ARGHHHH! BEWARE when calibrating a TASCAM MSR16!

altruistica

Member
So my MRL tape arrived from over the pond in order to setup the two MSR16 I own.

I decided to bite the bullet and buy the MRL as neither machine matched each other when making recordings and playing back on the differnt machine. I suspect one had been used with possibly a +9 formulation. Anyway, I've had both machines re-lapped and I started to set them up yesterday.

By midnight last night I was nearing the end getting to check the LOW speed rec level. I then tried to set the HIGH speed rec level and found it to be well down. I adjusted the trimmers but to no avail. I took the test tape out onece more to check the repro level and meter calibration and it was spot on. WTF!

I then took a look at the label on the inside flap of the MSR meterbridge and found the problem. The manual and the label had differences! The manual has incorrectly labeled the LOW and HIGH speed rec levels. The flap label is correct as confirmed by physically looking at the audio boards with a magnifying glass.

Would you believe it.

My manual BTW is an original, but just thinking about it now, is for the other machine. It would be really strange if the other machine had audio cards that matched the manual........I'll get onto that machine today.

Has this ever been mentioned before?

Al
 
The manual and the label had differences! The manual has incorrectly labeled the LOW and HIGH speed rec levels.

Welcome to the party. :)

It's not so unusual. I have 3 different manuals for my Otari MX-80, and they don't all match for every single item, and they don't all match the actual deck that I have. The only one that matches every switch, every setting is the one I got with the deck, the others that I've downloaded are various revisions.
I've seen the same with the Otari MX5050 line.

When in doubt, always go with the markings on the deck if there are any.
 
When I saw the "ARGHHHH! BEWARE" I though he had found the self destruct button!

Thanks for the info.

Alan.
 
Well here's the rub....

It seems I own two different MSR16.

Although they look pretty much the same, one has slightly different audio cards.

As I said, the 2 calibration pots for REC LEVEL (one each for 7.5IPS & 15IPS) are in different positions. The manual is correct for the machine I received it with. The thing is, I was using the manual with the other machine which came without a manual. You live and learn......

I know it's almost Christmas and the strong tradition of 'Panto season' in the UK, but sorry folks, 'no pirates to be seen'.....ARGHHHH Jimlad!

Al
 
Yup!

Years ago I found what apparently was a mistake in the 388 manual, mislabeling FF & RW tension. It threw me into loops for a couple hours trying to align it til I found the discrepancy by observation.

At the time, I thought I penciled in a correction, but perhaps I didn't,... so next time I go there...! :facepalm:

:spank::eek:;)
 
Well here's the rub....

It seems I own two different MSR16.

Although they look pretty much the same, one has slightly different audio cards.
Al

Actually I own 2 MSR16S machines, I bought the second machine for spares. The Dolby S cards in the first machine were giving trouble due to the caps going out of spec. The caps unfortunately were the miniature tiny type and very hard to replace. We did a few and had about a 50% success rate. When I got the second spare parts machine I pulled out the dolby cards and guess what! Completely different design with larger components, also all the cards worked and are still working.

So no surprise that there are different machine builds out there.

Cheers
Alan.
 
Hi I'm trying to calibrate my MSR-16's RTZ. It can't remember where (on the tape0 Zero was. It faithfully stops at zero but the actual musical part that was at zero had been over shot. Can anyone advise my best approach to resolving this RTZ problem.
 
...

Clean the outer surface of the tach roller. A little rubber restore, if necessary. Remove the tach roller and clean the underside, where the markings are. If possible, clean the photo sensor under the tach roller with a swab.

This opinion would be sight unseen of the MSR-16, but judging from experience with a 388. Assuming the RTZ is much the same.

YMMV.
 
Man I could write a short essay on the mistakes in my Tascam factory issued manuals with schematics for both my tsr-8 and 38 machines, their are too many to list, but all of the mistakes you can double check somewhere else in the manual to find it correctly stated, like if the mistake is a transistor listed on schematics it will be listed correctly in the parts section, but I'm running into new mistakes all the time, seems like they rushed through publishing these manuals
 
Yep can verify my MSR16 has the same discrepancy with the record adjustments on the label vs what's on the manual. I always follow written on the machine.

I feel the pain every time of calibrating 16 record amps with no separate playback head, I would never put myself through doing 32. Well, at least not in one sitting :drunk:

I don't know, I personally always use a more common sense approach (where possible) to calibrate tape machines rather than following word for word the calibration process in the manual as every manufacturer has a slightly different process.

I have two Otari MX5050 machines (one is 2 track, one is 4 track) and their manuals each specify slightly different but both very odd calibration processes which don't seem very logical, so I just calibrate it using the same general process I use on my Tascam machine.
 
Man I could write a short essay on the mistakes in my Tascam factory issued manuals with schematics for both my tsr-8 and 38 machines, their are too many to list, but all of the mistakes you can double check somewhere else in the manual to find it correctly stated, like if the mistake is a transistor listed on schematics it will be listed correctly in the parts section, but I'm running into new mistakes all the time, seems like they rushed through publishing these manuals

When I was in that environment, TEAC/TASCAM manuals were written in Japan rather than the US which often caused problems of this type.
 
Tape tensions not being set correctly- with a Tentelometer would cause tape slack. How much offset are you talking about? Check out the MS-16 manual.The Tentelometer is called the "Tension Analizer.
"
 
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