Otari mx70 vs Tascam ms16

Yeah, I know. I'll keep both for a while. beleive it or not its hard to find GOOD people who want to record for free. I sold my business and am now retired at 47. when I post on craigs list I end up with noodlers or people dont beleive me. I guess if you dont pay big bucks you arent any good. I have an amazingly good Analog studio here and lots of time to mess around.
 
JJones you can also check with Bob at Vintage Electronics as I think he still has some new pinch rollers for the RT-909. I had very good luck with getting belt kits for several reel to reels including the counter belt for one of my RT-707s.
It may still work out cheaper with Terry as he I believe will do several rollers for a fixed price.

AK
 
analogkid said:
JJones you can also check with Bob at Vintage Electronics as I think he still has some new pinch rollers for the RT-909. I had very good luck with getting belt kits for several reel to reels including the counter belt for one of my RT-707s.
It may still work out cheaper with Terry as he I believe will do several rollers for a fixed price.

AK
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I've already bought two sets from Pioneer and put them on. I was surprised they still carried them or had any left.:eek: They also still have the belts. I'm sure Vintage Elec. is probably cheaper though.:p I just ordered a new capstan motor for it..................from Tascam of all places!:D Gotta love it!;)
 
Yes.



I mean what would it be set up for now, or how can I tell? The guys daughter didn't know.
 
There's no way to know for sure what it is currently setup for now, but was there any tape at the purchase location? No "tape vault" (or, as in my case "tape hidey-hole under the table")? If there's no tape to be seen, then you know there could be a sticker somewhere on the deck, usually where you access the cal trimmers, or on the back, or maybe even some notes in the manual. I figure you would have seen something by now and wouldn't be asking, but just in case...

The next thing I'd do is see if what you have in your studio maybe fits the bill. I would guess that if the prior owner was a more mature gentleman before he passed away he was probably using what Otari built the deck for, and I'm guessing that would be 456 or an equivalent. That info would be in the manual.

Okay. So Pianodano and Ethan (evm1024) told me to listen for the "rocks"...This is the procedure for my Tascam 58 and should go for your MX-70 as well...If you have a tone generator set it up to output a low frequency tone like 20Hz or if you have a CD with tones on it or something play that. If you don't have any of these I can send you some .wav files of tones. Load the tape you want to use, send the tone to a track preferably not an edge track for this test, record enable that track, and put it into REC mode while monitoring the reproduce head. Now listen for what Danny and Ethan call "rocks". I haven't had a chance to do this yet but I understand it to be pretty unmistakeable. You won't hear the tone necessarily, especially down in the 20Hz range but the rocks will be there...upper harmonic distortion. If you hear a lot of rocks then maybe the deck is not biased for whatever tape you are running for your test, but I don't think biasing necessarily will eliminate the rocks, but you set it to minimize, so ideally you'd want to have a tweaker on the bias adjust trimmer for that track while you are doing this and see if it is already set for that point that minimizes the rocks.

Obviously this doesn't help you at the moment because you are missing that all important pinch roller.

Hope this helps somewhat...no easy answer.
 
T'dog,

Check what dates are on those MRL tapes. When I obtained my ATR-60, it came with 9 reels of 456 dated '97 (all good with no shed) and 2 reels of MRL dated '85 and both are suffering from the dreaded shred, hopefully, I'll get my hands on a dehydrator soon and attempt to "cure" the problem. I know the deck was only new in the mid '90s so I suspect the MRL had been sitting on a distributors shelf for years prior to being sold.

:cool:
 
Crap! both mrl tapes are dated 1985-12 (I assume that's December). How can I check them for shed (without putting them on my deck)? Also, will alcohol be enough to clean the existing shed from my heads and deck top? I should have my new pinch roller from Terry in a couple of days. Whoo who....
 
91% isopropyl alcohol or denatured alcohol will clean the sticky shed nicely - but be sure to have plenty of q-tips or those makeup swabs on hand. I use the wooden stick medical swabs I buy by the case through an online source. That 1985 tape is going to stick like crazy; I just chucked a real of '87 that was new and sealed - and coated the heads on my 42B with in 3-4 minutes.


AK
 
Talldog, I'd recommend you call MRL and ask what tape stock was used. There's usually a coloured dot sticker that corresponds with the tape stock. You can reference the tape type to the sticky shed 'sticky' on this very message board.
 
Throw it on the deck and try it. If its sticky, you will know almost immediately. The test tape I bought was so bad it would barely play on my deck. A little bit of oxide on the heads and tape path is not gonna permanently damage anything, so don't be afraid to play the tape.

If its sticky, get a dehydrator and bake it, just be aware of the fact that an old baked tape is not gonna allow you put your machine to spec as accurately as a brand new MRL test tape. Whether or not its worth shelling out the $$ for a brand new test tape is up to you.

Its probably not set up for 456, I think those Otari decks can be set up for hotter tape, my MX5050 was.
 
There is a sticker next to the bias select switch that says 469. Does that mean anything to anyone.
 
Called the person I bought it from. She said that there is some agfa tape laying around. I'll look at the thread but I've never used it.
 
Ok from reading the thread it looks like the agfa tape is crap. I have a case or so of quantagy 456 here that I use on my ms16. Any chance of biasing to that?
 
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