Polk Forum Tapeheads -- how about a dedicated thread for analog tape reproducers?
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I do have a 1955 Seeburg J. and a 1963 160 that are tube unit The 2 bottom left have 8-track on them. @mhardy6647 does that get me more then 1/2 credit LOL.
Wait for the opine...
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Pics or it didn't happen ;- )
Guess we need jukebox thread now, too! :- )
In all seriousness, I'd love to see both of them.
When I was a kid, I had an uncle in North Carolina with a jukebox in his pool room. It was stocked with late-50s 45s courtesy of my father, who'd been a broadcast engineer in the 50s and had boxes of 45s of the era. I still have some of them -- but no jukebox (believe it or not).
PS I think we take credit away for consumer eight-track cartridge tapes! Extra credit, though, for broadcast "carts" or Learjet or Muntz four-track consumer tape cartridges.
Double extra-credit for Elcaset :- )
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When I was a little kid my dad worked for a company called Supreme Amusement as an on the road service guy for jukeboxes. He'd troubleshoot problems with the machines and install the latest 45s and keep everything running. He took an amp from a damaged unit and connected an RCA 45 changer, added a speaker, all encased in an orange crate (my mother made a wrap around curtain) and I had my first vacuum tube sound system. I remember having boxes of 45s, Roy Rogers, Elvis, Patsy Cline and even "Mr. Five by Five" Jimmy Rushing all spinning. I probably would have had better bass response if the speaker hadn't just been tied to the slats on the orange crate.
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I dunno -- sounds like a pretty esoteric baffle design to me ;- )
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Back in NY and NJ growning up, going to the pizza shop or bowling alley and listening to the jukebox was one of the things I loved to do especially when they would have a full view mechanism. They were louder then anything I had or my parents. Heck my parents only had a small cassette player ( didnt record) to play Johnny Mathis on so listening to the jukebox was "the thing" to do and feed my childhood music and sound addiction. I buy a slice, look over the same raidio shack catalogue over and over and pump dimes or quarters ( 3 songs for a quarter) and jam tunes.
@Kenneth Swauger that would have been awsome if I had access to all of thoes 45 as a kid! I got my 1984 Rowe from a old jukebox opperator but he wouldnt sell the 45's so I had to get what I got the other way...... record shops going out of buisness.
My first portable way to bring my music out of the house ( outside of a radio) was 8-track. So I have a special spot for the 8-track portabl. It was a 2 piece unit that would strap together and suck up batteries like crazy!!!Klipsch The Nines, Audioquest Thunderbird Interconnect, Innuos Zen MK3 W4S recovery, Revolution Audio Labs USB & Ethernet, Border Patrol SE-I, Audioquest Niagara 5000 & Thunder, Cullen Crossover II PC's. -
Klipsch The Nines, Audioquest Thunderbird Interconnect, Innuos Zen MK3 W4S recovery, Revolution Audio Labs USB & Ethernet, Border Patrol SE-I, Audioquest Niagara 5000 & Thunder, Cullen Crossover II PC's. -
Nice! Jukeboxes were/are such cool gizmos mechanically.
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I can still remember the man who owned Supreme Amusement, his name was "Funny" Newman, great name considering what he called his company. My dad had a dark green tool box, the kind with the two top halves that split open. He'd taken yellow paint and painted an outline of a jukebox and another drawing of a pin-ball machine on the sides of the box.
Funny the things you remember. -
Very neat stuff!!
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OK - had some play time this morning so I finally dragged out the TC-777, hooked it up & fired it up. Sounded pretty good -- this is strictly "as received"; pretty amazing that it works - as best I can tell - like new.
TC-777 monochrome by mhardy6647, on Flickr
The keen eyed will note that I have shimmed the deck a tad bit (with a little spiral-bound notebook; audiophile-grade, of course!. This deck can only run vertically with those old-fashioned rubber reel holder caps installed. The ones that came with it was kind of loose :-P so they needed some help from ol' Mr. Gravity to make sure that the tape reels didn't launch themselves during play!
Obviously, "for best results" a deck like this is best run horizontally (or with a really good, tight pair of reel caps).
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Beautiful machine, Mark, there are rubber stoppers used in lab gear that be used for those reel holders.
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Thanks. Actually, I think you mentioned that before (and I, of course, forgot in the meantime!).
The 777 was, and is indeed a beautiful machine. It certainly seemed ahead of its time when new (ca. 1962) -- Sony apparently made them for quite a while, as well.
source: http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1962/h045.html
In related Sony reel to reel news -- today, I did manage to find the TC-355 that lives here. It was indeed in the basement, but still packed up in a large box with other detritus since the move in the summer of 2013 :-P
I am still trying to locate a TC-377 that I know is here... someplace...
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Love to have a Sony in my "whopping" collection of 2.
Neat, neat stuff guys...
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Kenneth Swauger wrote: »Hi Mark,
Anyone remember push button shifting on Chryslers?
Cheers, Ken
My father's first 'new' car from a dealer was a 1964 Dodge Coronet with a push buton transmission.[ -
Didnt one of the Chrysler's have a 45 changer on them?Klipsch The Nines, Audioquest Thunderbird Interconnect, Innuos Zen MK3 W4S recovery, Revolution Audio Labs USB & Ethernet, Border Patrol SE-I, Audioquest Niagara 5000 & Thunder, Cullen Crossover II PC's.
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Lawrence Welk had one in his 1955 (or maybe '56) Dodge.
Bandleader Welk also, it is said, at some point had vanity license plates reading N-A-1-N-A-2
- any of y'all old enough to remember him will grasp the significance :- )
EDIT: Just read a little on Mr. Welk -- he was, like Bing Crosby, pretty darned media savvy.
http://www.accordionusa.com/fe_01_07.htm
Oh... and, speaking of der Bingle, you all may or may not be aware of it, but he was critically important in the post-war growth of audio tape recording as a key technology for broadcasting.
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2012/Nov/history.asp
http://bingcrosby.com/bing-bio/entrepreneur
and you probably just thought he was famous for singing with David Bowie ;- )
Post edited by mhardy6647 on -
heh -- told you I found the TC-377. Listening to a tape (the artist upon which I absolutely cannot identify) on it even as I type this. Sounds good -- surprisingly good, actually (someone's home-made needle-drop on what appears to be Scotch 207 @ 3-3/4 ips).
Sony TC-377 by mhardy6647, on Flickr -
Here's something I wanted to ask you gearheads here with the R-R recorders. I know on all of my old R_R's , none of them had noise reduction like Dolby or DBX. This left me having to use an outboard NR unit looped into the R-R. My last unit was a DBX 224 type II . It also allowed me to decode DBX LP's , anybody remember those?
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I've got one (a dbx unit, that is) upstairs :- )
Actually, over the years some reel to reel decks did have NR built in - Tandberg, for example, built several decks with on-board Dolby; for example, the magnificent Tandberg 10XD._Allen.jpg)
source: http://oldaudioarchives.com/radio.htm?radio=116
EDIT - a better photo of a 10XD; I, unfortunately, don't have one of these tempermental but very high-performance beasties.
source: http://www.darthy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Tandberg-10XD-4.jpg -
Oh yes, I knew eventually the decks would have on board dolby or dbx,probably brought in around early 80's or so on. Most of my R-R were from around 1972-1976 .
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These seldom-seen, late 1970s Philips reel to reel decks had some sort of playback noise reduction; the brochure blurb just says "Dynamic Noise Limiter".
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Wow, buttons galore, slides and gizmo's. I need something like those.
It's must just be me, it's ARTWORK!!! -
The Tandberg 10XD came out in ca. 75 or 76.
Dolby & dbx weren't common in reel to reel decks because there was really little need for NR nor companders for consumer tape decks. The larger track size and higher tape speed of reel to reel tape meant that s/n, dynamic range, frequency response, and HF headroom were hifi quality "out of the box" for quarter-track stereo tape at 7-1/2 inches per second.
Remember that the CompactCassette format was developed by Philips for things like dictation, "talking letters", and fun. It was the tape analog of Kodak's "Instamatic" 126 cartridge film. The level of performance that was ultimately wrung out of cassettes is really nothing short of astonishing.
Here's a little screed :- ) I wrote at AK on the topic of Dolby and cassette performance... if you're suitably curious and/or suitably masochistic, you might be curious enough to take a look. It has virtually nothing to do with the thread in which it appeared; it was just a response (reaction) to a previous post about the merits of Dolby :-P
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showpost.php?p=8429557&postcount=8
Dolby isn't evil... but it is fraught with compromise ;- )
Fortunately, Sony & Philips avenged the CompactCassette in the early '80s and brought us "perfect sound forever" ;- )
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Hello,
Here's a photo of one of the Tandbergs from my assortment, the TD-20A that I've worked on a little bit. The original upper faceplate was a matt black, but I was in a colorful mood so I had it powder coated a different color. The beautiful black cabinet was refinished by a fellow CP member who did a fantastic job.
Cheers, Ken
Post edited by [Deleted User] on -
One of the areas of music collecting are prerecorded open reel tapes. This can be an excellent sounding way to enjoy your tape recorders. The best source for finding them is on eBay under the "Music" category then use "Other Formats" to get to where the tapes will be. Fair warning anything that is by a recognized group such as: Beatles, Stones, Doors etc will be costly, Moody Blues have a reputation for great sounding tapes. But, most jazz (except Miles) will be reasonably priced and if you have a hankering for "lounge music" you are in heaven. Try and find ones that are recorded at 7.5ips (not always possible with pop music).
The golden age of classical music will be on tape and great sounding, all the biggies were recorded.
Enjoy, Ken
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The TD-20 was/is a heck of a machine! You're a lucky man to have one, Ken.
Thanks for posting a photo of yours.
The only problem with prerecorded reels is relative scarcity, which has translated into pretty steep cost on the 'collector' market at this late date. Otherwise, one's collection will probably end up looking sort of like mine -- heavy on artists like Al Hirt and Arthur Fiedler & the Pops ;- )
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Thanks, Mark, I bought most of my tapes a few years before they caught on with the enthusiasts. Early on I found some wonderful sounding 2 track tapes, even bought one from J. Gordon Holt, fairly reasonably priced. I haven't bought so many recently.
The Tandberg was a Craigslist find, in great shape with a dozen tapes and a bunch of cables for $175.00. It was an estate sale and the person just wanted to move boxes. The original owner used the deck to record Saturday opera broadcasts, well taken care of.
I think I did a thorough spiffing up and swapped out the coupling caps in the audio path. Head loading resistors, the usual stuff. Thing sounds great! -
Here's one of the last two stragglers at my house. This one has a little back story (not as good as Ken's above, though!).
The deck on the left is a Sony TC-355. This is an earlier version of the three head one motor Sony (not really that different than the later TC-377 to the right). Some years ago, a fellow at our church asked me if I could dub a reel to reel tape to cassette for him. Sure, said I, no problem. The tape was an audio recording of his wedding, from 1957 :- ) I dubbed it -- and he passed along the deck (which was nonfunctional at the time) and some old tapes as well as thanks for doing the dub for him.
The deck's problem was (not surprisingly) a broken belt. I did a quick and dirty repair, determined that the deck worked.... and so it has sat until yesterday. It's pretty useless, really... but due to its provenance, I have kept it for close to two decades now.
Unfortunately, as is typical for these Sonys when they get old, at this late date the mechanicals are gummed up; as of today, it's won't play (the pinch roller won't engage and hold tension against the tape and capstan), nor will it rewind. It does fast forward great, though :-p
So this is a staged photo, not an action shot, but I still wanted to share a picture of it for completeness!
DSC_0016 by mhardy6647, on Flickr
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