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Ampex 746 R2R tape anyone?????

nitrous

nitrous

96 dB freak!
I was taking inventory of my half inch tape stash & discovered that I have two reels of Ampex 746 in the old maroon red/black box. Probably dates back to the late 60s or early 70s. I have never come across this grade of Ampex tape anywhere before. Does anyone have any info on 746?
 
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I think that I had some of that ages ago. That is pretty ancient stuff. I remember thinking that this was old tape back in the 80s. I'm not even certain if it is polyester-based. I'm pretty sure that it is a red-oxide formulation of some type. It probably won't be very high output, and it will require pretty low bias. But at least it won't be sticky.
 
Ampex 746

Thanks for info guys. It sure had me stumped! The reels will certainly make due as nice looking take-up reels.
 
If old Ampex tape is good for anything, it is always the reels. Got several very nice 7" reels from crappy 456 that way.
 
Numistrek09 said:
If old Ampex tape is good for anything, it is always the reels. Got several very nice 7" reels from crappy 456 that way.
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Ditto on 400 series Ampex tape going bad and leaving the heads very messy. Pass on all Ampex tape. My late Dad left me all his R2R equipment, I have some BASF LRG from the late 1960's to early 70's that I erased and it made great recordings. Pop always stored his tape correctly. Scotch 207 was not bad either for 40 year old tape. My Revox is Biased for AGFA PER528 :music:
The Akai were aligned on BASF LGR series. Maxell UD sounds good on the Revox too.
 
Numistrek09 said:
If old Ampex tape is good for anything, it is always the reels. Got several very nice 7" reels from crappy 456 that way.
Click to expand...

Depends on the tape. I have a bunch of 30-year-old non-backcoated Ampex tape that's perfectly stable even after very non-ideal storage conditions.
 
Sam Cogley said:
Depends on the tape. I have a bunch of 30-year-old non-backcoated Ampex tape that's perfectly stable even after very non-ideal storage conditions.
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631 or 641? Those are the only two Ampex tapes i know of that have stood the test of time. And indeed, they have for me too. Got 2 reels of 631 and it is just fine. But most folks picked the higher end tape, and sadly it is what has turned to goo.

Wish i knew that when i started out using tapes. Found out 406 was useless only after i cruded up my transport with it.
 
Numistrek09 said:
631 or 641? Those are the only two Ampex tapes i know of that have stood the test of time. And indeed, they have for me too. Got 2 reels of 631 and it is just fine. But most folks picked the higher end tape, and sadly it is what has turned to goo.

Wish i knew that when i started out using tapes. Found out 406 was useless only after i cruded up my transport with it.
Click to expand...

About half and half of both. I started a thread about it here, apparently the stock I got was originally sent from Ampex's production facilities in Alabama to one of their researchers in California (I would love to have kept that shipping carton, but it was nasty with mold). After throwing out a few tapes that were damaged by the bad storage, I still had about 50, most of which were NOS. Both formulas make great recordings and don't shed a bit.
 
I recently picked up a couple of boxes of NOS 1/4" 642 1mil in 3600 ft. PANCAKES. What's the word on this formulation?
Fortunately, I have some metal reels for x-fer:music:
 
Sam Cogley said:
Depends on the tape. I have a bunch of 30-year-old non-backcoated Ampex tape that's perfectly stable even after very non-ideal storage conditions.
Click to expand...

A guy in the UK (Zap) has 80 Studer/Revox machines he repairs and sells and he advised me that my Revox will like AGFA 528 and BASF LGR and Maxell UD and stay away from Ampex 400 series. My late Dad had 70 or so old 7" reels (some factory recorded from the 1960's) and none were Ampex. I read Bing Crosby back in the 50's help start Ampex here in the USA but after I read about the 400 series making a mess I passed on a good deal on 50 reels. My A-77 is hard to get to heads to clean so I don't need to gamble. And I found Dad's notes that the Revox was Biased to the AGFA 528. My Akai is Easy to clean but won't play 10.5" reels.
 
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Sam Cogley said:
About half and half of both. I started a thread about it here, apparently the stock I got was originally sent from Ampex's production facilities in Alabama to one of their researchers in California (I would love to have kept that shipping carton, but it was nasty with mold). After throwing out a few tapes that were damaged by the bad storage, I still had about 50, most of which were NOS. Both formulas make great recordings and don't shed a bit.
Click to expand...

Actually, now that I think about it, the tapes are 641 and 642. 641 is 1-mil red oxide, 642 is 1-mil brown oxide. Neither is backcoated.

eddisc said:
I recently picked up a couple of boxes of NOS 1/4" 642 1mil in 3600 ft. PANCAKES. What's the word on this formulation?
Fortunately, I have some metal reels for x-fer:music:
Click to expand...

Should be good stuff. http://recordist.com/ampex/docs/apxtape.txt
 
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