Just a quick update, and the news is all good.
I got the Athan pinch roller today from JRF and dropped it on.
Then, just for grins, I dropped on a new reel of EMTEC SM 468 and recorded tones to see how bad or good things looked.
The transport seems to work without a hitch. I've only tested it 15 ips so far. I'll probably only use 7.5 ips for double speed effects.
Each channel input section works properly, I assume, being down about 1 dB at 20K.
The overall recorder response, without specifically adjusting the bias for SB 468, is within +/-1 dB from about 30-20K on all tracks. I find that impressive in a machine that has sat idle for a year and just been shipped across the country.
The only thing I noticed is that the repro gain appears slightly off on channels 1 and 2, because they are little off relative to the input reading at 0VU (but consistently so across the audio band). Basically, I could start tracking and it would sound just fine. For now, I only plan to calibrate the repro levels and see if that gets all channels matching up from input to output.
Sooo... next step would be to wire up proper cabling to the patchbay. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm suspecting it doesn't matter a tinker's damn whether I wire up to the Otari using one-conductor or two-conductor shielded cable, since I'm just going to tie pin 2 to the shield, anyway. Am I right?
Cheers,
Otto