Otari MX-5050 Review (Reel to Reel Tape Deck)

[MakeMineVinyl]

I've posted this before, but this distortion and spectra is what one would typically see from analog tape. This is from my Ampex 354, running SM-468 tape at 250nWb/m (which is '+3dB'). Notice the even order distortion is suppressed, with the 2nd order component is just peaking though. This is a professional vacuum tube machine. 60Hz hum and its harmonics are present, but at all but very high listening levels (where hiss would be very intrusive), it is inaudible.

 

[LTig]

Even at uncompressed 48kHz 24-bit WAV format you can store more than 4000 hours of music on a 4TB hard drive costing GBP100. That’s 3p for the equivalent storage of a 60m cassette tape but in hi-res uncompressed format.

Compression of any sort has become irrelevant. There’s no reason to store music in anything less than 48kHz 24-bit format.

Agreed - except when ripping CDs.

 

[sarumbear]

The Decca Tree mic system I believe. Said pal had a 'scope' type display in his room which showed it I believe and it wasn't azimuth errors either. Long time back now that we discussed it, but we both heard the distortion on the vinyl and it went on from there as the CD appeared and he was then in a position to investigate further 'from the horses mouth' as it were and with the actual analogue masters used. He was also able to see the slight? errors on a digital master although back then, they were correctable. These days I believe it's much simpler and the engineer who stayed on in the premises after Polygram as-was fully absorbed the archive into an off-site location and th ebuilding reverted into mixed office facilities, changed to a commercially available workstation I seem to remember from an article I read years ago.

I’m very conversant with the Decca Tree but cannot imagine how it can be a cause of distortion. Why not on every movement but just on one?

Also, the audibility of distortion caused by phase skews vs frequency (which could be what’s called phase distortion) is very much debatable. I think you heard plain old tape saturation effect. Adjusting recording levels on live classical is always a problem. Mahler symphonies are especially difficult.

 

[amirm]

But why listen to these masters on this tough? Would it not sound exactly the same if you where to transfer these master to digital with a good ADC once and play this file moving forward? Seem to me you would get the best of both world? You make sure the machine is fully calibrated for the moment of the transfer but since you only play the tape once, degradation would be minimal and after that the same experience is repeatable and the same every time?

It is not the same experience. Watching the reels spin and vu meter needles dance around charms me as much as the music!

 

[LTig]

It is not the same experience. Watching the reels spin and vu meter needles dance around charms me as much as the music!

So what we need is a big R2R deck and a Y-splitter to feed it with signals from any source. Then set the deck on record and watch the reels spin and the VU meter needles dance ...

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

So what we need is a big R2R deck and a Y-splitter to feed it with signals from any source. Then set the deck on record and watch the reels spin and the VU meter needles dance ...

I have 3 reel to reel machines plus a 4 channel meter bridge patched in to do just that when I'm in the mood for cheap entertainment.

 

[iraweiss]

If you are interested in becoming a recording engineer, my alma mater Indiana University has an audio engineering and sound production major: https://music.indiana.edu/degrees-programs/areas-of-study/audio-engineering.html

If only they had such a program when I went to school there 50 years ago. I would have done this over becoming an arts administrator!

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

If you are interested in becoming a recording engineer, my alma mater Indiana University has an audio engineering and sound production major: https://music.indiana.edu/degrees-programs/areas-of-study/audio-engineering.html

If only they had such a program when I went to school there 50 years ago. I would have done this over becoming an arts administrator!

If only there was a huge need for recording engineers. I remember an article in Mix magazine about 15 years ago that described how engineers could tap into the 'huge' market of recording ring tones, as traditional studio work was drying up.

 

[sarumbear]

If only there was a huge need for recording engineers.

SAE Instutute has been going strong since the 70s and still expanding, currently operating at 20 countries. There is still good demand for the job. Maybe not on a traditional large studio but on tens of thousands of smaller ones.

However, the job of recording engineer has merged with the job of producer, who must be a musician. This was the reason why I left Abbey Road back in 1980 as I am not a musician and at 30 yo it wasn’t easy to become one.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

SAE Instutute has been going strong since the 70s and still expanding, currently operating at 20 countries. There is still good demand for the job. Maybe not on a traditional large studio but on tens of thousands of smaller ones.

However, the job of recording engineer has merged with the job of producer, who must be a musician. This was the reason why I left Abbey Road back in 1980 as I am not a musician and at 30 yo it wasn’t easy to become one.

I would expect that most of the opportunities are as you said, musicians / producers / engineers and this is more than likely the same person. Even back in the 70s when I owned an 8 track (1" 30ips capable Otari) studio, I lost my shirt due to the fact that I had a big expensive machine to pay off and there were so many small studios with 1/2" Tascam machines in their bedrooms that could charge a fraction of what I was forced to charge. Fortunately I landed a job as a recording engineer at a major studio, but even that dried up after a few years. About a decade ago when I lived in Los Angeles a large studio operation opened nearby. It was gone in a few years.

 

[sarumbear]

I would expect that most of the opportunities are as you said, musicians / producers / engineers and this is more than likely the same person. Even back in the 70s when I owned an 8 track (1" 30ips capable Otari) studio, I lost my shirt due to the fact that I had a big expensive machine to pay off and there were so many small studios with 1/2" Tascam machines in their bedrooms that could charge a fraction of what I was forced to charge. Fortunately I landed a job as a recording engineer at a major studio, but even that dried up after a few years. About a decade ago when I lived in Los Angeles a large studio operation opened nearby. It was gone in a few years.

Jobs change in time. You either adjust or jump ship, like I did.

 

[DSJR]

I’m very conversant with the Decca Tree but cannot imagine how it can be a cause of distortion. Why not on every movement but just on one?

Also, the audibility of distortion caused by frequency skews vs frequency (which could be what’s called frequency distortion) is very much debatable. I think you heard plain old tape saturation effect. Adjusting recording levels on live classical is always a problem. Mahler symphonies are especially difficult.

It was probably there all through, but it was the ending that sounded slightly odd. A long time ago now and I have to admit I haven't played it in many years. He did tell me what the max level on the tape was, but it didn't ring alarm bells for him. Just *maybe,* the session master was over-saturated. No way of checking now sadly. Decca had two vaults to my knowledge, one was the ancient one with acetates/shelacs and very old recordings in and the 'tape store' was as you'd imagine, with floor to ceiling racks of tapes all catalogued in position. Another cabinet had video masters in and another which was quickly emptied when cleared out by the staff, had first pressings of all their releases. Not sure where the digital masters went unless they were integrated into the analogue archive - I only visited once and would have liked to have seen and heard more than I did. I do remember their digital 10" tape recorders chuntering away noisily in the corridors outside each mastering room and these were already in heavy wooden cabinets on the floor...

 

[sarumbear]

It was probably there all through, but it was the ending that sounded slightly odd. A long time ago now and I have to admit I haven't played it in many years. He did tell me what the max level on the tape was, but it didn't ring alarm bells for him. Just *maybe,* the session master was over-saturated. No way of checking now sadly. Decca had two vaults to my knowledge, one was th eancient one with acetates/shelacs and very old recordings in and the 'tape store' was as you'd imagine, with floor to ceiling racks of tapes all catalogued in position. Another cabinet had video masters in and another which was quickly emptied, had first pressings of all their releases. Not sure where the digital masters went unless they were integrated into the analogue archive - I only visited once and would have liked to have seen and heard more than I did. I do remember their digital 10" tape recorders chuntering away noisily in the corridors outside each mastering room and these were already in heavy wooden cabinets on the floor...

Was the archive in US or UK? If in US, I’m afraid all Decca masters were perished at the Universal Studios fire in 2008.

 

[LTig]

SAE Instutute has been going strong since the 70s and still expanding, currently operating at 20 countries. There is still good demand for the job. Maybe not on a traditional large studio but on tens of thousands of smaller ones.

However, the job of recording engineer has merged with the job of producer, who must be a musician. This was the reason why I left Abbey Road back in 1980 as I am not a musician and at 30 yo it wasn’t easy to become one.

Yeah - at the age of 16 it became clear to me to study EE. But at 19 I got engaged with making music - first controlling the light show, later the live sound of 2 local bands, then started to play the drums, and I thought that recording engineer might be the job for me. However at that time I could study it only in one single university at all (Tonmeister in Berlin), they accepted only 8 students per year because the market for finished REs was too small, and a student needed to be able to play piano from scratch (unknown sheets of medium difficulty). I realized that it would take me several years just to reach this state and stayed with EE - and I'm happy I did it because I'm not sure whether it was a good idea in the first place to integrate two hobbies into one job. And NMR is much more interesting and demanding than audio.

 

[sarumbear]

It was probably there all through, but it was the ending that sounded slightly odd.

Risking going off-topic, are you saying that a Decca Pair will cause phase issues?

 

[audio2design]

If you haven’t yet, listen Harry Belafonte Live at Carnegie Hall recorded in 1959 direct to 2-track tape. Neither Dolby nor multi-track tape was yet invented. Irrespective of their music taste no audiophile can argue with quality of the music and the effect of being there. Those recording engineers were alchemists. They retired and their knowledge had died.

Oh I disagree. Give me two microphones, a half decent space and my laptop ..... with a great performer and even I can capture some amazing stuff. It was Harry Belafonte at Carnegie after all.

 

[thewas]

So what we need is a big R2R deck and a Y-splitter to feed it with signals from any source. Then set the deck on record and watch the reels spin and the VU meter needles dance ...

Or even better record on the reel a timecode like the ones DJs use to control the playback of digitial files through analogue turntable vinyl, this way you can even have some digital wow & flutter

Vinyl emulation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[sarumbear]

Oh I disagree. Give me two microphones, a half decent space and my laptop ..... with a great performer and even I can capture some amazing stuff. It was Harry Belafonte at Carnegie after all.

a) Have you listened to the record?

b) Why doesn’t other recordings made at the same place sound nowhere near as good as that recording then?

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

a) Have you listened to the record?

b) Why doesn’t other recordings made at the same place sound nowhere near as good as that recording then?

Evidently it was recorded for RCA by Bob Simpson - I've never heard his name before.

 

[audio2design]

a) Have you listened to the record?

b) Why doesn’t other recordings made at the same place sound nowhere near as good as that recording then?

Record yes, RtoR no. I don't think it is that amazing a recording, but it has some pleasant characteristics. 1- They let the vocals really shine. Too often that is not the case today. Lots of ambient noise providing sense of space (but they didn't have as good of directional mics either if I am not mistaken). Some R-R compression evident on vocal peaks which raises overall volume ... call it early loudness wars. It's not always bad

I personally think this may be better. Same vocal forward style.

But even Brian Adams sounds pretty good there:

another good one.