Tascam TSR-8 vs. MSR-16

themaddog

Rockin' & Rollin'
Hey everyone,
I've had an MSR-16 for several months, and an opportunity to pick up a TSR-8 in great condition for cheap came up in my area. Although I was more than happy with my MSR-16, I was curious what 1/2" 8 track was all about, figuring it would be my first "wide" (or at least not narrow) format machine.

I've been recording a solo acoustic guitar player/singer recently, so I was excited about obtaining such a recorder, since I felt like I was wasting so much space using a 16 track on him. Anyways, I did some test recording, and was kind of surprised that I couldn't hear any difference between the TSR-8 and the MSR-16. I checked the manuals of both machines, and was a little bit shocked when I read the specs on each. They both had the exact same frequency response (40 hz - 20 khz), and with DBX had the same signal to noise ratio. Without DBX, the difference in signal to noise between the TSR and MSR was 68 db to 65, respectively. The only other spec where the TSR won was in crosstalk, which was a difference of only 82 to 80. As anyone can see, these are fairly minimal differences, although I do realize that using 16 tracks with 3 db of more noise on each track will add up. However, since with DBX they both have the same signal to noise at 108 db...

After being on this forumn for a good chunk of time, I was really surprised that there was such a minimal difference. Can anyone tell me what, if anything, the TSR can do a lot better than the MSR? I tried recording with and without DBX, but wasn't really satisfied with the results of non-DBX (this was before I reread the manuals). For instance, can the TSR record a lot hotter than the MSR? I haven't had the chance, or the right type of music come in, to check yet.

At this point, after having owned and operated both machines, if somone had the chance to buy either, I'd highly recommend the MSR over the TSR. But, I would really like to hear someone else's opinion, with or without evidence of specifications, to tell me otherwise. The only thing I could think of is that it would be cheaper to maintain the TSR since it has only half the tracks, logic cards, and connections.

Thanks,
-MD
 
themaddog said:
Hey everyone,
I've had an MSR-16 for several months, and an opportunity to pick up a TSR-8 in great condition for cheap came up in my area. Although I was more than happy with my MSR-16, I was curious what 1/2" 8 track was all about, figuring it would be my first "wide" (or at least not narrow) format machine.

I've been recording a solo acoustic guitar player/singer recently, so I was excited about obtaining such a recorder, since I felt like I was wasting so much space using a 16 track on him. Anyways, I did some test recording, and was kind of surprised that I couldn't hear any difference between the TSR-8 and the MSR-16. I checked the manuals of both machines, and was a little bit shocked when I read the specs on each. They both had the exact same frequency response (40 hz - 20 khz), and with DBX had the same signal to noise ratio. Without DBX, the difference in signal to noise between the TSR and MSR was 68 db to 65, respectively. The only other spec where the TSR won was in crosstalk, which was a difference of only 82 to 80. As anyone can see, these are fairly minimal differences, although I do realize that using 16 tracks with 3 db of more noise on each track will add up. However, since with DBX they both have the same signal to noise at 108 db...

After being on this forumn for a good chunk of time, I was really surprised that there was such a minimal difference. Can anyone tell me what, if anything, the TSR can do a lot better than the MSR? I tried recording with and without DBX, but wasn't really satisfied with the results of non-DBX (this was before I reread the manuals). For instance, can the TSR record a lot hotter than the MSR? I haven't had the chance, or the right type of music come in, to check yet.

At this point, after having owned and operated both machines, if somone had the chance to buy either, I'd highly recommend the MSR over the TSR. But, I would really like to hear someone else's opinion, with or without evidence of specifications, to tell me otherwise. The only thing I could think of is that it would be cheaper to maintain the TSR since it has only half the tracks, logic cards, and connections.

Thanks,
-MD

i think this is where proper acoustic design for control rooms come into play.
 
themaddog said:
Specifically what do you mean by that?

-MD


You just answered it.


But to further this, you don't have 16 tracks going at once. I bet if you sync'd two of those 8 tracks next to the 16 track, you would find that the 3dB becomes a lot when all the tracks are going at once. ;)

But I bet with a well designed control room with higher end monitors you would be able to hear a difference with just 8 tracks going at once. Do you have the tape machines in another room from your monitors? That would be a start. Then there is the whole bass trap thing and the diffusion thing and a whole lot of other stuff that just isn't fun to think about. Its all money that doesn't = visable gear.
 
this is interesting. I use a fostex e-16 and sometimes find myself checking out TSR-8's on ebay.... I am interested to find out others' opinions.
 
The MSR-16 is a Beautiful machine. The factory specs are very close to that of the TSR-8. Here are some reasons why.

DBX is the great equalizer when it comes to headroom and S/N. One of the benefits of greater track width is greater dynamic range and better S/N without noise reduction. Dolby and DBX enable narrow track machines to compete in the pro world. We would have never seen manufacturers put so many tracks on so little tape without noise reduction.

Depending on the source being recorded even my 246 cassette portastudio with DBX would sound “as good” as a higher end open-reel machine recording the same source. However, with an entire composition of various instruments, vocals, drums, etc covering the audible frequency spectrum the difference would be more noticeable.

Another factor in all this is that both of these Tascam machines are set conservatively at 250 nW/m operating level. You would need to run 406 tape to see real benefit from the legendary tape compression. The TSR-8 can be set as high as 370 nW/m without DBX for 456-class tape with no significant reduction in quality. The TSR can even handle 500+ nW/m for GP9/499 class tapes. It will run very quietly without noise reduction at elevated operating levels because of its greater track width.

You would realize a discernable corruption of signal quality if you used these levels on a MSR-16 or Fostex B/E/G-16. On the 16-track ½” format the crosstalk and distortion figures would be poor. Not unusable, but measurably worse than the TSR.

So some of the difference is in the potential of each machine. As they are set from the factory the MSR-16 does very well. It even has some features I wish the TSR-8 had, such as a spool mode and ball bearing rollers.

A note about specs: You’ll be happy to know that Tascam specs are minimums, not averages as some other manufacturers list. However, like most manufacturers, the crosstalk and distortion specs are measured with a 1k tone at 0 VU. Crosstalk with narrow track machines becomes problematic at frequencies far below this.

As it stands you can run into problems bouncing certain material to adjacent tracks with any 16 on ½” machine (or 8 on ¼” etc), but if you manage your sessions with a well planned track sheet you can avoid it. And with 16 tracks who needs to bounce anyway, right? ;) The TSR-8 doesn’t present this problem with adjacent tracks.

In use people have described sustained bass frequencies on both the MSR-16 and MSR-24 as somewhat “mushy” compared to the TSR-8 and 38, though not objectionable; just slightly different than the original sound. It’s no big deal. The end user doesn’t sit around comparing bass sounds on their CDs to the original source.

One last consideration is you may find you need to leave an empty track 15 as a guard band if running sync tone on track 16. No guard band is needed on the TSR-8. But again, with 16 tracks what is losing one for a guard band matter? You still have 14 to play with compared to 7 on the TSR-8 running sync tone.

Are there differences beyond the spec sheets? Yes, but they don't make either machine a clear choice for all types of music and all people. One thing for sure, twice the track width doesn’t mean twice the quality; and that goes for Studers and Otaris as well.

I’ve used the MSR-16 and TSR-8 (and now own the TSR), but I would be happy for different reasons with either of these outstanding machines.

-Tim :)
 
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Beck said:
Another factor in all this is that both of these Tascam machines are set conservatively at 250 nW/m operating level. You would need to run 406 tape to see real benefit from the legendary tape compression. The TSR-8 can be set as high as 370 nW/m without DBX for 456-class tape with no significant reduction in quality. The TSR can even handle 500+ nW/m for GP9/499 class tapes. It will run very quietly without noise reduction at elevated operating levels because of its greater track width.

You would realize a discernable corruption of signal quality if you used these levels on a MSR-16 or Fostex B/E/G-16. On the 16-track ½” format the crosstalk and distortion figures would be poor. Not unusable, but measurably worse than the TSR.

I am confused here. you can't get tape compression with 456? I believe my E-16 is set to 320 nW/m; or at least it is supposed to be calibrated for 456, which I use with NR. Am I not getting tape compression? I always figured I could run GP9 without NR to get more compression, but calibrating 16 tracks is a bitch; I'm not sure I could do it right, expecially on this machine which does not have a replay head. Are you saying 406 may be an improvement? I always thought that the NR hinders the tape compression...I don't mean to hijack, hopefully this will help out the original poster as well.
 
Thanks Beck, this has all been very informative for me. Here's where the story about my TSR gets a little interesting, if you want to know more.

The TSR-8 I bought was from someone who works as a Teac technician just outside of Boston, and who has been a Teac tech for 20 years. He claims my TSR is set for using 3M 996 tape, but I doubt the bias is set very high because there's still quite a bit of hiss unless I use DBX. When I bought it, I kept asking him why he would use this kind of tape with DBX, but I couldn't really get a good answer from him (there was a little bit of a language barrier). Is there any simple way to see what the bias is set at?

I tried using the tape I use on my MSR-16, which is Emtec LPR-35, but when I did test tones at 1k they were all much quieter on playback than when I recorded the tones onto the TSR. The tones record and playback fine on my MSR with the Emtec tape.

-MD
 
FALKEN said:
I am confused here. you can't get tape compression with 456? I believe my E-16 is set to 320 nW/m; or at least it is supposed to be calibrated for 456, which I use with NR. Am I not getting tape compression? I always figured I could run GP9 without NR to get more compression, but calibrating 16 tracks is a bitch; I'm not sure I could do it right, expecially on this machine which does not have a replay head. Are you saying 406 may be an improvement? I always thought that the NR hinders the tape compression...I don't mean to hijack, hopefully this will help out the original poster as well.

Yes, the E-16 operates at 320 nW/m, which is +5. Even at this small increase over the MSR-16 level of 250 nW/m (+3) the frequency response, crosstalk and distortion are slightly worse on paper. It’s not much though and we know what a great machine the E-16 is. There were more than a few albums recoded on the E-16.

Fostex measures the E-16 frequency response from 40 Hz – 18 kHz rather than 40 Hz – 20 kHz as Tascam does. Both are listed @ +/- 3 dB, but the Tascam would be better than that if it were measured at 40 Hz – 18 kHz. The crosstalk on the E-16 is 55 dB compared to 80 dB on the MSR-16. This could be improved slightly by changing the operating level on the E-16 to 250 nW/m. However most of the difference in crosstalk has to do with the difference between DBX and Dolby.

Now if the operating level on the E-16 were lowered to 250 nW/m the noise specs wouldn’t look as good because the noise floor would be closer to operating level. Factory S/N is 80 dB w/Dolby C compared to 108 dB on the MSR-16 w/DBX. 80 dB is excellent, but the operating level helps improve this spec. DBX is so pin-drop quiet it doesn't need any help.

So it’s a balancing act, and each manufacturer has their own way of doing it. The closer you get to the saturation point of a tape the lower the frequency response and the greater the distortion, but the better the S/N ratio. Tascam went for an ultra clean sound by specifying 456 tape with a relatively low operating level for that tape. DBX makes this scheme possible.

So this is what I mean when I say 370 nW/m +6 would be pushing the limits of the E-16 and MSR-16, and +9 levels would send crosstalk into the stratosphere. But on the other hand operating levels are a personal thing like religion, and some situations might call for a grittier, fuzzier sound. To get that sound on the MSR-16 just pop on a reel of 406 and push the levels a little. To get it on the E-16 just push the levels a bit with 456.

You sacrifice a little frequency response and clarity to get the "smear", but that's what tape compression is all about. It’s just not going to act quite the same as a wider track format.

-Tim :)
 
Same machine, MSR you don't have to bounce tracks over 8, but you double up. Both GREAT machines in my experience so far.
Can't go wrong with either. :)
 
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