Reel to Reel decks

currently i have 3, the Studer A-820, the Ampex ATR-102 and Technics RS-1500.

about 3 years ago something called 'The Tape Project' was started and it caused a real RTR tape resurgence to occur.

i'd recommend going to The Tape Project Forum here.

there are also tape boards on many audiophile websites. do a search here on Audiogon for reel to reel tape and you can read some threads.

Buconero;

respectfully i want to echo Kipdent's comments and strongly disagree with your perspective on Blue-ray disc music performance compared to 1/4" 15ips master tape dubs.

you wrote;

Given a listen to the latter blu ray and I think you will forget about reel to reel.

please help us understand why you feel this way and describe what Blue-ray music disc was better than a 1/4" 15ips master dub to the degree to suggest 'you will forget about reel to reel tape'.

repeatedly you jump on RTR threads with baseless claims of Blue-ray music superiority without one example of that ever happening.

thread from last year;

post 1

post 2

post 3

post 4

again; tell us where your claims come from besides thin air.

btw; i have no problem with you claiming 1/4" 15ips master dubs are expensive......they are. and value is a matter of opinion.

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.

Orpheus, the Technics RS-1500 is a 4-track/2-track machine.
it does 3 3/4ips, 7 1/2ips and 15ips.

i have about 20 7 1/2 2-track tapes and maybe 100 7 1/2ips 4-track tapes.

i'm not sure what you are referring to regarding applying the term 'direct drive' to an RTR deck. my understanding is that the Technics does have the motors directly connected to the reel shafts.

assuming the same speed....7 and 1/2ips, the difference between 2 and 4 track is mainly that 2 track is double the width; which yields a wider bandwidth, greater dynamic range, and correspondingly lower noise floor.

what that does in reality is that 4-track does not quite measure up to better vinyl in my system; whereas 2-track can equal or even slightly better 33rpm vinyl in my system. this is based on the better examples of 2 and 4 track tapes i have heard.

15ips can surpass the best of my vinyl; but not 100% of the time. the source of that 15ips tape must be a 15ips master dub in good condition and the dub needs to be very well done.

i'll grant that there are aspects of tape replay which the 4-track has which i do enjoy such as the continueousness that set it apart from vinyl in some cases. but the 4-track also has a higher noise floor than my vinyl. the 4-tracks i have are very inconsistent.

i almost never listen to a 4-track tape as with 12,000 Lps why would i?

i do have three very good tt's and 2 high quality phono stages so Lps do perform quite well in my system. if i had a more modest vinyl front-end maybe my viewpoint on how 4-track (or even 7 and 1/2ips 2-track) compared might be different.

Orpheus10 said;

One always uses headphones when making a tape. Vibration degrades all analog. If you are playing a record, and listening at the same time, the sound is degraded to a minute degree. If you record in silence, this does not occur.

i agree that vibration and reasonance can degrade analog, particularly an Lp. but it's wrong to say that it is a problem in every case. some tt's are designed to effectively eliminate that issue.

i've recorded my Rockport tt with the speakers playing and while monitoring with headphones. there is no audible difference. in other words; feedback from speakers playing is not an issue for this turntable 'to the degree of being audible'. i would not argue that in theory there is some feedback, only that it's not significant enough to justify recording it.

which is why making a copy has zero value, even with top level gear. the copy cannot be as good.

my other turntables use mass and footers to reduce feedback and are effective if not quite as perfectly.

Orpheus10 wrote;

This only occurs with 2 track reel at a speed of 7 1/2 IPS or higher. This is partially the result of tape width. A cassette has narrow tape, a reel has wider tape. Most reels record in 2 directions; they use 1/2 the tape in the forward, and the other half of the tape in the reverse direction. 2 track uses the complete width of the tape in one direction. If you can compare the difference in the sound of a cassette and a reel, you will see where I am going with this. The sound of a reel is bigger and fuller, this is before we get to 2 track. If you have not carefully observed this difference, it will be impossible for you to conceive the "Phenomenon, playback better than source", with 2 track.

trust me; i get it. i'm a tape head, here is a picture of my tape deck family. but.....as good as i know a 1/4" 15ips 2-track recording of a source can be, it's not better than the source, or even totally equal. and in the case where a tt has no audible feedback effect from speaker feedback there is no logic to claiming a tape recording of it will improve it. it may introduce pleasing artifacts which some might prefer, but physics is physics. the step of recording degrades any source to some degree.

and in my particular case; my Rockport tt betters my RTR decks ocasionally even on 15ips 1/4" master dubs where both the Lp and master dub had the same source. not all the time, but sometimes.

now; if somehow your tape deck output electronics are better than your phono stage, or some other signal path in-equality is happening, then anything is possible. i suspect it is much more likely that your phono stage is better (more refined sounding) than your tape deck's signal path.

Orpheus10,

i went back and read some of your posting on threads relating to reel to reel to try to better understand your perspective. i read some responses to some of your comments.

i don't presume to tell you how you feel about anything; but it seems you use the word 'better' to describe 'different in a way i prefer'.....which i can relate to and agree with. if you simply 'prefer' the sound of recording your vinyl onto 2-track tape then please enjoy. but it's the point of insisting it's 'better' in objective ways where the conflict occurs.

yes; if a tt is sufficiently negatively affected by speaker feedback then a case can be made that a 2-track tape recording made with headphones could be better in some ways (but not all ways). but that would mostly indicate that you need to improve the isolation scheme of your tt to make it less prone to that speaker feedback.

Let us go to photography. If you magnify an excellent photo, it will be bigger. My playback on the 2 track is "bigger" than the original, also the electronics in the reel have been upgraded. The playback is equivilant to an equipment upgrade. Is "bigger" better?

a bigger soundstage would generally considered to be better. and i would say that when there is a sense of presence and ambience (and room energy) that happens right before the music starts, that is an aspect of soundstaging that is always better. but sometimes you get an elongated or stretched soundstage, a 'U' shape, or maybe a 20 foot wide piano....so there are cases where a bigger soundstage is not better. better is better. and more real is better. but much of that is very subjective and system dependant. some would say live music does not 'stage' like recordings can.

your photography analogy is a good one. magnifying a photo does make it larger; but if the resolution and clarity of the photo is not sufficient then the magnification loses the sense of reality. the question is 'what is right?'.

getting back to how your RTR might be better; it could be as simple as the analog output on your tape deck could synergize with your preamp better than your phono stage. i have no idea of that but it's possible it's a signal path issue and not a format issue. or it could be that your tt/arm/cart/phono stage are not as high quality as your tape deck.

my point is that when you make generalizations as universal truths about recording Lps onto tape you need to consider whether it applies to some, or to most, or to all cases and qualify it; or guys like me will come along and call you on it. i have no doubt you are hearing what you are telling us. but exactly the implications of that is in question.