Mk3, and all the other claptrap... oh the days of A-77 with the built in carry handle
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@clio09 thanks for sharing RM :-) you could do that every day and get no complaints from me
was RM using the Sony for music or ??? |
I've had the same experience with Studer-ReVox, they are excellent machines but they all likely need some work especially replacing those Frako capacitors. I've tried to recap a Revox B-77 before and their PCB board is very prone to trace lifting, I recommend leaving the Studer-Revox to professionals. The Otari and Tascam I originally recommended are a lot more reliable. This is coming from a Studer owner. |
@pch300
you missed the point I was trying to make, or I did a very poor job of describing it
The point was not to record your LP to tape,and A-B against the LP, the point was to compare the commercially released LP, played back through a high end table and phono stage, and compare to same commercially released 7.5 ips tape played back through a reworked deck with high end tape playback electronics (not the high neg feedback electronics that all tape decks have).
And secondly, we are not talking 15ips master dubs. We are talking about the the tape releases made by ampex, united stereo tape, and others back in the day.
if you A-B the LP on a high end table and phono pre to the tape on a reworked deck and high end tape playback electronics, not always, but usually the tape is much better, more open, more dynamic, greater imaging, etc .
for those interested, its not hard to modify a phono play back circuit.
The RIAA curve has 3 time constants to make the curve, the NAB and IEC curve have two. Its usually about 5 bucks worth of caps and resistors and presto, you have a tape playback preamp......
and if you are really on a limited budget, you can pick up one of the EAR or Marantz 7 tube clone phono stages from china for under 500 bucks, and use that as your tape plackback eq. you do not need to spend multi-kilo bucks unless you want to go all out on tape playback, no different than going all out on LP playback or hi rez, digital file playback. ..
hope this helps.
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Bottle head DIY has pretty much all the info you might need on bypass of head electronics on the deck and can often result in a dramatic improvement as cited above |
Very high cost plus very limited selection makes the firmst, however technically desirable, of very limited value. I’d rather have a huge selection in perfectly good fidelity at much lower cost. It’s about the music! If I can get into a tune playing on my car radio, I can live without the cost and selection compromises of RTR |
The Modjeski quote reveals why his Music Reference amplifiers are so trouble and maintenance free, unlike many of the more well-known and owned tube brands. RM was doing repair work in a shop while still in High School, and learned how NOT to build an amp. |
Reel to real is the only music I stream.
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I love on vinyl occasionally hearing the short, faint, ghost section of a tune right before the real section starts playing, caused by the tightly wound master tape imprinting itself onto the next layer. |
I have a Mcintosh mx100z preamp. It has a tape head input. I assume this could be used. But I’m confused as what it was meant for in its day. Were people going direct out of their decks back in the 60’s. And did they have direct output option back then? |
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@sdrsdrsdr
Every vintage preamp I ever used had tape input RCA pairs. These RCA pairs were not connected to an internal a head amp, but were line level inputs. The purpose of labelling these line level RCA pairs seems to have been to correspond to the notations on the selector.
A head amp has a similar function to the phono section, (that is, it has to amplify and shape a tiny signal). As such, it is a highly specialized piece, but one which was never close to as common as phono. That is why it was usually part of the tape deck. |
@terry9 I have read that this is a tape pre head amp input and not just a labelled line input. It is also labeled tape head and not tape input. It is also positioned along with the mm input. I think the Marantz 7 preamp might have this too. Watch the “PNWAS tape meeting with Ki Choi” on YouTube. He talks of this. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TY6V5AahDU0This guy probably knows as much as anyone about reel to reel. |
Check out YouTube “Garrard 301 vs Studer”. Best audio quality of any YouTube I have heard. As good as the 301 sounds when the Studer comes on you don’t want it to leave! But, for sure, tape is a rich man’s game. But it sure is amazing! |
You guys crack me up. Sure, RTR sounds great, when it does. But what does it take to get there? Lots of work, parts and mostly $$$. It's like golf - it's supposed to be fun. Until the day you realize that you will probably never get to your performance goal.
I spent years installing and later selling RTR decks to studios and rich celebs.
IMO RTR is just waaaay too much work for the average audiophile, to set up but more to maintain And pro/semi pro RTR decks require a lot of routine maintenance. And no one has mentioned yet thew air filtration system you will want for whatever room your RTR is located. Dust/dirt/pet hair are sure fire killers of tape decks.
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Just a casual survey: how many of you that want to own RTR decks do or would own a preamp withour a remote control? Just curious... |
I have three working Revoxes (A’s & B’s) and an A700 project, which looks like it’s going to remain a project. My pre does not have a remote.
The R’s maintain their settings pretty well, especially when you replace those dirt cheap pots. It’s not very hard to set if you have a spectrum analyzer with a white noise generator. But it's true that my listening room is pretty clean. |
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R-T-R has another annoying limitation -the rarity of machines with TWO playback heads, one for 1/4 track tapes, and one for half-track. My excitement over the Tape Project was diminished due to the prices for fancy boxes and 15ips-only IEC-only half-track tape. I was able to get a hold of one issue someone wanted to sell. The entire 40 minute album was on TWO
reels which of course had to be rewound first and played back for 20 minutes each. I even ASKED them if they would "consider a consumer-line" cutting back on the packaging and offer 7.5IPS-NAB on ONE reel which still would have sounded excellent and would have cost much less money. For the less-fussy folks with a good machine at home. They were very "put off" by my suggestion, never mind thinking about all the qtr-track TEACS on the market. There's a word for that attitude which I will refrain from using here. If you're completely devoted to 15- even 30 IPS tapes- 1/2 inch and ONE-INCH tapes and outboard preamps, then you are either a technician or an engineer- or your best friend is. David Wilson had a superb Studer at his studio with all-custom built electronics; Mark Levinson customized a Studer-A80 which you can find for sale every few years, and with the proper ancillaries make mind-blowing live recordings if you can hire musicians to come and perform. OR...
you can have a nice Teac, Technics, or a Revox which will do a lot of things but not what certain companies will support.
It seems like people are actually trying to discourage you from enjoying using your (well-cared for) deck. It really is a shame.
P.S.- I have an Otari MX-55N WITH two playback heads. And I believe there exists somewhere a Studer A-810 with two playback heads. BUT try to find one...!
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There are really three different important reel to reel tape eras. The first one consists of the prerecorded stereo tapes from the 1950s and 60s. The best were the 7.5 inch per second (ips) two track tapes produced by RCA, Mercury and Capital and other lesser labels. They were expensive at the time costing as much as 5 times more than an LP. Some reel to reel machines at the time were made by German and Swiss companies. I remember that one audiophile machine was sold under the Fisher label. Of course Ampex was the gold standard, but it was really a commercial unit with tube electronics. Ampex machines were often used to produce 30ips master tapes, particularly the RCA Living Stereo line. Mercury modified a commercial movie projector and used 35mm film coated with magnetic particles to record masters for their prerecorded Living Presence tapes.
In the 1960s, the Swiss-German Revox brand became popular with its transistor electronics. However, early transistor products were rather harsh sounding compared to tubed ones. Later, when cheaper 4 track 3.75 ips tapes became the norm, solid state Japanese machines like Technics and Pioneer were in vogue. Still, I feel that Revox made some of the best sounding transistor decks with their A77 and B77 lineup. While they may have been among the best, none of these decks were really high end because I have bypassed their playback electronics with outboard tape head preamps. This elevates the sound of prerecorded tapes, in particular those old 2 track, 7.5 ips ones, to audiophile levels which rival or surpass LPs. A few commercial 15 ips prerecorded tapes were made which are particuarly spectacular.
The next revolution came when people realized that the studios sent what they called recording master tapes to their LP stamping plants. These were 15 ips, 2 track tapes which sometimes used Dolby A encoding and decoding to reduce tape hiss. While the studios wanted the LP plants to destroy these tapes after pressing the records, some did not and they started showing up for sale for more than $1000 per reel and an LP would usually require 2 reels per album. These tapes sounded their best on the vintage Ampex machines, but by that time in the 70s and 80s, the tube electronics in the Ampex units had deteriorated to the point where they had to be rebuilt or bypassed with outboard playback preamps and the tape heads needed to be replaced. David Manley was particularly involved in demonstrating these tapes at hifi shows using his own rebuilt Ampex tape deck.
The third revolution started a few years ago. There are now a few companies rebuilding Technics and other tape decks with state of the art heads and electronics. These decks are expensive, costing in the thousands. While they can play the best prerecorded tapes from the 50s and 60s, those tapes are rare and many have deteriorated by shedding their metal oxide coatings and they have weakened tape substrates which can stretch and break. So, a new industry has begun to make what would have been called LP recording masters. They are second generations of real time copies of the original recordings. Since the irreplaceable originals from 50s and 60s are so fragile and valuable, a copy is made to use for subsequent copies made in real time, usually at 15ips. This process is so time consuming and expensive that the tapes sell for $300 and up per reel. There are also some prerecorded commercial tapes of contemporary artists. So, the audiophile tape saga which began in the 1950s is being repeated with better solid state decks and higher quality prerecorded tapes. Try to hear some of these systems at hifi shows. I think you will be impressed.
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Or you could skip all the hassle and expense and go with a portable cassette player and some good headphones. Nothing wrong with them apples 🍎 in these stressful, cash strapped times. Just about the time cassettes stopped production they had figured out how to make fantastic sounding cassettes. Tape is a natural medium. It breathes.
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I would like to state a few facts for R2R, firstly just like anything else it cost a little to get started. Once you have gotten your foot in the door it gets better. Ok you have your machine it’s tuned up and ready to go, you buy a few tapes to get started. You start to meet others who are into tape and you begin to swap tape copies with each other, this is how you get around having to buy all the tapes you like at high dollar prices. Before you know it you have 30 or so really nice sounding tapes, now truthfully how many of you listen to more than about 30 of your LP collection on a regular basis??? I have 1000 albums but find myself for the most part listening to the same 20-30 all the time. So why not have those 20-30 albums on tape? This is how I have gone down that road and the more of us that do this the better it gets for all, just my opinion... |
Howdy, I recently scored a beautiful SonoruS Audio modified ReVox PR99 MKI R2R deck. It is a 2-track machine and runs at 15 ips. I am absolutely floored by its sound. So quiet and so beefy and full sounding music from tapes. I also own a nice vinyl rig and the Sheffield Lab D2D of Dave Grusin - Discovered Again which to me is a damn fine sounding slab of vinyl! R2R still beats it though. Tapes are out there and yes a little more expensive, but darn well worth it. I play people my Steely Dan - Gaucho 15 ips Sonorus Holographic Imaging tape and their jaw literally drops. Highly recommended! |
@hadelman- pretty nice summary you did there. B-C also did offer some 15 ips 2 track tapes for a brief time, but even then they were 50-65 bucks a copy in 1980s dollars. for anyone who has a teac 1/4 tack deck, especially the earlier A series, its pretty simple to re-route the tape head signal. if you remove the head cover, there is a PCB directly under it. unsolder the wires leaving that PCB and solder in some Mogami shielded console wire. the mogami is thin enough you can maintain the stock appearance of the Teac deck, and route the cabling out the back side of the deck where you can connect to outboard playback electronics. and you dont need to spend mulit kilo bucks to do so. also if some want 1/4 track playback heads on their 1/2 track deck, contact JRF. he will tell you if there is enough room to add the 1/4 track head. Have an Otari MTR-15 which is 4 speed half track only, but had JRF add a quarter track head to head block and now can play 1/4 track tapes on that deck. best |
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Commercial reel to reel tapes sound truly horrible. I recently bought a few dozen, and they are much worse than I remembered. I guess it is because I am now comparing them to something other than how they sounded on my old 1970's system, and then they did not come close to D to D. That is why the best RtR's were bypassed to make D to D LP's. Instead of investing in this format, go to a concert or jazz club. To me, buying into RtoR is as senseless as buying a Ferrari as an investment, and being unable to use it, except on very rare occasions. Things are made to enjoy. Investments are something else.
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All of those great LPs recorded pre 1985 were recorded on RtR decks. In the 80's we discovered that original master tapes contained much more information than was pressed into original LP grooves. In fact we discovered that many classic, indeed cherished records were compromised to allow home playback on crude record changers. Bass was cut below 75-80hz, then a 125hz bump was added, and HF was rolled off above 12khz. (The conundrum was some of the new remasters were essentially what was on the tape with minimal editing, and the resulting LPs sounded so much different than what we were used to hearing. Subsequent remasters were made to sound closer to the original LP so the new pressing became a better version of what was familiar.)
If one wants true fidelity from back back in the golden era- well at least to the early/mid 80's than prerecorded RtR tapes can deliver a better sonic experience then most LP pressings. Caveat is to seek only 7.5ips tapes and avoid anything at 3.75ips.
I have a restored Teac X2000r deck, and I have direct experience in how wonderful a clean RtR tape can sound. I recently acquired an original Broadway cast recording of West Side Story, recorded at 7.5ips. WOW ! I am literally sitting 10th row dead center and transported back to 1958. A clean RtR tape blows away any other version- premium LP remaster, SACD, 24/96 download. Miles Davis- Sketches of Spain, Dave Brubek- Take 5, Stan Getz-Gilberto, Stan Getz- Focus, and so on. These tapes are PHENOMENAL !
I was lucky in acquiring my deck. I found a lightly used example with full wooden case, rolling rack, flawless mouse ears. I was able to resell the case and rack to pay for restoration by Sam Palermo.
RtR is not industry supported and it is not easy for hipsters to acquire RtR decks then quickly use them in their hipster caves with their hipster hoodie buddies. There is time, effort and cost involved; much more than LPs which can be found for pennies and TT which can be found by the thousands at garage sales.
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A clean RtR tape blows away any other version- premium LP remaster, SACD, 24/96 download. Miles Davis- Sketches of Spain, Dave Brubek- Take 5, Stan Getz-Gilberto, Stan Getz- Focus, and so on. These tapes are PHENOMENAL !
iopscrl - I totally agree with you. |
I was thinking about this recently, when I came across an ad for a Revox reel to reel.
Recently, some of my LPs have sounded like I was in the studio, listening to the master tape. That liquidy but crisp high frequency sound, with a climate- and acoustic-controlled environment. Everything wet and dry at the same time (I am getting nostalgic for those long ago days in the 80s and 90s, spent laying viola tracks in professional studios).
But then there was one particular L.P. that I realized, I liked better when it sounded like a record! Can't remember which one it was.
Vinyl has a sound all its own. Yeah, some call it distortion, and while that may be technically true, the inherent negative connotations of that word make it not quite appropriate.
If I could acquire my favourite 25 or so recordings on tape, without breaking the bank, I woukd seriously consider getting a tape deck. Partially because I would like to record my piano quartet's next release as an all-analogue production, from beginning to end. But I have never released a vinyl record (since my band in the 80s, anyways), so I don't even know if mastering plants have the capability to cut from an analogue tape. |
fusian
... I have never released a vinyl record (since my band in the 80s,
anyways), so I don't even know if mastering plants have the capability
to cut from an analogue tape. They have, and they do. |
Dear @scar972 : First, even that I own 6k+ LP's I'm not looking for the ultimaTE ANALOG ALTERNATIVE.
I'm looking for the ultimate MUSIC enjoyment. My system is a good system with very high resolution and with every kind of distortions at minimum.
I enjoy analog as digital too and today digital alternative is hard to beat even by R2R and we can find out almost any recording through digital mediums.
I can see that you do not own digital audio items and that in the LP analog alternative your best cartridge is mounted in tha Moerch unstable tonearm, not the best approach.
Maybe that's why you like R2R alternative.
Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.
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@rauliruegas I'm glad you enjoy vinyl as much as you do and own 6K+ LP's, that's a lot more than what I have for sure.
You may not be looking for an analog alternative but this post might pique someone else's interest, or at the least brings awareness to an analog medium that MAY be superior to vinyl but gets very little attention on these boards. Ten years ago, I may have heard of R2R, but never knew it was any good until it was mentioned again in other forums and I got to experience it for myself.
Thought you should know, I too enjoy analog as digital and agree with you that digital can sound fantastic. You may have missed it glancing through my system, but my DAC and disc player is listed in there as well as my MacBook pictured sitting on top of the D'Agostino amp with over 5 terabytes of music to play with.
As for my vinyl setup, if you have a better approach for how I could improve it, I'm all ears and would appreciate learning a thing or two.
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I have a entire collection of Barcklay-Crocker tapes that I play on a Pioneer RT 909 RTR. Nice sound. |
hadelman,
nice information, however,
your post is about what ’the ultimate’ tape can do. Interesting, however ’ultimate anything’ is probably not relevant for the majority of us.
I think it might give the wrong impression of how good R2R tape sounds without ’ultimate’ upgrades.
Without upgrades, played on a readily available ’prosumer’ tape player (i.e. Teac X1000R, other models and brands) readily available 4 track pre-recorded tapes: ...... easily ........sound better than my/your well set up LP system.
btw, 3-3/4 ips was not a standard of the next era as someone might think reading your text.. 7-1/2" ips was the existing standard consumer speed, 2 track, and 4 track. 3-3/4" ips was the ’added’ alternate cheaper version (only half the tape needed, lighter shipping, ...) Each album had 7-1/2 ips and 3-3/4 ips versions. Look on eBay, a ton of 7-1/2 ips pre-recorded tapes exist along side the 3-3/4 ips versions. Then as now, price differences exist. The masses go for compromise as you know.
A few have had bad results, there are exceptions, but once again:
The MAJORITY of 50-60 year old pre-recorded tapes sound great. I repeat from my prior post: I bought over 500 R2R tapes, every one offered returns, I never had to return a single one. Some, like any format, disappointed in content when listened to, yes. Some great engineering choices, other’s, like any format, not great. ALL 7-1/2 ips sound better than my matching LP versions.
And, I sold 150 of mine years later, 148 customers quite pleased, 1 box smashed en-route, 1 customer got ’low volume’ when he played it, who knows why, refund, no questions asked, keep the tape.. I gave each tape a farewell listen, added leaders, added return strips,
To get into R2R without spending a lot of money, buy deck and tapes returns accepted only, and my advice remains: be handy enough to do the mechanical work on the player yourself, or, have a shop near enough to drive to for that so no packaging/shipping in/out time/cost/damage potential is involved.
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Dear @scar972 : I think that you can make some changes in your analog rig to improve the quality level of your analog experiences with.
As I posted that ZYX could be better served by a solid/gimball bearing tonearm as: Kuzma 4 point, Durand gimballed ( not the unipivoted. ), Reed, VPI gimballed or SME and Triplanar.
In the other side try that the LP stays in direct contact inside the TT with no metal type of mats. If you can try to find out the vintage/out of production Sota Mat that with out doubt is second to none in that place along the Basis Audio reflex clamp.
Thopse changes can gives you better quality overall performance levels.
My systyem main target is to put every kind of distortions / noises/resonances/etc at minimum and from this kind of way of think and no matters what I stay as far away I can from tube electronics ( any. ) that I experienced in the past till I learned.
R. |
Raul, anytime somebody eliminates tubes, that tells me beyond any shadow of a doubt, that they like "sounds" as opposed to music.
While you get 0 distortion, 0 noise you're not getting pure music; only tubes deliver that.
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@orpheus10
Not sure how this is relevant here but I must say that I fully agree. |
