Hi Ken:

A great place to learn a lot is to take one of ATR Services' seminars. I forgot if you said you had
been to one already or not. It's Basic Tape Recorders and Machine Alignment 101.

Good luck with your endeavors.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Fritz" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash Generators


> Hello Mr Fine,
>
> It was gratifying to read your reply as well. It cited additional views of what it takes to end
> up with a good machine along with fortification of the views expressed by Richard Hess.
>
> In 1958, when I was in high school, I purchased a new Ampex 351-2. For a few years, I recorded
> bands around the Wisconsin area until marriage and a few kids eliminated that. I sold the machine
> and mikes to a good friend of mine who put it in his closet and never used it. Two Christmases
> ago, while visiting my family in Milwaukee, I called him and bought it back. I always took good
> care of my things so it looks just as if it rolled off the Ampex line. It probably has no more
> than 1500 hours of use on it. I realize caps need to be replaced after that amount of time and
> will probably do so at some time. Not having ANY program material on tape I subscribed to The
> Tape Project and now have 3 tapes to play. WOW!! ---it's a start!
>
> I realize I need to begin learning about tape recorders and recording in general. Opinions such
> as yours are important to someone who has just about everything to learn.
>
> Thanks, Ken Fritz
>
>
> On Jan 20, 2008, at 8:52 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
>
>> I'll second a lot of Richard's thoughts. If I did commercial-master quality music tape transfers
>> often enough, I'd own an ATR for sure, and I'd be getting enough $$ from that kind of work to
>> afford a professional tech to keep it running. They're not necessarily fragile machines, and
>> not really finicky at least as I've noted in the limited time I've spent using them, but when
>> they break, it's a complex electrical-mechanical system that is not for the basement tinkerer
>> to fix.
>>
>> My pro-grade platform of choice is the Ampex AG-440B, with plenty of tweaks to make it run very
>> quiet and sound very smoothly. One major tweak for older Ampex decks, by the way, is simply
>> putting in better heads. For instance, Ampex stock AG-440 era full-track head has a bass "bump"
>> and a slight "presence bump" typical of Ampex heads. Replace it with a Nortonics or more exotic
>> flavor and suddenly you can garner almost ruler-flat frequency response. There are other
>> tweaks. Anyway, AG-440's are cheap and plentiful and a decent basement tinker CAN make one run
>> very well, thus saving the pennies for a JRF or IEM headblock restoration/alignment, which I
>> consider mandatory for a professional-grade machine restoration.
>>
>> I also sing the praises of the Technics 1500 series decks. These are gentle on tape, steady on
>> speed, offer a variety of playback options and are of fine sound quality (not commercial-music
>> master grade but good enough for just about any other content). I had one of these decks
>> converted to full-track because I get a surprising number of old brown-oxide 7.5IPS full-track
>> spoken-word reels to do. Few machines treat an old tape more gently than the Technics
>> transport.
>>
>> In the end, though, I think a good transfer/restoration man or woman has to rely on their ears
>> and judgement much more than their equipment. Talking up one's gear has been the age-old
>> marketing dodge for audio folks, and really tells a client very little about how good a job
>> you'll do. An excellent body of work can be done on what's considered adequate gear and a
>> terrible body of work can be done on state-of-the-art ultra-tweaked gear. What you get when you
>> engage Richard's services is not really the roomful of APR's and Studers. It's his experience
>> and judgement and proven track record (and, in Richard's case in particular, his willingness to
>> freely share all kinds of important information and advice). Same with me and anyone else who
>> does good work on this list. Something to keep in mind ... experience and good references beat
>> gear lists as a barometer of good work any day of the week.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:00 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ampex ATR-102 opinion (was MD5 Hash Generators
>>
>>
>>> Hello, Mr. Fritz,
>>>
>>> An ATR-102, especially one refurbished my ATR Services in York, PA, is held in high esteem by
>>> many. There are some who are concerned about its use on sticky archival tapes, but it is my
>>> understanding it can be properly set up for those tapes and sticky tapes should be rendered
>>> temporarily non-sticky prior to playing by baking.
>>>
>>> I got into this business slowly and began adopting a variety of tape machines that appeared to
>>> meet my needs.
>>>
>>> It is my goal to do an excellent job with as few different platforms as possible. My current
>>> mainstay in reel-to-reel machines are the Studer A80 and the Sony APR-5000.
>>>
>>> ATR-102s are very expensive in good condition and while they are superb, I have been able to
>>> find refurbishable A80s and excellent condition APRs at much lower prices. My goal is to
>>> minimize expenses so
>>> (a) I can keep more of the money to run my household
>>> (b) keep my pricing competitive and reasonably affordable
>>> (c) have some money to feed my location recording, photography, and travel hobbies
>>>
>>> The APRs are my machine of choice for most formats as they adapt to different formats much
>>> easier than most machines. The A80s are my machine of choice for NAB and DIN (Euro) stereo and
>>> full-track mono formats of high-quality material as they sound slightly better than the APRs.
>>> They are more difficult to change formats on. In fact, I keep one dedicated as NAB playback and
>>> a second switches between full-track mono and DIN playback, as needed. I am in the process of
>>> transforming a third machine into a 15/30 machine to handle the few 30 in/s masters I'm
>>> currently seeing.
>>>
>>> At the very high end, I think the choice of AVAILABLE and MAINTAINABLE machines comes down to:
>>> Ampex ATR-100, Studer A80RC, Studer A820/2CH in alpha-numeric order. Each machine has its
>>> proponents. I do not lust after the other two as I'm not sure what owning them will provide
>>> that the A80RC doesn't. The A80 is perhaps the most maintainable longest term as it is a
>>> relatively simple machine and all but one of its 31 bearings are stock, standard metric ball
>>> bearings.
>>>
>>> There are several more esoteric machines, including the Nagra T- Audio, Stellavox, and perhaps
>>> some other German (Telefunken?) machines that are not commonly available in North America. The
>>> Nagra would be probably the most common of these.
>>>
>>> While the difference between the APR and the A80 RC is noticeable, I'm not sure any potential
>>> further improvement that MIGHT be made by the A820/2CH, the ATR-100, and the others is worth it
>>> or could be justified by my client base.
>>>
>>> I do find the Studer A810 close to the APR, but in a single blind test that I've run by several
>>> people the end result repeatedly is A80, APR-5000, A810 from best to good. I do have specific
>>> tasks that I continue to use A810s for as they do certain "stupid tape recorder tricks" better
>>> (at least as I have them accessorized) than the APRs. The A80s are not accessorized for many
>>> "tricks". I am planning on having varispeed available for them.
>>>
>>> I handle half-inch tapes on both the APR-5000s and the APR-16. Some 1/4-inch tapes
>>> (specifically 8-channel ones) may be handled in the future by a "FrankenSony" combination of an
>>> APR-5000 transport and the APR-16 electronics. Four-channel 1/4-inch tapes are handled by two
>>> "FrankenSony" pairs of APR-5000s. 1-inch tapes are handled on the APR-16. I do not handle
>>> 2-inch tapes.
>>>
>>> As I said, having a "stable" of different machines is not the mainstay of my equipment
>>> strategy. I would rather have one of the best models supported in depth than one each of the
>>> three best. I have enough indecision in my life. For 0.150-inch tape, my mainstay is the
>>> Nakamichi Dragon, of which I have six, all currently up and running in the studio to do 6x
>>> ingest. I also have one each Tascam 234 and 238 machines to handle 4- and 8-track cassettes
>>> and other oddball formats.
>>>
>>> While I have a specially configured A807 for tape prep, it's infrequently used today, and I
>>> happily traded my A807 MK II for an A80RC. Despite the photos on my website, the current
>>> reel-to-reel machines in the studio are the APR-16, five APR-5000s, two A80RCs, and a Racal
>>> Store 4DS and please read all the notes about that machine in my blog before purchasing one.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>> At 09:20 PM 2008-01-19, Ken Fritz wrote:
>>>> Mr. Hess,
>>>>
>>>> Being an audiophile, who is contributing as much as possible $ $$ to the music
>>>> industry, I have one question I'm sure you can address.
>>>>
>>>> I've navigated your web site with particular attention to your
>>>> stable of RTR machines. I realize that you need a variety of machines
>>>> to accommodate the variety of material supplied to you for
>>>> restoration. I've not seen an Ampex ATR machine. It is apparent to me
>>>> that you need more than a "machine for all seasons" and that may
>>>> be why the ATR isn't in your studio, if it is that. May I have your
>>>> opinion on that machine.
>>>>
>>>> Regards, Ken Fritz --- an audiophile addict.
>>>
>>> Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
>>> Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX
>>> Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/ contact.htm
>>> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>