Studer A807 - general gloating and some questions

jpmorris

jpmorris

Tape Wolf
I am now the proud owner of a Studer A807 mk1. Pictures and stuff will be forthcoming. In the meantime, it won't fit on my rack trolley.
If anyone here has dealt with these machines, is it possible to remove the square things on the sides of the wooden panels?
 
Okay, I've figured it out. It occurs to me that this might be BBC-specific or something, but just in case anyone else is trying to figure out how to fit them to a trolley, the wooden side panels have a large, black bolt in them. If this is removed with a hex driver, it comes out to reveal an M10 thread. Unfortunately I don't have a 10mm drill to enlarge the M8-sized hole in the stand, but I'll deal with that problem tomorrow.

Here is the machine:

a807.jpg

http://project-future.org/images/a807.jpg

It was shipped via UPS. I am tempted to post pictures of the packaging, either in this thread or Packing 101, because it was done pretty well.

Oh yes, if anyone knows the pinout for the external VU socket, that would be awesome as I'm still wondering how to jack my VU rack into it (it wants RCA, the Studer uses XLR...)
 
cool!

wow, cool :cool:
Nice!
Congrats. And stop asking questions already, heh heh, figure things out already (you are the Wolf, or are you not? :p ;) ), set it up, post more pictures and maybe a video (?) :D

And your Uher is craying for attention too : "Me me me me , me too" , poor lil' thing it is there in the corner :(
 
Nice find, JP! :)

I wish I could help with the VU pinout. I looked though my A807 brochures, but no clues. I'll keep my eyes open. What kind of meter bridge are you trying to interface?
 
Beck said:
Nice find, JP! :)

I wish I could help with the VU pinout. I looked though my A807 brochures, but no clues. I'll keep my eyes open. What kind of meter bridge are you trying to interface?
Click to expand...

I haven't yet been able to get proper bridge, it's actually one of these:
http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=MONVU800SW&seeimage=YES&img_name=VU800

It takes a pair of RCA inputs, which I'm hoping to tap them from the monitor connection. If I can also get a 12v line to power it that would be a bonus. I have studied the schematics but they don't give a proper pinout listing like the TSR-8 documentation does. I think it may be pins 16 and 14 for ch1 and ch2 respectively, so I'll probably have to hook up a 'scope and check.

Having checked the transport, there was muck everywhere. I've got the worst off it, but the pinch roller has gone tacky so I'll have to get it rebuilt. I've ordered a replacement, and right now I've fitted the spare roller from my Revox, though I suspect it will not work fully in that condition as the diameter seems slightly smaller.

And no, the Uher hasn't been seeing much action lately :(

I do have pictures and video, but they'll have to wait - it looks to be a busy weekend.
 
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Aliens are here, I see their blood :mad::D:mad:

man, this sucks.
well, good luck dealing with all this. You gotta get this thing running, man. Seriuosly.

And, yeah, check the VU jack with scope, see what exactly is going on (i mean coming out :) )
 
Dr ZEE said:
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
man, this sucks.
well, good luck dealing with all this. You gotta get this thing running, man. Seriuosly.
Click to expand...
Damn straight. I've sunk around $1000 into this thing and its accessories so far, and I expect results for that kind of money ;)
It should work to some extent with the Revox roller, enough for basic testing.

First priority is to get it into its rack so it's not cluttering up the floor. Next priority is to finish yesterday's comic that this thing's arrive interrupted. After that, check the electronics. Demag it, find out what it's lined up for, decide whether to stick with 250nW or whatever or set it back to 200nW for compatibility with the Revox and my MRL tape. And see if I can figure out the VU pinout.
 
not knowing what I am talking about, but just to keep you company...:o:D
what I am wondering here, since it looks like you have monitor selector control on the unit, then what actually the
External VU-Meters unit" here designed to be? It may be simply nothing more than the meters. But maybe not. And if not, then how the unit meant to be powered up? Or are there four-pin connectors or something?
So if there's no way for you to 100% know from manuals you have what exactly going on, then before trying to connect with any meter(s) unit you have, play something (better just tone, like test tape) and check with scope what are you getting there, what's ground, any AC or DC ... well, you know

found video on youtube which looks like exactly as what you have, nice transport features :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdrvGLQUzgU&feature=related
 
Ah, the Studer melt-o-matic pinch roller. Both my PR-99s had this issue - tho they were the sturdier rubber, not that green crap.Best send the poor thing to Terry's Rollers and Rubber for a proper fix - replacing it with an original will cost mroe and not be NEAR the quality.


AK
 
analogkid said:
Ah, the Studer melt-o-matic pinch roller. Both my PR-99s had this issue - tho they were the sturdier rubber, not that green crap.Best send the poor thing to Terry's Rollers and Rubber for a proper fix - replacing it with an original will cost mroe and not be NEAR the quality.
Click to expand...
I was hoping to get it done locally from the original part. Now the original is goo, I'll need the replacement as well to get the diameter. As I say, I ordered a new one last night anyway.

As for the original, it may be that the rubber firm here doesn't or can't do pinch rollers, in which case it'll have to go to Terry, but sending it 4000 miles or so is a hassle I'd prefer to avoid.
 
The shipping still cant be that much. We are only talking about shipping a item the size of a golf ball and is not fragile.
 
It seems to be reasonably happy with the Revox pinch roller, for now at least. When the replacement turns up I'll see about getting the original fixed.

Anyway, I've got the stand together, by sheer luck and force of will, since it was not designed to interface to a Studer like this.

a807_stand.jpg


https://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k216/tapewolf/tape/a807_stand.jpg

The VU is being fed off the headphone jack I discovered last night. I believe the recording itself has the level skewed - I'm going to check that out later, but probably not today as I'm shattered.
 
Concerning Studer / Revox pinch rollers, I strongly discourage you from buying cheap remakes. Some are even sold as originals for cheap, but they aren't. There's a source for that crapola in Italy. Just avoit that ! They look same, but they don't work as smooth as the originals. Better getting an original from Studer / Revox for a higher price and really enjoy your tapes.

My $0.01....


David.
 
Watched that video...MAN the transport is responive on that thing...I can't believe how quick the brakes haul the reels down from fast wind to play...maybe the brakes aren't adjusted right on my 58...if I'm in fast wind and I hit STOP or PLAY, at least 30 ~ 40 seconds of counter time goes by before it comes to a full stop.

And the tension arm on the Studer...not so much as a wiggle in PLAY. Smooooth. Wow.

Nice looking deck too. Studers have a nice look. Me likey da look.
 
This particular one is being an utter bitch. It doesn't seem to want to feed the input directly to the line output as the buttons to do that have not been installed. It has no internal VU meters, and 0dB from the mixing desk in balanced format does not seem to correspond to 0dB from the deck itself.
My 'scope has just packed up, I have no frame of reference to work from and generally I despair of ever getting the thing aligned.

**EDIT**

Well, I've used a softscope and got the record and repro heads lined to each other (the repro was lined against my MRL, but given the 'scopes errattic behaviour I'm going to have to double-check it, I think.)
The Lissajous figure was slightly kinked into a figure-8 though... I've never seen that before, but I got it as flat as I could. I'll put it down to the pinch roller being out-of-spec (i.e. from a Revox B77).

Calibrating the input and output levels themselves is going to be an issue, though, unless I can get the VU meter to talk sense. It doesn't help that this is my first experience with balanced-only equipment and the VU rack is expecting -10...
 
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Right. I'm still a bit concerned that my inability to cross-calibrate between the VU meter and the deck may have left it in limbo-land, but the recorder does now seem to be internally consistent and is roughly aligned to the standard I was using on the Revox.

So, after lining it up with sinewaves, I threw a .WAV file at it, to see what it did. This is the result:


A807 recording
Original WAV file

I remembered afterwards that the A807 version has also been put through a stereo expander (on its way into the recorder), so disregard that.

One thing that does concern me is that I had to increase the repro gain on one of the channels quite a bit more than the other to get them to match... This leads me to wonder if the repro head is out of alignment in terms of height (they are pretty much phase-aligned). Visually it looks like the tape is dead-centre over the butterfly, so I'm not honestly sure.

I have not touched the bias or treble settings yet, which probably accounts for the unusual bass response in the tape version. Traditionally I've always been afraid of screwing up the bias, though with the A807 I have the advantage of being able to copy the original settings and re-enter them if it goes pear-shaped.

Any comments, suggestions etc would be helpful. I'll also try to post some video later. And the packing...
 
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