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Reel to reel sound quality vs. vinyl..What do they mean?

soma89

soma89

Well-Known Member
Hello,
I guess you could say I’m fairly new to the analog world and I’m wondering about reel to reel and vinyl. I’ve heard that reel to reel actually sounds better than vinyl, but this has brought up many questions in my head..aren’t reel to reels for recording? Does this mean that the recordings produced by high quality reel to reel players better the original sources? I’ve heard a lot about CD listeners recording their cd’s to tape because they like the sound better.
I also know that they use to sell albums on reels (like actual music albums)…is this what they are referring to when they say that reel to reel surpasses vinyl in terms of sound quality?...And I know they come in different speeds which is another issue to look at… Thanks!
 
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In the old days, recordings were made direct to acetate discs at 78 rpm. Then along came tape, which served as the original recording medium before transfer to disc. Thus, the tape would sound a bit better than the disc due to unavoidable distortion. New disc pressings were again made from the master tape.

Any subsequent transfers of course would lose some of the quality, although not much.

No, you can't make music sound better by transferring a disc to tape.

Commercially produced reel to reel recordings might have sounded almost as good as the master tape but for the fact that they were recorded in four track fashion at only 7.5"/sec, which doesn't have the marvelous S/N ratio or low wow and flutter or high end response.

Reel to reel shines when making live recordings, which for years was pretty much the only way you could record without professional disc cutting gear. Then along came cassette and everything went downhill.

Now we have CD recording, which can be very good, with no wow and flutter, and wide range response.
 
Music recordings were sold in several formats during the 60's and 70's, including R2R and vinyl releases in two speed formats. My personal experience as a classical music collector is that buying a given recording in both formats, R2R issues (at 7 1/2 ips) are the best sounding: more open (no compression is evident) and better bass response and dynamic range. A very close second are vinyl records at 45 rpm, and vinyl records at 33 rpm fall a bit below in quality. If you would like to have concrete examples, I'm talking about most RCA releases conducted by Munch, Reiner, Monteux and Toscanini , CBS releases conducted by Bernstein or Walter or London recordings conducted by Ansermet. Of course, this is just my experience with this type of music (remember that there is no amplification in classical music and that an orchestra of 100 musicians has a tremendous dynamic range).

PS: in this picture you see several formats altogether:

DSC_3928.JPG
 
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guiller said:
Music recordings were sold in several formats during the 60's and 70's, including R2R and vinyl releases in two speed formats. My personal experience as a classical music collector is that buying a given recording in both formats, R2R issues (at 7 1/2 ips) are the best sounding: more open (no compression is evident) and better bass response and dynamic range. A very close second are vinyl records at 45 rpm, and vinyl records at 33 rpm fall a bit below in quality. If you would like to have concrete examples, I'm talking about most RCA releases conducted by Munch, Reiner, Monteux and Toscanini , CBS releases conducted by Bernstein or Walter or London recordings conducted by Ansermet. Of course, this is just my experience with this type of music (remember that there is no amplification in classical music and that an orchestra of 100 musicians has a tremendous dynamic range).

PS: in this picture you see several formats altogether:

DSC_3928.JPG
Click to expand...

Hey, thanks a lot for the explanation. I want to get more into classical music and land some of those reel to reel tapes! I have a whole bunch of Deutsch Grammophone records that i like to listen to on vinyl so i could imagine how the R2R would sound. Nice to see someone from Argentina on the forums, too! My father is Argentinian and i've been there a few times and it's beautiful. Saludos!
 
A good reel-to-reel tape has mind-blowing sound quality - and the tapes used for factory recordings tend to hold up VERY well. I have quite a few dating to the very early 60s that are in great shape.
 
Bob91343 said:
No, you can't make music sound better by transferring a disc to tape.
Click to expand...

Although you can change it more to your liking and preserve it without having to convert to digital. Talking about using an EQ or a DBX expander, or even doing the dreaded one-time wet recording.
 
It's hard to find those old tapes in good shape, though. I stopped buying them off ebay, as the highs were usually gone.
 
soma89 said:
Nice to see someone from Argentina on the forums, too! My father is Argentinian and i've been there a few times and it's beautiful. Saludos!
Click to expand...

Next time you come by this part of the world, please let me know!
 
Jonny Ramone said:
It's hard to find those old tapes in good shape, though. I stopped buying them off ebay, as the highs were usually gone.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the tapes you mentioned have been played a large number of times. I've bought about 300 R2R tapes in the last 10 years and they are all in great shape. All of these are classical music tapes, and I mention it just in case this could (?) be an indication that the tapes were not played many times. BTW, I use a couple of Revoxes (B77 and A77 Mk3) to play the 4track tapes and another A77 for the 2 track ones. The two 4track recorders cover different speed ranges (7 1/2 and 15 ips for the B77 and 3 3/4 and 7 1/2 for the A77).
 
Jonny Ramone said:
It's hard to find those old tapes in good shape, though. I stopped buying them off ebay, as the highs were usually gone.
Click to expand...

I apologize if this is an insulting question, but is your azimuth properly adjusted on the PB head? My RT-707 sounded pretty dull until I got an alignment tape and scope and did it the right way. I won't say the improvement was like night and day (it must have pretty close before) but the difference was immediately noticeable. Now, it's the first step any time I bring a new deck into the family. Well, that and a good cleaning.

The only reason I ask is that I have bought lots of tapes from ebay and have never received one with the highs wiped. (I have received a few that were recorded over or missing the first few seconds, but I bought them untested so I couldn't get too upset. Caveat emptor and all that.) Then again, I generally buy only 2-tracks these days, which I assume were duplicated at real-time or close to it and probably treated with care by their owners, considering their astronomical cost.

Anyhoo, back on topic. In my system at least, a good 2-track tape sounds far better than an LP to my ears. I have several recordings from RCA's "golden age" on both formats and prefer the tape in all cases. As for 4-tracks, almost all of mine sound pretty darn good, as long as they are 7 1/2 ips, anyway. I'm guessing, although I haven't really compared, that 3 3/4 ips tapes will not sound as good as LPs. Unfortunately, depending on your taste in music, that may be about all that's available. In general, though, tapes just seem to have more life, which is probably just another way of saying no compression and better extension, as guiller noted. Another factor that I consider non-trivial is that I find it much easier to tune out the tape hiss in quiet passages than the surface noise of an LP, which is more of a factor in classical than popular music. Finally, I worry less about wear and tear on my tapes. I always put a generous amount of leader on when I get a new tape, keep my decks clean and demagged, and have had very few problems with breakage, which is amazing considering some of these things are over fifty years old. Even so, a splice here and there doesn't bother me too much.

Oh, and one last thing. Nothing looks cooler than a RTR in action...:music:
 
In the late 50's or early 60's commercially available reel to reel tapes were sold in the full 2 track format at 7 1/2 ips speed. These tapes still sound fantastic to this day and (depending on the title and artist) still command decent money. In the early 1960's they started using the 1/4 track stereo format and high speed reproducing methods which increased the product output but sacrificed sound quality, although at the 7 1/2 ips speed they still sounded decent. Then they started to release tapes at 3 3/4 ips speed (really only useful for speech recordings) and the sound quality and s/n ratio went down the tubes. You could still find tapes that were recorded at the 7 1/2 ips speed, but you had to pay more and the selection was limited.
Many folks prefer the sound of the old original full 2 track versions to the albums and it's a shame that they didn't keep that option for audiophile quality recordings.
Full 2 track recordings can't be played properly on a 1/4 track machine unless it is equipped with a separate 2 track playback head option (somewhat rare).
 
I'm sold!

Stalking an R2R this week. Thanks all for the input so far. It's a good thread for those considering to include reel tape (me at the mo).
 
I've found that the commercial 3.75ips tapes are comparable in sound quality to my vinyl. 7.5ips is noticeably better. I've never had the good fortune to encounter any of the commercial two-track tapes.
 
Sam Cogley said:
I've found that the commercial 3.75ips tapes are comparable in sound quality to my vinyl. 7.5ips is noticeably better. I've never had the good fortune to encounter any of the commercial two-track tapes.
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I agree for the most part 3.75 tapes sound as good as vinyl from the same age and 7.5 sounds better, except for 45 RPM vinyl. Also some of the newer reissued vinyl being cut today sounds at least as good as 7.5.
 
One thing no one in this thread has mentioned were the audiophile quality R2R tapes from specialist type companies that were once the very best SQ you could hope for...Dolby B encoded, 7-1/2 IPS, reproduced at slow speeds, and using the very best virgin master tapes, the Barclay Crocker tapes are the best of the best when it comes to factory recorded R2R tapes...nothing from DG, RCA, Decca, etc., zip, zero, nada, no one made better sounding 7-1/2 IPS tapes...

Used with a decent Dolby external B type decoder, like the Teac AN-180 or the rare Advent unit, these tapes are surprising in just how good pre-recorded media can sound...even the SACD units I have had or brought home from my part time job with a high end retailer, paled in comparison to the BC tapes played back on my Teac X-700R with an external decoder...the sound does compare favorably to audiophile vinyl pressings played back through my Linn LP-12 and Benz H2O, and amazes me as there is so much electronic chicanery being done by the tape deck, decoder, and the extra cabling compared to the rather simple combo of my turntable....

Today, though, if I want to record an LP to something for easier playback with less medium wear I will record to my HTPC rather than one of my tape units as I don't have to worry about storage medium or space...I use Audacity with an old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card that allows 24/48 recording and play back with Media Monkey output through the SC's digital output to an old AudioAlchemy DTI 2.0 and DDE 1.2...no worry about cataloging or storing the physical media, the computer stores it all...and the digital chain is still pretty darn competent so I don't feel like I sacrifice anything, even in that elusive quality that analog brings to the table....

Have fun!
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Ressurection

soma89 said:
Hello,
I guess you could say I’m fairly new to the analog world and I’m wondering about reel to reel and vinyl. I’ve heard that reel to reel actually sounds better than vinyl, but this has brought up many questions in my head..aren’t reel to reels for recording? Does this mean that the recordings produced by high quality reel to reel players better the original sources? I’ve heard a lot about CD listeners recording their cd’s to tape because they like the sound better.
I also know that they use to sell albums on reels (like actual music albums)…is this what they are referring to when they say that reel to reel surpasses vinyl in terms of sound quality?...And I know they come in different speeds which is another issue to look at… Thanks!
Click to expand...

Reel to Reel tapes DO sound better than vinyl.
 
"No, you can't make music sound better by transferring a disc to tape."

This is oh so subjective-but I have transferred some material from vinyl and CD to tape, and actually prefer the result to these upon playback.
A few musicians/groups will add a tape transfer/playback loop into their process somewhere along the line, for the unique flavor that tape can add.
I am not sure I am hearing something I prefer, or just the 'romance' I have for the visual of the R to R deck spinning :)
 
A tape machine IS a compressor. Whether you hear the compressor working or not depends on how hard you're hitting the levels.
 
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