When I had a reel to reel machine many years ago, I too felt the recordings that I made from my LP's were better than the LP used to record it. I never could understand that, but it sure sounded good. I got rid of the machine before I bought my first cd player. The only reason I bought a reel to reel in the first place was so that I wouldn't have to keep flipping over and changing LP's on the turntable. When 5 disc cd players came along, it rendered a reel to reel obsolete for my purposes. I could now have 5 hours of music without interruption and without having to record it myself.
Reel to Reel decks
Is anyone out there using reel to reels anymore? I remember at one time(30 years ago), they were probably some of the best analog reproduction equipment out there. Of course, it doesn't matter much if you can't buy good prerecorded tapes. I've googled prerecorded tapes, but haven't found much out there. Anyone have a good source? Also, can anyone recommend a good deck?
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Dopogue, if you don't know about the compression effect of tape heads, then you should read some of the following: A tech explanation A discussion of the variables involved Tape compression can sound so good that several companies make effect processors to emulate the sound. Check out Crane Song, Rupert Neve or Empirical Lab's Fatso. |
T_bone, I decided to explain my statement "The playback is better than the source" Most decks record "forward" and "reverse", they do this by utilizing 4 tracks on the 1/4 tape. A 2 track uses the entire width of the tape in one forward sweep. The tape heads are wider, hence the sound is bigger. This is equivilent to looking at a photograph under a magnifying glass; same photograph, just bigger. Bigger is better. |
as big a tape fan as i am, i'm with T-Bone on this one. you can take any output signal, record it, and change it, or add something to it, but.....you cannot improve it in terms of information. the additions and changes may or may not make it more pleasing to one's tastes. and you can call it better if you like. but at best it's different but also most certainly diminished to some degree. yes; mixing engineers will even take a digital master and run it thru a tape machine or use EQ to do the same thing; but you could also apply that to your Lp output or get a phono stage that mimics that....it's normally considered a coloration. adding bloom or anything always comes at a price somewhere else. there is one 'theory' that has been mentioned previously that makes a case that since a turntable can be affected by speaker feedback......making a tape off an Lp with the speakers turned off, and then playing it back on a tape player (which likely is less affected by speaker feedback) might give you a net gain in information even when considering the signal path loss and generational loss in the recording process. personally i don't buy it, but in theory it does have merit. also; if using RTR tape and optimizing recording quality; you will be taping at 15ips with $40-$50 per reel tape. that's almost $100 per album just to copy your music in an attempt to 'improve' it. not too sensible an approach if you ask me. if you are using 7 and 1/2 ips and cheaper tape then don't even talk about getting close to the original media.....that's not going to happen. any way you look at it it's not a good direction. OTOH if you just like the sound better then knock yourself out. i'm strongly from the camp of enjoy any media in it's most original form. making recordings of media you already own is a waste of time to me. it cannot sound better after messing with it. only different. if your original playback media system is flawed then fix that. |
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