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Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash Generators
Hi Tom,
I think it's great that this forum will, after one posting and a
reply, change the greeting from" Hello Mr Fine," to Hi Tom. I hope
I'm not taking undo leeway.
I did take the one day seminar at ATR and it was quite an
experience in more ways than one.------- Sue and drove our F350 Club
cab from Richmond Va. to York, Pa. the day before the seminar. For
me, the next day was going to be a BIG day. I woke up at 5 AM, got up
and took a shower at 6. I put on my Mitchum deodorant, shaved with
a razor- not the electric job and put on a new pair of jeans, topped
off with my gold and silver Virginia belt buckle. For a 65 year old
dude, I LOOKED SHARP.
Betti, Mark's wife, told me not get there early because they open
the door a few minutes before 9 AM. I'm never late for anything, so I
left at 8:15 and planned on waiting in the parking lot with my tongue
panting. My hotel was 4 miles form ATR's office.
First I took the wrong ramp on the highway, picked up a nail and
after 5 miles going the wrong way, I finally turned around and drove
on an almost flat tire. I pulled in their lot, called AAA to fix the
tire. They didn't. It was still flat when I left ATR at 5 PM. The
least of my problems.
I was overdressed, the only audiophile in the group of 6. All the
others were studio owners, two of which were there to pick up their
ATR's. One was a 1 inch 2 track and the other a 1/4 inch 2 track. 9
to 12 was classroom time on theory; Tom, you said "It's Basic Tape
Recorders and Machine Alignment 101.''
After lunch, we spent the rest of the day going through all the
test and alignment procedures on the two machines the lucky owners
were there to pick up. We all had the opportunity to perform all the
adjustments on both machines using the Sound Technology 1510
Analyzers that ATR employs to set up all their machines. When you're
a 9'th grader in a College class you keep your ears open and your
mouth shut. However, I asked a few questions that were relevant to
the the tasks at hand. With a little studying on the subject, I just
might surprise myself!
When it came close to my turn I realized that my Mitchum wasn't
working--the first time. Bill, ATR's tech, was over the shoulder
while each attendee spent the 45 minutes going through the procedures
with detailed explanations as to what was going on. I really
should've recorded the procedure on my Ipod. My turn--- I passed with
the excuse that I'll go through it again when I pick up my machine.
I'm just old fashioned, but offending someone for the sake of
learning something you've paid to learn, just doesn't compute. My day
will come.---------By the way, the tire was still flat when I left
the facility at 5 PM, thanks AAA, and my deodorant was on holiday.
I think next time will be better.
Ken Fritz
On Jan 21, 2008, at 6:42 PM, Tom Fine wrote
Hi Ken:
A great place to learn a lot is to take one of ATR Services'
seminars. I forgot if you said you had been to one already or not.
Good luck with your endeavors.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Fritz"
<kftooldesign@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash Generators
Hello Mr Fine,
It was gratifying to read your reply as well. It cited
additional views of what it takes to end up with a good machine
along with fortification of the views expressed by Richard Hess.
In 1958, when I was in high school, I purchased a new Ampex
351-2. For a few years, I recorded bands around the Wisconsin
area until marriage and a few kids eliminated that. I sold the
machine and mikes to a good friend of mine who put it in his
closet and never used it. Two Christmases ago, while visiting my
family in Milwaukee, I called him and bought it back. I always
took good care of my things so it looks just as if it rolled off
the Ampex line. It probably has no more than 1500 hours of use on
it. I realize caps need to be replaced after that amount of time
and will probably do so at some time. Not having ANY program
material on tape I subscribed to The Tape Project and now have 3
tapes to play. WOW!! ---it's a start!
I realize I need to begin learning about tape recorders and
recording in general. Opinions such as yours are important to
someone who has just about everything to learn.
Thanks, Ken Fritz
On Jan 20, 2008, at 8:52 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
I'll second a lot of Richard's thoughts. If I did commercial-
master quality music tape transfers often enough, I'd own an ATR
for sure, and I'd be getting enough $$ from that kind of work to
afford a professional tech to keep it running. They're not
necessarily fragile machines, and not really finicky at least as
I've noted in the limited time I've spent using them, but when
they break, it's a complex electrical-mechanical system that is
not for the basement tinkerer to fix.
My pro-grade platform of choice is the Ampex AG-440B, with
plenty of tweaks to make it run very quiet and sound very
smoothly. One major tweak for older Ampex decks, by the way, is
simply putting in better heads. For instance, Ampex stock AG-440
era full-track head has a bass "bump" and a slight "presence
bump" typical of Ampex heads. Replace it with a Nortonics or
more exotic flavor and suddenly you can garner almost ruler-flat
frequency response. There are other tweaks. Anyway, AG-440's are
cheap and plentiful and a decent basement tinker CAN make one
run very well, thus saving the pennies for a JRF or IEM
headblock restoration/alignment, which I consider mandatory for a
professional-grade machine restoration.
I also sing the praises of the Technics 1500 series decks. These
are gentle on tape, steady on speed, offer a variety of playback
options and are of fine sound quality (not commercial-music
master grade but good enough for just about any other content).
I had one of these decks converted to full-track because I get a
surprising number of old brown-oxide 7.5IPS full-track spoken-
word reels to do. Few machines treat an old tape more gently
than the Technics transport.
In the end, though, I think a good transfer/restoration man or
woman has to rely on their ears and judgement much more than
their equipment. Talking up one's gear has been the age-old
marketing dodge for audio folks, and really tells a client very
little about how good a job you'll do. An excellent body of work
can be done on what's considered adequate gear and a terrible
body of work can be done on state-of-the-art ultra-tweaked gear.
What you get when you engage Richard's services is not really the
roomful of APR's and Studers. It's his experience and judgement
and proven track record (and, in Richard's case in particular,
his willingness to freely share all kinds of important
information and advice). Same with me and anyone else who does
good work on this list. Something to keep in mind ... experience
and good references beat gear lists as a barometer of good work
any day of the week.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard L. Hess"
<arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash
Generators
Hello, Mr. Fritz,
An ATR-102, especially one refurbished my ATR Services in York,
PA, is held in high esteem by many. There are some who are
concerned about its use on sticky archival tapes, but it is my
understanding it can be properly set up for those tapes and
sticky tapes should be rendered temporarily non-sticky prior to
playing by baking.
I got into this business slowly and began adopting a variety of
tape machines that appeared to meet my needs.
It is my goal to do an excellent job with as few different
platforms as possible. My current mainstay in reel-to-reel
machines are the Studer A80 and the Sony APR-5000.
ATR-102s are very expensive in good condition and while they
are superb, I have been able to find refurbishable A80s and
excellent condition APRs at much lower prices. My goal is to
minimize expenses so
(a) I can keep more of the money to run my household
(b) keep my pricing competitive and reasonably affordable
(c) have some money to feed my location recording,
photography, and travel hobbies
The APRs are my machine of choice for most formats as they
adapt to different formats much easier than most machines. The
A80s are my machine of choice for NAB and DIN (Euro) stereo and
full-track mono formats of high-quality material as they sound
slightly better than the APRs. They are more difficult to
change formats on. In fact, I keep one dedicated as NAB
playback and a second switches between full-track mono and DIN
playback, as needed. I am in the process of transforming a
third machine into a 15/30 machine to handle the few 30 in/s
masters I'm currently seeing.
At the very high end, I think the choice of AVAILABLE and
MAINTAINABLE machines comes down to: Ampex ATR-100, Studer
A80RC, Studer A820/2CH in alpha-numeric order. Each machine has
its proponents. I do not lust after the other two as I'm not
sure what owning them will provide that the A80RC doesn't. The
A80 is perhaps the most maintainable longest term as it is a
relatively simple machine and all but one of its 31 bearings
are stock, standard metric ball bearings.
There are several more esoteric machines, including the Nagra T-
Audio, Stellavox, and perhaps some other German (Telefunken?)
machines that are not commonly available in North America. The
Nagra would be probably the most common of these.
While the difference between the APR and the A80 RC is
noticeable, I'm not sure any potential further improvement that
MIGHT be made by the A820/2CH, the ATR-100, and the others is
worth it or could be justified by my client base.
I do find the Studer A810 close to the APR, but in a single
blind test that I've run by several people the end result
repeatedly is A80, APR-5000, A810 from best to good. I do have
specific tasks that I continue to use A810s for as they do
certain "stupid tape recorder tricks" better (at least as I
have them accessorized) than the APRs. The A80s are not
accessorized for many "tricks". I am planning on having
varispeed available for them.
I handle half-inch tapes on both the APR-5000s and the APR-16.
Some 1/4-inch tapes (specifically 8-channel ones) may be
handled in the future by a "FrankenSony" combination of an
APR-5000 transport and the APR-16 electronics. Four-channel 1/4-
inch tapes are handled by two "FrankenSony" pairs of APR-5000s.
1-inch tapes are handled on the APR-16. I do not handle 2-inch
tapes.
As I said, having a "stable" of different machines is not the
mainstay of my equipment strategy. I would rather have one of
the best models supported in depth than one each of the three
best. I have enough indecision in my life. For 0.150-inch tape,
my mainstay is the Nakamichi Dragon, of which I have six, all
currently up and running in the studio to do 6x ingest. I also
have one each Tascam 234 and 238 machines to handle 4- and 8-
track cassettes and other oddball formats.
While I have a specially configured A807 for tape prep, it's
infrequently used today, and I happily traded my A807 MK II for
an A80RC. Despite the photos on my website, the current reel-to-
reel machines in the studio are the APR-16, five APR-5000s, two
A80RCs, and a Racal Store 4DS and please read all the notes
about that machine in my blog before purchasing one.
Cheers,
Richard
At 09:20 PM 2008-01-19, Ken Fritz wrote:
Mr. Hess,
Being an audiophile, who is contributing as much as
possible $ $$ to the music industry, I have one question I'm
sure you can address.
I've navigated your web site with particular attention to your
stable of RTR machines. I realize that you need a variety of
machines
to accommodate the variety of material supplied to you for
restoration. I've not seen an Ampex ATR machine. It is
apparent to me
that you need more than a "machine for all seasons" and that
may
be why the ATR isn't in your studio, if it is that. May I have
your
opinion on that machine.
Regards, Ken Fritz --- an audiophile addict.
Richard L. Hess email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/
contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.