Hi folks
This is my first post here at AudioKarma. I am the one helping Søren Hammer restoring his Sony TC-378 in another thread.
Long story:
I run a small recording studio in Esbjerg in the southern Denmark. It's the rehersal space for one of my bands, where the singer is very wealthy. He bought this house cash, where we have built a studio, I have my electronics workshop and where we rehearse.
The studio is built up around an old Soundcraft 800B desk. I have a pair of Yamaha NS-1000M for monitors and a Yamaha MX-1000 power amp driving them. The rest of our equipment might not interest you hi-fi guys as much.
I decided to go buy me a real two-track mastering deck. Until now, I had used my Teac X-2000R for these tasks, but since it's a quarter track pro-sumer deck with a max speed of 7½ ips, it wasn't really suited for professional use, though it sounded okay. It will return to my home setup instead, where it will stand and look sexy. Earlier this year I did buy some second hand tapes from a guy on the internet. Most of the tapes I bought were Agfa PER-525, which I found out had very bad case of sticky shed syndrome. I have since scrapped most of the tape and kept the reels. There were some very nice Revox metal reels. This guy had a couple of r2r decks he were willing to sell. At that point I wasn't interested. 6 months later (just about yesterday) I decided to write to him again. He had a Studer A67 and a B67. I decided to go look at the B67. It was very very dirty, filled with tape dust from the aforementioned crappy tapes, but I could see that the butterfly heads were in very good shape with plenty of hours left in them. I did put a tape on the machine and checked the mechanical functions (breaks, motors, speed, etc). The only problem was that I could not test the electronics or hear the machine play. He told me that the machine should work, and should have had regular services. It was originally owned by the national broadcasting service in Denmark and later by a R2R enthusiast who owned over 15 of these machines. I took the chance and bought the deck, for 3000DKK, which equals 525USD. He actually wanted around 850 bucks for the machine. Well, I took it back to the workshop with help from Søren. We looked the machine over, and began cleaning it.
Here is the first part (day one and two) of the process in pictures:
We started by removing the head shell and began cleaning the heads. Apparently the previous and now deceased owner (the decks were given to a friend of his, the guy I bought it from) had a thing for sticker letters. There was slapped a Revox logo on the front, and "Studer B67" was sticked to the head shell. I removed these, because I want the machine to be all original.
Head assembly right after the first round of cleaning
The heads, tape guide and capstan were filled with tape dust from bad tapes. As you can see, the pinch roller is done, finished, kaput, finito... It works though, and will have to do for now until I get a new one!
And this is the first bunch of cotton buds used for cleaning the heads and guide. We used a cloth and other cleaning materials too, though I forgot to photograph those
Getting rid of the bad tapes is very important, so they can't contamiate my machines. This is one half of a 10½" reel.
Removing the whole head assembly to clean the guts of the machine. I removed the front too, but I didn't take a photo. Maybe another day...
The next project was to replace the electrolytic capacitors in the electronics. I was not sure wether the machine needed it or not, but since it's from 1978, I figured it would be a good idea to do anyways. To my own luck, the machine does not contain very many electrolytic caps, most of them are tantalum, also in the signal path, but I will return to that later.
I removed the rear cover. Here is the beautiful engine compartment of the machine
I started removing the PCBs one by one, replacing the few electrolytic caps that were actually on there. I replaced them with high quality Rubycon, Philips and Panasonic caps, all rated at 105 degrees. They were just what I had lying round the workshop.
I use a very nice Weller WSD81 soldering station for these kind of jobs. It's a high quality soldering tool, that I got from my work. Here is some more recapping:
The kitchen/lunch room at the studio is converted to a temporary tape repair workshop. My workshop in the room right next to this is being upgraded with new work tables and storage shelves, so that place was too messy to work with these tape decks. You can see me working on the B67 and Søren working on his Sony TC-378. In the background you can see a Tandberg 3300X which a friend of mine gave to me. It needs a bit of work, but does look cool.
Here is another picture of the workshop, here I caught Søren working on his Sony. In the background you can see the bank deposit box (the house was once a bank, then a vet, and now a studio, rehearsal space and workshop) that works as the control room for the studio. You can not see it in this picture but my Teac X-2000R is in the control room, and behind Søren is a cute little Tandberg Model 14 with built in speaker, that I got from the same guy that gave me the Tandberg 3300X. Both were given to me the same day I picked up the Studer. What a lucky day!
Here is a hot babe shot of the Studer. I slapped a couple of Revox reels on it that I think will fit nicely until I can get some reels with the Studer name on them:
She's sizzling hot:
We slapped a reel of BASF tape on the machine (I can't remember what kind, maybe LPR-35, or something like that). Then I took some of the recordings I had on the computer, a finished album, though these files were before the album was mastered. We recorded and monitored live and wow! Just wow. The warm sound of tape!
The transformers at both the inputs and outputs, working together with the nice electronics, great butterfly heads and nice tape produced a nice, pleasent and warm sound. I can definitely see myself using this machine to bounce pre-masters and masters. The way the instruments just melted together, the sweetening of the high end and the tightening of the low end just...
The next steps in the proces is to acquire an alignment tape, get the machine adjusted to some hi output tape, I am considering SM911 or LPR-35 since these formulas can be bought new, relatively cheap. This also means that I can keep my old Maxell and TDK tapes for the X-2000R for which they fit perfectly.
Hope you enjoyed reading! I will keep you updated in near future, when further work is done to the machine.
This is my first post here at AudioKarma. I am the one helping Søren Hammer restoring his Sony TC-378 in another thread.
Long story:
I run a small recording studio in Esbjerg in the southern Denmark. It's the rehersal space for one of my bands, where the singer is very wealthy. He bought this house cash, where we have built a studio, I have my electronics workshop and where we rehearse.
The studio is built up around an old Soundcraft 800B desk. I have a pair of Yamaha NS-1000M for monitors and a Yamaha MX-1000 power amp driving them. The rest of our equipment might not interest you hi-fi guys as much.
I decided to go buy me a real two-track mastering deck. Until now, I had used my Teac X-2000R for these tasks, but since it's a quarter track pro-sumer deck with a max speed of 7½ ips, it wasn't really suited for professional use, though it sounded okay. It will return to my home setup instead, where it will stand and look sexy. Earlier this year I did buy some second hand tapes from a guy on the internet. Most of the tapes I bought were Agfa PER-525, which I found out had very bad case of sticky shed syndrome. I have since scrapped most of the tape and kept the reels. There were some very nice Revox metal reels. This guy had a couple of r2r decks he were willing to sell. At that point I wasn't interested. 6 months later (just about yesterday) I decided to write to him again. He had a Studer A67 and a B67. I decided to go look at the B67. It was very very dirty, filled with tape dust from the aforementioned crappy tapes, but I could see that the butterfly heads were in very good shape with plenty of hours left in them. I did put a tape on the machine and checked the mechanical functions (breaks, motors, speed, etc). The only problem was that I could not test the electronics or hear the machine play. He told me that the machine should work, and should have had regular services. It was originally owned by the national broadcasting service in Denmark and later by a R2R enthusiast who owned over 15 of these machines. I took the chance and bought the deck, for 3000DKK, which equals 525USD. He actually wanted around 850 bucks for the machine. Well, I took it back to the workshop with help from Søren. We looked the machine over, and began cleaning it.
Here is the first part (day one and two) of the process in pictures:
We started by removing the head shell and began cleaning the heads. Apparently the previous and now deceased owner (the decks were given to a friend of his, the guy I bought it from) had a thing for sticker letters. There was slapped a Revox logo on the front, and "Studer B67" was sticked to the head shell. I removed these, because I want the machine to be all original.
Head assembly right after the first round of cleaning
The heads, tape guide and capstan were filled with tape dust from bad tapes. As you can see, the pinch roller is done, finished, kaput, finito... It works though, and will have to do for now until I get a new one!
And this is the first bunch of cotton buds used for cleaning the heads and guide. We used a cloth and other cleaning materials too, though I forgot to photograph those
Getting rid of the bad tapes is very important, so they can't contamiate my machines. This is one half of a 10½" reel.
Removing the whole head assembly to clean the guts of the machine. I removed the front too, but I didn't take a photo. Maybe another day...
The next project was to replace the electrolytic capacitors in the electronics. I was not sure wether the machine needed it or not, but since it's from 1978, I figured it would be a good idea to do anyways. To my own luck, the machine does not contain very many electrolytic caps, most of them are tantalum, also in the signal path, but I will return to that later.
I removed the rear cover. Here is the beautiful engine compartment of the machine
I started removing the PCBs one by one, replacing the few electrolytic caps that were actually on there. I replaced them with high quality Rubycon, Philips and Panasonic caps, all rated at 105 degrees. They were just what I had lying round the workshop.
I use a very nice Weller WSD81 soldering station for these kind of jobs. It's a high quality soldering tool, that I got from my work. Here is some more recapping:
The kitchen/lunch room at the studio is converted to a temporary tape repair workshop. My workshop in the room right next to this is being upgraded with new work tables and storage shelves, so that place was too messy to work with these tape decks. You can see me working on the B67 and Søren working on his Sony TC-378. In the background you can see a Tandberg 3300X which a friend of mine gave to me. It needs a bit of work, but does look cool.
Here is another picture of the workshop, here I caught Søren working on his Sony. In the background you can see the bank deposit box (the house was once a bank, then a vet, and now a studio, rehearsal space and workshop) that works as the control room for the studio. You can not see it in this picture but my Teac X-2000R is in the control room, and behind Søren is a cute little Tandberg Model 14 with built in speaker, that I got from the same guy that gave me the Tandberg 3300X. Both were given to me the same day I picked up the Studer. What a lucky day!
Here is a hot babe shot of the Studer. I slapped a couple of Revox reels on it that I think will fit nicely until I can get some reels with the Studer name on them:
She's sizzling hot:
We slapped a reel of BASF tape on the machine (I can't remember what kind, maybe LPR-35, or something like that). Then I took some of the recordings I had on the computer, a finished album, though these files were before the album was mastered. We recorded and monitored live and wow! Just wow. The warm sound of tape!
The transformers at both the inputs and outputs, working together with the nice electronics, great butterfly heads and nice tape produced a nice, pleasent and warm sound. I can definitely see myself using this machine to bounce pre-masters and masters. The way the instruments just melted together, the sweetening of the high end and the tightening of the low end just...
The next steps in the proces is to acquire an alignment tape, get the machine adjusted to some hi output tape, I am considering SM911 or LPR-35 since these formulas can be bought new, relatively cheap. This also means that I can keep my old Maxell and TDK tapes for the X-2000R for which they fit perfectly.
Hope you enjoyed reading! I will keep you updated in near future, when further work is done to the machine.
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