Comments on: Tape Decks I Have Known https://ayearofsongs.org/blg/2007/02/07/tape-decks-i-have-known/ music, memories, and microfiction from TK Major Sun, 20 Mar 2022 02:29:03 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 By: TK https://ayearofsongs.org/blg/2007/02/07/tape-decks-i-have-known/#comment-23601 Sun, 20 Mar 2022 02:29:03 +0000 http://ayearofsongs.org/blg/?p=299#comment-23601 In reply to Charles Straw.

Charles

You’re clearly a person after my own heart!

I’m sorry I didn’t see this before to approve and reply to it. I really need to visit this place more often. Maybe I’d even be fired up enough to write something new…

Thanks!

]]> By: Charles Straw https://ayearofsongs.org/blg/2007/02/07/tape-decks-i-have-known/#comment-22699 Wed, 07 Oct 2020 08:31:28 +0000 http://ayearofsongs.org/blg/?p=299#comment-22699 [* Shield plugin marked this comment as “Pending Moderation”. Reason: Failed Bot Test (expired) *]
Nobody likes ’em and they’re hulky and not pretty, but I collect old Roberts/Akai/Rheem (etc) R2Rs….even two years ago it was easy to get ’em cheap, but that popular, acerbic British audio geek on YouTube did a video on open reels and now every hack everywhere wants a R2R and prices have doubled…I get mine at the swap meet cheap anyway, where sellers think they’re big radios…a couple of mine do SOUND ON SOUND…but I just like the way they look sitting on shelves…Bought an Akai X-VI and a Roberts 6000 recently…basically the same machine….one spins, no sound…the other is dead…but they both look great…with classic Akai black and silver and grey design aspects….also picked up a generic 4-INCH reel portable last month…I have no 4-inch take up reels…so I heated up an old spoon and “modified’ a 5-inch plastic reel (melted and snapped off sections of the 5-inch reel…it looks WRONG, but it holds enough tape and spins

I didn’t know anything about open reel machines, but taught myself about ’em by looking at eBay listings….I then bought a busted (only one channel working) Sony 530 and tore it apart and examined it’s innards…then began buying and tinkering to satisfy my new-found lust for the bulky and ugly monsters

I also have a fine collection of minidisc recorders and a vast collection of LP records featuring exclusively (what I call) FAMILY GOSPEL albums…you know, the ones with big-haired singers adorning their covers?

Wish I could get my heavy Akai 355-D working again…bought it from a mom and her son in a trailer by the beach (it was a relatives possession)….probably weighs 100 pounds…it was working, then I dusted off a circuit board and all hell broke loose…whaddya expect from a 60-year old assembly line product?

Best field recorder I own is a vintage ZOOM HN-4….it’s a bland thing, but takes two batteries and never fails…it has those 90-120 degree tilting mics that look neat, but do nothing different when tilted…stereo of course…it’s a workhorse….or sometimes I use a variety of minidisc Hi-MD recorders with standard condenser mini-mics….with me, it’s the material and content of voice or object sound that matters…audio quality is always secondary….I mean, would you rather have a poor recording of Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address, or no recording of it at all…so, content not audio quality rules the roost IMHO…and Lincoln is on the penny, so it all works out for everybody!

]]> By: TK https://ayearofsongs.org/blg/2007/02/07/tape-decks-i-have-known/#comment-18943 Tue, 07 Jun 2016 21:20:49 +0000 http://ayearofsongs.org/blg/?p=299#comment-18943 Thanks! Yeah, that TC-630… I loved that thing. My cousin was cool enough to lend it to me a few times. He used to give me a few bucks to record his bluegrass band at parties, too. I would have done it for free, of course.

]]> By: Mx. Remy Ann David https://ayearofsongs.org/blg/2007/02/07/tape-decks-i-have-known/#comment-18940 Tue, 07 Jun 2016 07:31:17 +0000 http://ayearofsongs.org/blg/?p=299#comment-18940 I love the picture of your Sony TC-630 and the TC-250. Both of which I still own. I still have them. We bought them new. When I was just a kid. Now I’m almost 61 and still have them both. And they still work and work well.

Years later I ended up working for Scully. As their last Quality Control Manager and Final Test Technician. In its last year and a half of operation and manufacturing. When owned by Ampro Broadcast Products, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After it was acquired from Dictaphone.

You’ve got a great site! I love it. I get so nostalgic over this stuff. And still own it

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