Sony TC-388-4 Quadraphonic Reel to Reel

bouldersoundguy

Well-known member
I'm all about recording in digital and staying ITB, but it's not for lack of experience with analog systems. So, to back up my analog cred and to give everyone something interesting to look at, here's my Sony TC-388-4 quadraphonic open reel deck. It sat in my closet for years waiting to be made functional. A few nights ago I started tinkering with it, and before I knew it I had the front panels off and the chassis out of the case. After working on it the next day for another couple hours I had it actually running fairly well, though it really needs belts and felts. One thing I really need is a more attractive spare reel.



Sony TC-388-4 Guts.jpg

Sony TC-388-4 reassembled.png
 
Smmaaaart! Never saw one of those in UK but then the sorry saga that was Quadraphonics is a superb warning of what can happen when rabid competitive commercialism is let loose in a technical market.

I have no idea how many competing vinyl disc systems there were? (I know there was at least two 'RF' carrier multiplex systems for disc!) Philips/Sony would not relax the regulations on music cassette or CD to allow 4 discrete channels (I can only assume the likes of Teac with their high speed m'trackers just said, "well, take the royalties or 'kin sue me!").

It pains me to tell you this BSG (and Mr Beats no doubt) but when I left the domestic retail trade about 30yrs ago I had a stack of service manuals, all for audio kit, mainly TRs over a foot high, got rid over the years. NEVER saw the in'net and HR coming! I just might have a few left in the loft, will have a shufty.

Wonder what the cheapest way it is to ship to US per kg?

And.. Looks like that deck was built on the TC-377 chassis? Serviced a couple of those, good reliable 'hi fi' machines if a bit 'clunky'.

Dave.
 
I had a TC-277-4. You could record two tracks (Front) and then do a simul-sync of sorts and overdub two tracks on (Rear). Looks like this could be used as a four track with the individual record buttons!
 
I had a TC-277-4. You could record two tracks (Front) and then do a simul-sync of sorts and overdub two tracks on (Rear). Looks like this could be used as a four track with the individual record buttons!

You can't use it as a four track recorder because it's a three head deck and you can't monitor off the record head Simul Sync style. So anything you overdub will be offset by the distance between the heads and the speed of the tape.

But I suspect it will play back four track tapes. My use for it is more for digitizing tapes rather than recording anything new, so that works out okay. It's also fairly effective, though not absolutely ideal, for digitizing half track and full track recordings. On one full track mono recording I have, I used the two middle tracks and it came out pretty good.
 
I picked up a belt kit and put it in. There's still an issue playing at 7-1/2 ips and it might need a run capacitor, but the belt kit fixed the counter.

 
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