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pre-recorded open reel tapes - what's the deal?

100LL

100LL

Member
Being new to open reel (bought a Revox that's being serviced by a tech, in anticipation all I can do is talk about tape on the web:), I have a host of questions several of you have been kind enough to indulge.

Here's today's:
pre-recorded tape (by that I'm referring to open reel tape from the record company similar to a vinyl or cd you bought at the music store - hope I'm using the correct term), is available on the bay and discog and I'm finding it's on 7" reels but there often is hardly any tape on the reel. It appears there's half a dozen songs per "side"...but geesh, even at 3.75 ips it just seems like there's not much there.

While prices are all over the map, they're usually not cheap. I suppose the question is: are they very listenable? Seems like it might be a chore with the spooling and threading dance.

Is the juice worth the squeeze on these things? Worth having in the collection?

example:
s-l1600.jpg
 
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have been collecting tape for over 20 years. I usually pass on the 3 3/4 ips tapes. Not much info above 10khz.

RCA and Columbia did their own tape duplication in the early days, but later most duplication was done by Ampex, UST, or a few others. 3 3/4 ips tapes were issued to reduce costs and allow the record companies to offer reel to reel at a cheaper price point that was closer to LP retail price points.
 
I would pass on the above example.

Some tapes will sound good, some will not, it's a gamble.
The good ones are outstanding in fidelity. (usually 7-1/2ips tapes)

If threading is a hassle for you, then R/R is not for you.
 
I agree with these guys. Try to find 7-1/2 ips tapes if you can. But even 3-3/4ips is not bad. But the reason for small amount of tape, is the albums don't require that much room. Considering you could record on tape for hours, an album will be fairly short. Now if you don't want to hassle with rethreading tape when it's time to play the second side, consider one of many auto reverse decks. I have 2 in service and do use the feature. My only deck without auto reverse is a 10inch reel machine, so I don't really have to hang around the machine.
 
7 1/2 do sound better

and what he said about the album length. You'll get more tape at 7 1/2 but consider we're talking maybe 18 minutes of program in each direction to be equivalent to an LP when used with typical quarter track (2 sided) recording.

If you want to use a lot of tape you can record things in half track if your deck allows for it. Better signal to noise ratio and it allows for a little hotter output but its a full 1200 feet (600 per side) of tape for about a half hour of record time
 
Large hubs have been used for pre-recorded tapes for ages, something to do with winding tension I believe. My experience with pre-recorded reels goes all the way back to the earliest two track endeavours ("stacked" or "staggered" for the truly ancient among us). My personal opinion is that the switch from 7-1/2 to 3-3/4 was the death knell for prerecorded reels.

RCA and Columbia reels were mostly exceptional, Ampex not too bad. UST was all over the map, hit or miss. Part of it was the tape itself; RCA and Columbia owned their own tape factories (Tarzian Industries for RCA, Reeves Soundcraft for Columbia IIRC), so did Ampex but it wasn't as good. UST? Who knows what they used. Capitol bought Audio Devices which was mostly very good.

I used to have some old Bel Canto reels that were insanely good....long gone...

BTW, that Mickey Finn looks to have a severe case of backing curl - not likely to sound decent.
 
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Thanks guys, makes sense.

That mickey finn was an ebay picture from a seller who has tens of titles, some of which are interesting. I’ll certainly focus my search on 7.5 ips titles - thank you.

A lot of my concern is regarding having company over and not wanting to fiddle with the thing if I’m in a conversation. I speak from experience having run into that a hundred times with my vinyl record player, sort of solved it with getting an auto-restart model. But then of course the same side plays over and over until you can get to it. The automatic reverse-play R2R could solve that problem even better, not having to repeat the same ‘side’! thanks for pointing that out.

question on recording my own long reels. Would I be better to record from a quality vinyl LP as the source or a quality 7.5 ips 1/4” tape?
 
100LL said:
question on recording my own long reels. Would I be better to record from a quality vinyl LP as the source or a quality 7.5 ips 1/4” tape?
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No clear answer-if the tape was well recorded, then it should be a better source. However, a well recorded "needle drop" from an LP can sound as good or even better. Obviously, there a lot of variables on the source vinyl rig.

My curious mind caused me to seek out a vinyl copy of Herb Alpert "Whipped Cream" to compare with my only pre recorded reel tape of the same title. They sound different. Which is better? Very subjective there. No glaring differences-just different.
 
I've seen it go either way in a direct comparison. If the tape was better it was a clear difference. In my opinion and generally speaking the older commercial open reel offerings were superior in quality. By older I mean later fifties through mid to later sixties. Depending on the dynamic range of the music hiss might be a bit of issue during quiet passages, listening to the music it can be ignored, masked at higher content level.
 
Agree on the 50’s and 60’s tapes.
Sometimes even if you don’t care for the type of music, the fidelity on some of those old tapes is outstanding.

Duplicated at a slower speed, I believe.

Highly recommend an auto-reverse deck.
I have a couple of RT-707’s.
 
well exciting news that I got a call from the tech today that my Revox is ready for pickup. Of course there aren’t any auto reversing revox’s, so might be on the hunt for another deck at some point…but I’ll see how it goes.
 
whether the LP or tape will sound better depends heavily on the condition of the LP and what you can play it back on. Then there is the tape condition and how well it was recorded. Too many variables to give any sort of solid answer.

but here's a thought, if you already have it on tape, why make a second generation recording?

maybe a heretical suggestion, but for me if I was making a tape, it would be of something I didn't already have on tape, so source would be LP or CD most likely.
 
do you have a second deck then? unless you do, the only way of doing a tape to tape dub is either digitizing it in between, or the old school way of cutting and splicing. Splicing it at least eliminates the issue of second gen recording but pretty much ruins the source tape. Then you have to figure out what to do with the other direction.
 
tape to tape recording was what I had in mind per my question, which I'll quote:
100LL said:
question on recording my own long reels. Would I be better to record from a quality vinyl LP as the source or a quality 7.5 ips 1/4” tape?
Click to expand...

let's say I don't have a certain title that I would like to have, the gist of my question is would I be better to find it on 7.5 ips open reel (if available of course) or vinyl. Gotta assume all else equal (equipment and condition). I'm getting the feeling from the crowd that it doesn't make a big difference.
 
100LL said:
tape to tape recording was what I had in mind per my question, which I'll quote:


let's say I don't have a certain title that I would like to have, the gist of my question is would I be better to find it on 7.5 ips open reel (if available of course) or vinyl. Gotta assume all else equal (equipment and condition). I'm getting the feeling from the crowd that it doesn't make a big difference.
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You will be better with 2 track 7,5 ips open reel IF it is original copy from master and machines aligned properly (all "BIG" brands, RCA, CBS etc. are and quality is outstanding). Some smaller brands may have problems. You will be better even if you have ELP laser player and Nakamichi Dragon-CT with linear tonearm (I have). Of course it depends on physical condition of tape and machine on what it will be reproduced.
 
100LL said:
Seems like it might be a chore with the spooling and threading dance.
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After you’ve threaded the deck a few times it becomes second nature. From shelf to music, it’s far quicker for me to cue up a tape deck than a turntable. For convenience, stream.

Bone Yard said:
This guy says R2R is the closest to the master! Followed by cassette!
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...-ranks-open-reel-as-closest-to-master.970376/
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HMMM. Not sure I trust his judgement or ears. Agree with a good r-r sounding best, but the rest is the rankings seem off, IMO. ( I’ve never listened to music on BlueRay, so he could be right there)
 
I had over 400 pre-recorded tapes at one time as I has worked for a professional and retail sound company and could buy tapes very economically. I would always audition the tape some how before buying. The 3.75 ips tapes never met up to my standards and if we had had the phono cartridges, tone arms, turntable and phono pre-amps sections we have today I would have never bought a pre-recorded reel to reel tape. They are that bad. Pre-recorded cassette tapes with dolby noise reduction using metal tape can be significantly better than reel to reel tapes. But if you keep your records clean, take care of your LP's they easily will out perform pre-recorded tapes. They will last longer, too. Seems to me recording companies at the time were using the cheapest tape they could get a way with. A lot of the pre-recorded tapes were acetate and after about 10 years were worthless. You always bought tapes that used the large hub to prevent excessive physical strain on the tape. They used tape duplicators running at either 60 or 120 ips so the HF quality was always inferior to a good LP. I maintained a couple sets of sets of Ampex duplicators that were 2 trk for the military while in college and they were difficult. I imagine the 4 trk machines could be a reel pain. Maintaining proper speed, low wow and flutter and recalibrating the master bias oscillators and changing for each new batch of tape was tedious. A lot of the times the military would not deal with tape changes from the same company as all they were doing was basically voice frequencies with maybe some back ground, opening and closing music. Remember the duplicator slaves did not have playback heads to confirm proper operation.
 
For me, when Shure V 15 Type II and M 75 EJ or better or Stanton 681 EE came on the market, much better tapes could be dubbed by yourself on a quality turntable/tonearm set up right.
 
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