I think that one of the hardest playbacks to get right in the analog domain is an old full-track
music master. Odds are that the tape will have problems moving uniformly past the head. I do not
think one is more likely to get a good reproduction using a 2-track head, so I don't understand why
it's done so often. Could mastering places be that cheap, that they won't shell out a few hundred
dollars for a tape head that will be used on every full-track project? Or is it just the usual
ignorance and incompetence?

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2014 10:17 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Playback of Full-track mono tapes (was Odd warble)


> Hi, Tom,
>
> I agree with your frustrations--it's one of mine.
>
> To answer your questions about FT playback, I noticed the worst problems with a FT head on Studer
> A810s. I had better luck with the APR-5000s, but the A80RCs are the best of all. I have
> transferred tapes that were unusable when transferred on a B77 or MX5050 with NAB 2T heads that
> were gorgeous from the A80 FT head. The tape path and guidance deals with the country laning and
> the cupping very nicely...no accessories needed.
>
> I had always thought that 7.5 in/s country-laning tapes would not work with a FT repro head
> because of azimuth error based "combing." This was mostly researched on the A810. I have not done
> many FT 7.5 in/s tapes on the APRs -- most of the FT stuff I did on those were 30 in/s. However,
> the tape mentioned in the previous paragraph was a 7.5 in/s tape and the combing appears to be
> less of an issue on that transport.
>
> I do have about a 200-mil centre swath head mounted on the APR platform which I rarely used even
> before the A80s and have not used it since. The one time I did a centre swath on the APR within
> the last few years, I used the 82-mil right channel of a PR&E Tomcat cart machine format head
> which is more towards the centre as the narrow cue track and a guard band are below it. The guard
> band between left and right is reduced from a normal NAB 2T head. It worked fine. I think I used
> it as there was 1/4-track record damage on a FT tape.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
>
>
> On 2014-06-04 6:13 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
>> By the way, 2T playback of FT tapes is fairly rampant in the music
>> remastering world. I hear it on a lot of mono jazz CDs. Even if you get
>> the azimuth perfect, there will still be channel differences on 50+ year
>> old tapes because of dropouts, warps, splices, etc. I can't understand
>> why every professional player-back of reel tapes doesn't have a FT head.
>> There are lots of mono tapes out there. The problem with summing 2T
>> channels (another common practice) is that 50+ year old tapes rarely
>> travel the tape path perfectly, so there ends up being "country
>> lane-ing" and thus azimuth shifts and flange/phase artifacts.
>>
>> The latest flagrant example of all of these problems is the Record Store
>> Day special issue "Gems
>>> From Sun Records Vol 1." All of the content is MONO, but try summing a
>>> stereo playback or playing
>> the record with a mono cartridge. You will not be happy with the
>> results. Listen especially to the middle cuts on each side, which seems
>> to have been made from the worst warped/damaged tapes. Also the Charlie
>> Rich cut. For most cuts, summing to mono produces pumping phase/flange
>> problems, indicating the master tapes are badly warped, probably from
>> vinegar syndrome, and aren't passing over the 2T play head smoothly.
>> When played back in stereo, it's not annoying because the anomolies are
>> out on the sides and the high-spl content is in the middle.
>>
>> I think Richard Hess and maybe others use special thinner FT heads,
>> which just read the center half of the track. I very much agree with
>> this method and would definitely purchase such a head if I were about to
>> undertake a large job of 50+ year old FT tapes. I'm wondering about the
>> ideal head-track width, would it be akin to 1 track of a 2-track head
>> but in the middle of the head, or more akin to 1 track of a 1/2" 3-track
>> head (about half again as large), in the middle of the head? The goal
>> would be to read the "meat" of the track but not the edges, where
>> warpage and shrinkage leave less signal and more artifacts. I think
>> you'd still have country-laneing problems, but could the head itself be
>> "cupped" to allow warped top and bottom to just hang in space while the
>> unwarped center passed over the gap? Could guidance be made to allow
>> that through the tape path?
> --
> Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask]
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada 647 479 2800
> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>
>