smurfer77
Super Member
Hi everyone, I'm newish to the tape forum. I bought my first r2r deck <1yr ago. The rebuild is over in the Pioneer RT-707 service & rebuild thread. I've been enjoying that machine a lot since then, collecting some prerecorded tapes, as well as making my own mix tapes and recording FLACs to tape. The performance really surprised me. I now have 2 more RT-707 for playing with and donor units, but now I have an appetite to step up to a higher speed and 2 track deck and see what that sounds like.
After reading around a bit I narrowed it down to the Revox B77/PR99 and the Technics RS series. @GPS16, a well known member on the tape forum, is partial towards Revox and his expertise on the Pioneer rebuilt enabled me to get a lot more out of the experience, so that had me leaning towards Revox even though the Technics machines looks like serious kit, have three speeds and motors that are scary in size. I think the final straw was when I saw some pics of inside of the Revox B77/PR99; those plug-in boards get me a bit excited as I'm tired of desoldering boards on amps (which is whats I'm usually doing, rather than tape decks)!
Finally I saw one in nice cosmetic condition, with pics of heads showing little to no wear, at a reasonable price and it arrived some time ago. I would like to share my story of my first revox, first 2-track & first 15IPS adventure in this thread. Since I am new to tape, I will try to share all of my beginner thoughts along the way so be warned. Lots of details and pics likely to follow (but you guys love that right?!).
So the box arrived with a couple of tears...
And some interesting packaging
And if you know the size of the PR99 you can get some feeling for the level of mess I've made here. What you can't see is the pine cone and needles and the other garage/garden debris that I had already cleaned up!
The heads have no visible wear! I checked the voltage setting and hooked it up, but there wasn't much happening so I opened it up. Looking clean inside!
Well, some mounts have been bent and this board was not plugged in properly (note to self, check everything is straight (other boards might be affected).
After fixing that up, we have everything working and transport functioning. Immediately I can see that the right spindle was wobbling. It looked not to be the table, but just the spindle bent. So I used a trick I have used for trueing up bike wheels to find the high spots. Then I banged it into shape with a rubber mallet (removed from the machine to avoid bending the reel table etc) - gentle taps, over a few iterations otherwise you end up chasing your own tail and overcorrecting.
No more wobble visible at all. Here she is sitting in one of the listening nooks next to the beloved RT-707.
Honestly, I've been enjoying my aligned RT-707 so much I've not had much drive to get stuck into the PR99 so far. I've made a couple of recordings and checked playback and all seems good but I've not listened enough to decide if there are not any mechanical, alignment, or electronic issues yet. But before getting stuck into the electronics and alignment I figure the machine is old enough to warrant a mechanical service to start with. So we will start with basic mechanical servicing, and make sure everything is running smoothly before we waste our time on alignment/electronics.
So I've gone ahead and ordered some bits and pieces to aid in the mechanical servicing from MonyPM in Australia. We have if I recall correctly:
(1) Toothed Counter Belt
(2) Transport Kit - Tape Guide bearings + Pinch Roller
(3) long black Counter Belt
(4) motor kit
Am i forgetting something? Looks like I have more than that in the pics. Anyway, I also grabbed an original PR99 service manual .
Any particular order I should do things in?
After reading around a bit I narrowed it down to the Revox B77/PR99 and the Technics RS series. @GPS16, a well known member on the tape forum, is partial towards Revox and his expertise on the Pioneer rebuilt enabled me to get a lot more out of the experience, so that had me leaning towards Revox even though the Technics machines looks like serious kit, have three speeds and motors that are scary in size. I think the final straw was when I saw some pics of inside of the Revox B77/PR99; those plug-in boards get me a bit excited as I'm tired of desoldering boards on amps (which is whats I'm usually doing, rather than tape decks)!
Finally I saw one in nice cosmetic condition, with pics of heads showing little to no wear, at a reasonable price and it arrived some time ago. I would like to share my story of my first revox, first 2-track & first 15IPS adventure in this thread. Since I am new to tape, I will try to share all of my beginner thoughts along the way so be warned. Lots of details and pics likely to follow (but you guys love that right?!).
So the box arrived with a couple of tears...
And some interesting packaging
And if you know the size of the PR99 you can get some feeling for the level of mess I've made here. What you can't see is the pine cone and needles and the other garage/garden debris that I had already cleaned up!
The heads have no visible wear! I checked the voltage setting and hooked it up, but there wasn't much happening so I opened it up. Looking clean inside!
Well, some mounts have been bent and this board was not plugged in properly (note to self, check everything is straight (other boards might be affected).
After fixing that up, we have everything working and transport functioning. Immediately I can see that the right spindle was wobbling. It looked not to be the table, but just the spindle bent. So I used a trick I have used for trueing up bike wheels to find the high spots. Then I banged it into shape with a rubber mallet (removed from the machine to avoid bending the reel table etc) - gentle taps, over a few iterations otherwise you end up chasing your own tail and overcorrecting.
No more wobble visible at all. Here she is sitting in one of the listening nooks next to the beloved RT-707.
Honestly, I've been enjoying my aligned RT-707 so much I've not had much drive to get stuck into the PR99 so far. I've made a couple of recordings and checked playback and all seems good but I've not listened enough to decide if there are not any mechanical, alignment, or electronic issues yet. But before getting stuck into the electronics and alignment I figure the machine is old enough to warrant a mechanical service to start with. So we will start with basic mechanical servicing, and make sure everything is running smoothly before we waste our time on alignment/electronics.
So I've gone ahead and ordered some bits and pieces to aid in the mechanical servicing from MonyPM in Australia. We have if I recall correctly:
(1) Toothed Counter Belt
(2) Transport Kit - Tape Guide bearings + Pinch Roller
(3) long black Counter Belt
(4) motor kit
Am i forgetting something? Looks like I have more than that in the pics. Anyway, I also grabbed an original PR99 service manual .
Any particular order I should do things in?