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Otari MX-5050 Review (Reel to Reel Tape Deck)
- Thread starter amirm
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I've seen many Bluetooth products measured and reviewed in these pages. Bluetooth headphones all rely on compression and they are the fastest growing segment in audio, so compression is history?
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I mostly used open reel for air checks. Met opera broadcasts and jazz shows from the local (low power) college station. As I recall (doing this from memory, and it was many years ago) my B77 four track allowed individual programs for each track, so you could get a lot of time on a large reel. At 3 1/4 ips it was suitable for FM mono broadcasts (stereo reception was never guaranteed because I was a long way from the tower).Unfortunately all of the tape copies I have from that era were recorded on Ampex 456 'Grand Master' tape, and are now totally unplayable because of sticky shed syndrome. I tried baking a couple but they were too far gone, and the music wasn't all that great to justify all the work.
On the other hand, tape handling on the ReVox was crude compared to the better Japanese machines.
I've experience tape deterioration. Sometimes sticking, not infrequently squealing, or oxide shedding. Every now and then, when I wasn't thinking, I'd twist the tape in the middle of the reel and try and record on the wrong side. Tape dumps were always fun.
For home recording I'd buy whatever was on sale and locally available: TDK; Scotch; but mostly Maxell (UDXL), since my local guitar store stocked it at a pretty cheap price. After Maxell left the building I'd mail order Quantegy (née Ampex), then, that operation shut their doors. Really, it just got too much, and routine maintenance was always over the top. Plus, the local college station was absorbed into the NPR Borg, and lost their uniqueness and individuality, so I lost interest in them. CD was new, and that took everyone's interest.
I'm pretty agnostic about hi-fi. Tubes or SS. Records or CD/Streaming. I don't care. Whatever sounds and looks good. Hell, I'd own a cassette deck if any decent ones were still made, and if you could buy new metal or other quality tapes.
But open reel (and FM) I dislike with a passion. The former for reasons listed. The latter? Any gear that requires that I get up on my roof and install a ten foot galvanized steel mast and aluminum antenna, in order to get reasonable sound quality, is something I'm just not interested in, anymore. I don't even know if classical FM is still a thing.
God! The stuff we used to do for music, back in the day!
Yes. Those products are now legacy for Hi-Fi use with the arrival of aptX Lossless for mainstream chips.
Come on. it's just announced, no products support it. even AptX HD and LDAC is just a tiny fraction of the market... Wait a bit for "legacy" Now I do use lossless when I am connected to wifi and my transducers are linked to the source with a wire... But there is plenty of use cases where it is convenient not to, and honestly, the difference between lossless and a good compression algorithm at a decent bit rate is tiny at best, indiscernable for many. there is so much more important stuff in the chain to worry about, starting with the transducers... Compressed music can sound very good, when you stop looking at numbers and just enjoy. It isn't the bottle neck of any reproduction chain.
For those people who are interested, I am using the latest version of WFGUI http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/index.php?cat=post&qry=library
This is a small program that can replace a hardware W&F meter. It measures Wow&Flutter at either 3kHz or 3.15kHz, in the WRMS or DIN wtd standard, as well as the input signal frequency. It's loaded onto our laptop.
I use a sound generator app to generate the 3 KHz tone, copy that onto a flash drive, load the flash drive on my receiver's USB and play it. The audio goes into the tape deck's line input.
To get the signal from the tape deck to our laptop I use an ezcap USB Audio Capture. I connect it to either the line out or headphone out of the tape deck and into a USB jack on the laptop.
This is a small program that can replace a hardware W&F meter. It measures Wow&Flutter at either 3kHz or 3.15kHz, in the WRMS or DIN wtd standard, as well as the input signal frequency. It's loaded onto our laptop.
I use a sound generator app to generate the 3 KHz tone, copy that onto a flash drive, load the flash drive on my receiver's USB and play it. The audio goes into the tape deck's line input.
To get the signal from the tape deck to our laptop I use an ezcap USB Audio Capture. I connect it to either the line out or headphone out of the tape deck and into a USB jack on the laptop.
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I am not in a rush to buy a new BT device to the urgency that I will buy one with no support for uncompressed audio transfer. Are you?
I disagree vehemently but everyone to themselves.
There are a few differentiation tests between lossless and various bitrate compression available on the net. Some will pass some will fail to distinguish, but anybody that find that it's night and day and one is enjoyable vs the other bad sounding (for 320kbps+) would be of bad. faith. the fact that I'm writing that on a thread about R2R which many are able to find good sounding is a proof of that.
Ha! You do realise that you are on ASR, right? We differentiate SINAD between -123 and -121dB...
Sure, if you say so.
as we say, looping the loop. I was talking listening experience, you are talking numbers.
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
Here is a view of the mixing console. I made this from scratch - the circuit design, etching the circuit boards, assembling the module chassis, the woodwork, cutting the front panels, and even silk screening the text to the front of those panels. Everything. It took me almost a year to construct, but I learned a hell of a lot in the process.
That is a lot of work. Bravo!Here is a view of the mixing console. I made this from scratch - the circuit design, etching the circuit boards, assembling the module chassis, the woodwork, cutting the front panels, and even silk screening the text to the front of those panels. Everything. It took me almost a year to construct, but I learned a hell of a lot in the process.
View attachment 156384
What is the topology? Have you done any measurements on it?
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
Oh its long gone - unfortunately. I sold it when I closed down the studio. Its a split console with a separate 8 channel monitor section, 4 effects send busses, 16 input channels and 8 output summing busses. It had 4 channel monitoring output capability in case I wanted to do surround monitoring, but I never used it and only monitored in stereo. It was predominately designed around the National Semiconductor LM 381 opamp, one of the first truly low noise ICs available. The EQs were 5 fixed bands and used LCRs in the feedback loop. I didn't have much in the way of measurement equipment when I built it, but I do remember that it was extremely quiet and had a lot of headroom. I miss it, but realistically it weighed a ton and more capability is crammed into even the simplest DAWs nowadays.
And yes, it was a shit-wad of work!
LCRs in the feedback loop are cool. How were the microphone amplifiers implemented?Oh its long gone - unfortunately. I sold it when I closed down the studio. Its a split console with a separate 8 channel monitor section, 4 effects send busses, 16 input channels and 8 output summing busses. It had 4 channel monitoring output capability in case I wanted to do surround monitoring, but I never used it and only monitored in stereo. It was predominately designed around the National Semiconductor LM 381 opamp, one of the first truly low noise ICs available. The EQs were 5 fixed bands and used LCRs in the feedback loop. I didn't have much in the way of measurement equipment when I built it, but I do remember that it was extremely quiet and had a lot of headroom. I miss it, but realistically it weighed a ton and more capability is crammed into even the simplest DAWs nowadays.
And yes, it was a shit-wad of work!
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
I used 1:10 ratio microphone input transformers from Triad which had 10dB and 20dB pads ahead of it, along with 6.8k resistors furnishing +48V phantom power. This fed an LM 381 which had its gain varied between 20dB to 60dB via the feed back loop. This fed a largely passive matrix for channel assignment. The faders I bought from Tascam.
You think audio is all I do?Who said Hi-Fi is cheap?
However, even an entry level phone (64GB) can store 4,000 hours (100 albums) worth of uncompressed music. I don't think you have a case for compressed even on a mobile device.
Rick "with many thousands of photos, a number of enormous reference documents in PDF, and dozens and dozens of downloaded books on his phone also" Denney
Clever design. Transformer amplification vs active amplification topology was behind the famous desk sound debate of Neve vs (early) SSL. Neve used transformer while SSL used a parallel transistor pair in front of the op amps. Neves were universally liked while SSLs were found to sound harsh.
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