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Maxell UD 35-180 ranked by quality.....

Yeah, it’s not really SSS, but GX does have issues. They’re well documented. I wouldn’t use it. TDK Audua is great tape though.
 
I would add that I recently have had problems with old TDK Audua LB-3600. I suspect it was stored in a humid environment, but definitely appears like early sticky shed syndrome on this back-coated tape. Happy to send to someone if they want to try it :p. That said, I have hundreds of Maxell tapes of all varieties and none have had any issues. I even had some where the aluminum reels had corrosion spots on them (indicating poor storage conditions) yet the tape itself was fine.
 
I have 10 reels of Audua and all are fine. They have a bit of cigarette smell to them but they seem to perform on par with UD tape and very clean across the transport and heads.
 
I’ve got a 10.5” reel of TDK Audua and two 10.5” LX. All three have dried-up lubricant, which sheds as white powder and can cause screeching too. Took me over an hour to clean the A3300 when I ran them through to check them. It’s a shame as I’ve never had an issue with any TDK cassettes but, sadly, these R2R tapes are now completely useless. Conversely, I’ve never had a single issue with any of the Maxell UD tapes of any age, length or thickness nor running on any of our three TEAC decks at any speed. I love ‘em!
 
hertzdonut said:
No, you are looking at Maxell's top of the line UD XL. Different beast. Assuming, of course, the tape inside matches the box outside!

- Jeff
Click to expand...

I`m new to R2R, and therefore new to the used tape minefield. I recently bought 5 reels of UD XLI 35-180, or so I thought. Boxes identified them as such, and all five metal reels were nice Maxell branded ones. Was quite pleased with my purchase given tape reputation. But I soon noticed a few, ehem, discrepancies:

- 3 of the 5 reels were not full, and on the back of one of the boxes was a label identifying reel content as 2500`of a different, much lower quality tape brand. Helps explain why these reels were not full.
- tapes were missing the usual branded Maxell leaders, except for one reel
- So my one genuine Maxell reel proved to not be such a bargain after all!

Then I bought two reels described as 3M 207 but the boxes say otherwise. I ended up tossing the tape as whatever it was it was total crap.

Finally bought a NOS reel of Ampex 456, big head clean up job afterwards due to SSS. At the time did not know what that was, but sure do now!

Not surprisingly I have since switched to buying new. To many landmines.
 
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