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Re: [ARSCLIST] Space Shuttle Recorder - Link to NY Times article



At 06:06 PM 3/24/2003 -0800, Rod Stephens wrote:
In all this discussion of playing back various forms of magnetic
recordings using older used decks, I wonder if very many people ran into
my problem?

At my company's location in Hollywood, they originally had an Ampex reel
to reel recorder/reproducer (a 350, I think), but gave it away before I
came to work as their archivist.  By the way, an excellent web site
showing many generations and manufacturers of such decks is:

http://www.phantomprod.com/vintage.html

I finally realized that the Scully was running
slow compared to the original transcription which I knew was "on" by the
strobe on the side of the turntable.  Unless a person has perfect pitch
(I don't, although I read music and have sung, professionally), you can
be fooled by what sounds to be an accurate reproduction. The speed
dropped the pitch about a half-step, and over a half-hour show added
about twenty seconds.to the running time.
Rod,

I'm sure you know, but I'd like to point out that in constant torque (as
opposed to constant tension) machines, this speed variation was variable
throughout the tape pack.

Classic Ampex machines were mostly constant torque. There was a constant
tension option for certain versions of the AG-440.

Cheers,

Richard


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