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Posted by Romy the Cat on
09-10-2006
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To facts:
1) A few weeks back Robert Witrak. The owner of http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?postID=2692
sent me example of the original 24/96 files that he is greeting after his AD processor. The result is so remarkably more interesting then the cheesy 16/44 CDs that it’s not even funny.
2) Recently I visited a local friend of mine, was listening his playback in his new, very cute listening room and his updated playback. While I liked something and did not like something I asked him to play for me one of his many reel-to-reels. I polled from his shelves the Callas/Gobbi’s Tosca and he fired up his Otari 5050II. As soon the first notes hit the room the audio eventually collapsed and the sound become “as it should be", regardless the imperfections of the playback.
The sound from my friend’s prerecorded reels was near-identical to the sound that I am getting from my FM live broadcasts. However, in the today’s broadcasts I’m not able to get the greeters singers of the past and I was wondering….
1) Since I have already the a wonderful Lavry AD-122 and the entire framework of getting and playing very high quality 24/96 files…
2) Since there are many reels of operas that I like out there for a reasonable price…
3) Since , I have many opera LPs and I always annoyed with necessity to flip the records during the play…
4) Since the prerecorded tapes deliver MUCH better quality then even the best pressed LPs…
5) Since I have access to some “interesting”, custom reel-to-reel recourses….
…then why don’t I make the conversion of the selected tapes available for myself? I do not want to commit myself to this idea too deeply but in realty: all that I need is reel-to reel machine and some know-how…. if any transferring know-how even exist…
I would not be a big deal to find a well keeped Otari, Nagra, Stellavox, Studer or Amprex and then all that I need is one extra cable to make the thing works… I do not want to go for all those hassles but the result that heard recently was so farther then anything we do in audio that it was very motivating. It was not that I was not familiar with reel-to-reel sound but it is about my revelation that from the “transfer to digital” state were I am currently in, it is very simple to get into the state where I would be able to preserv for myself some the best operatic experiences that middle of the last centiry had offered.
Rgs,
Romy the Cat
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Posted by Bud on
09-12-2006
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Romy,
About 6 mo's ago I purchased a Teac X7R becuse the man who ran the head mfg facility in Japan is still making heads and has new pinch rollers for the machines too. This is the X7R,X10R and X100 and X2000 series. The R stands for auto reverse so do not look at the X7 or X10 non reverse models. The reasons for choosing these machines, other than new heads and pinch rollers, is their use of four fixed heads for record and playback rather than the less optimal solenoid driven head movement to provide bidirectional play back. Plus you can still obtain the wonderful Panasonic 966 Dolby B outboard processor and be able to explore the near est thing to master tape playback available, in Barclay Crocker, DG and other releases. And there are some extremely reliable tape sellers on ebay that I can give you the names of if you are interested.
Bud
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
09-13-2006
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I have already got a tape recorder and now here is what I am thinking.
Since there are quite a few tapes with Dolby A, Dolby B, Dolby c, Dolby S, Dolby SR, DBX and since some of the tapes were not properly EQ I would need an ability to handle it. All those Dolby devises should be quite bad and there is no good solution to tune the recording to the tape and the recorder to the tape besides precisely tuning the EQ for a given recording in the recorder's filter. Of course I would not be doing is for each tape in the recorder. Still if I had a large size tape machine than I would put in the filter chains a variable vacuum capacitor and let it to priestly tune the HF slope. Anyhow, are any high-quality universal external Dolby tape duplication devise, preferably that might do some minor low-pass EQ?
I wonder in the worst case it might be the best case as… if the Dima’s buffer turns out to be transparent then it might be a good candidate to put some filters around it…
http://home.flash.net/~mrltapes/equaliz.html
The caT
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Posted by beemer on
09-13-2006
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Romy:
Very few prerecorded tapes had any noise reduction. Not a big problem. If the playback machine is good and in proper tune, you'll hear very little tape hiss.
Key to reel tapes is enjoying them for what they are.
Best,
Paul :-)
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
10-04-2006
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Today I was trying to make some experiments. I made some recodings to my reel-to-reel machine from LP. I did not go crazy and ran fairly poor cables just off my preamps. It was BASF 486 at 15ips ½ track. It was not bad, in fact quite good. I do not really plan use reels in this way but it was interesting to see what the battery-powered Stellavox will be able to do. At least, this way I am able to get very good quality reels, recorded on the same machine. Now I need to run it via Lavry AD122 processor to 24/96 and see what sonic and musical quality I will be getting then. As I said, the AD122 does a phenomenal job with FM signal. Let see how it will be able to handle Stellavox 15ips ½ track….
The Cat
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
10-09-2006
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I got last night an interesting collection of many dozens reel-to-reel tapes. They are recordings of 1975-79 seasons of Metropolitan Opera mostly with James Levine. All reels are in meant condition, in own plastic bags, scrupulously numbered, annotated; and use high quality, high output, low noise tape. They are not high speed recordings but still have good quality. Also, some of the boxes are staffed with programs, production notes and etc…
It is most likely that the people who did it are already dead but spinning those reels and dealing with their notes is very special feeling, practically since they are live recordings. The recordings did not sound like FM recordings and I have no idea what was the source. Perhaps they are the low speed dubs of the sound-check master tapes… I do not know…. But I do know what I will be doing during those long and rainy Boston’s winter evenings…
The caT
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Posted by Antonio J. on
10-09-2006
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In what way do they sound different from FM recordings? What for were they recorded? I mean that maybe they weren't live performances but final rehearsals using more mikes than for broadcasting... Interesting observation anyway. Maybe it's the Sansui what makes FM so special, who knows.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
11-11-2007
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Since the last week, when I put the left 6-way Super Milq in duty I am hardly wiling start working on the right channel. I left it as is for a while, screw it.. I am too lazy and not in a mood to do it for now… I found recently a space to put my tape recorder permanently in my rack and the last few days I play a lot of tapes. What a fan! The additional beauty is that the tape records is buttery powered and all aspects of electricity is less annoying…
I still remind you that if some one has some interesting dubs then you have a chance to get for free a very high quality 88/24 transfers. I did few recently and it was amazingly good. Even the 16/44, HDCD encoded are surprisingly well sounding.
The Cat
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Posted by Antonio J. on
11-11-2007
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Sure I am!!!! Just tell me where to get those free transfers hahahaha ;-) Unfortunately I don't have interesting dubs from my local broadcasts as yet to share, but hopefully there will be some soon. Maybe in a couple of months, but don't expect great digital quality, I can't afford any of those AD machines you use.
I have spotted another "interesting" machine for that job, but it converts into DSD at higher rate than comercial SACD and converts it into any PCM format. The "interest" comes mainly from being affordable, having decent storage capacity, and a comment of yours long ago saying that DSD played from the hardisk directly can be as good as any other PCM format. The thing comes with software that would allow to play DSD from the computer. I don't know how good it'd be a 24/88 PCM file coming from a DSD original. Any comments?
Rgrds,
A.
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