We are blessed in the pacific northwest (US) with a very friendly audiophile group and society. The format of the regular meetings is usually inviting someone from the industry to give a talk/play music. Such was the case with a company that specializes in Technics Reel-to-Reel refurbishing. Alas that demo did not in my opinion go off very well due to poor choice of material and recording ("hot" captures of CD on old CD player).
Something nice did come out of it which was meeting fellow audiophile and tape lover, John Brooks. As with me, John has Otari tape deck(s) but similarity ends there in that he has much deeper investment in the format as you will read shortly.
For now, just a bit of background on why I love tape so much. The interest dates back to early 1970s when I was probably 12 to 14 years old and had gotten the audiophile bug. Thought I was doing well with the (cheap) gear I had until I visited the home of a friend of mine and saw what his older brother had. It was there that I saw and heard the most amazing sound coming out of a Sony 777 reel-to-reel deck. I still remember what it cost then: $1,000. I pestered my dad to buy me for months but it was not going to happen. Fast forward decades later and I had to have one and courtesy of Ki Choi -- tape God -- and I acquired an Otari B5050. I then bought a few tapes and some kind souls gave me a couple and that has been my investment to date.
Well, John is in another league altogether. He was kind enough to invite me to his house and put up with me driving into his neighbour's house like a fool sitting there for 5 minutes for him to arrive!
What went on was an incredible "tape night" that lasted two to three hours.
Here is John's system:
And with him in it (my apologies for only have a shot of him from back side ):
As you see John doesn't have one Otari deck but two! They each beautifully flank the sides of his equipment rack. The decks are the Otari MTR-15 which is a "mastering deck" with oodles of more features than mine.
The main amplification is VAC:
As it almost always happens with Murphy and demos, when John tried to power up the amp it would not. He swore it was working prior to me coming but here we were dead in the water. John being a DIY electronic person pulled out a trusty analog meter out and we set out to check the fuses in the outboard power supply. He was doing the pulling and re-insertion of multiple fuses and I was doing the test. We tested a couple of good fuses and then got to one that was reading OK but just when I was putting it away it seemed to act open. I almost did not catch it but thought I should re-test and wouldn't you know it: the fuse looked perfectly OK but if you pressed on the ends, it would alternate between making a connection and not!
These were aftermarket audiophile fuses and fortunately John had a spare. We put that in and stars aligned and the amp powered up.
Turns out John is a masterful "tape jockey." He would play something for me and while I was listening he would cue up the next tape on the other deck and advance it to the specific track. So I was hearing music non-stop and none of the long gaps of waiting for tape to rewind and such. John did this all night, impressing me to no end with his hard work and hospitality.
John is also far more organized than me with set of notes for all of this tapes on what is in them and what to play. He keeps them in this folder that you see above his rack of tapes:
John's approach to collecting tapes (and decks) has been to search the classifieds high and low to find and mine these tapes. He told me story after story of how he found these, often having to buy or sift through a ton of tapes to find the right ones.
Every tape sounded wonderful, accompanied with a great story from John on who the artist was and how he had come about finding the tape. His system was true to source in that every tape sounded different as it should. The system did not impose its constant signature on everything you play as some systems do.
I was too involved in listening to take any notes. Sorry about that. But did take pictures of what was being played here and there:
I could not be more thankful of John's hospitality and wonderful joy he provided in playing all of these tapes for me and the conversation during the same. If there is someone in the pacific northwest that has interest in tape, I highly recommend meeting John and and hopefully get the same invite I got to hear and experience the same.
Something nice did come out of it which was meeting fellow audiophile and tape lover, John Brooks. As with me, John has Otari tape deck(s) but similarity ends there in that he has much deeper investment in the format as you will read shortly.
For now, just a bit of background on why I love tape so much. The interest dates back to early 1970s when I was probably 12 to 14 years old and had gotten the audiophile bug. Thought I was doing well with the (cheap) gear I had until I visited the home of a friend of mine and saw what his older brother had. It was there that I saw and heard the most amazing sound coming out of a Sony 777 reel-to-reel deck. I still remember what it cost then: $1,000. I pestered my dad to buy me for months but it was not going to happen. Fast forward decades later and I had to have one and courtesy of Ki Choi -- tape God -- and I acquired an Otari B5050. I then bought a few tapes and some kind souls gave me a couple and that has been my investment to date.
Well, John is in another league altogether. He was kind enough to invite me to his house and put up with me driving into his neighbour's house like a fool sitting there for 5 minutes for him to arrive!
What went on was an incredible "tape night" that lasted two to three hours.Here is John's system:
And with him in it (my apologies for only have a shot of him from back side
):As you see John doesn't have one Otari deck but two! They each beautifully flank the sides of his equipment rack. The decks are the Otari MTR-15 which is a "mastering deck" with oodles of more features than mine.
The main amplification is VAC:
As it almost always happens with Murphy and demos, when John tried to power up the amp it would not. He swore it was working prior to me coming but here we were dead in the water. John being a DIY electronic person pulled out a trusty analog meter out and we set out to check the fuses in the outboard power supply. He was doing the pulling and re-insertion of multiple fuses and I was doing the test. We tested a couple of good fuses and then got to one that was reading OK but just when I was putting it away it seemed to act open. I almost did not catch it but thought I should re-test and wouldn't you know it: the fuse looked perfectly OK but if you pressed on the ends, it would alternate between making a connection and not!
These were aftermarket audiophile fuses and fortunately John had a spare. We put that in and stars aligned and the amp powered up.
Turns out John is a masterful "tape jockey." He would play something for me and while I was listening he would cue up the next tape on the other deck and advance it to the specific track. So I was hearing music non-stop and none of the long gaps of waiting for tape to rewind and such. John did this all night, impressing me to no end with his hard work and hospitality.
John is also far more organized than me with set of notes for all of this tapes on what is in them and what to play. He keeps them in this folder that you see above his rack of tapes:
John's approach to collecting tapes (and decks) has been to search the classifieds high and low to find and mine these tapes. He told me story after story of how he found these, often having to buy or sift through a ton of tapes to find the right ones.
Every tape sounded wonderful, accompanied with a great story from John on who the artist was and how he had come about finding the tape. His system was true to source in that every tape sounded different as it should. The system did not impose its constant signature on everything you play as some systems do.
I was too involved in listening to take any notes. Sorry about that
. But did take pictures of what was being played here and there:I could not be more thankful of John's hospitality and wonderful joy he provided in playing all of these tapes for me and the conversation during the same. If there is someone in the pacific northwest that has interest in tape, I highly recommend meeting John and and hopefully get the same invite I got to hear and experience the same.
