Tascam 58 input levels

Robbie Churches

New member
Hello!

Been using and loving my Tascam 58 a whole lot since I picked up a calibration tape, and have been getting to grips with using a multi meter to line up the VU meters to 0dbVU at 1.228 volts (a small revelation there).

To do this for the input on the machine, I have been out putting a 1kHz tone at -18dbfs from Protools from an 8 ch interface. All good.

Now, when I put the tones up to 10kHz, all the meters drop by 1dB. I was under the impression that it should be holding 0dbVU on the meters; am I missing something here? Some google seems to confirm that this would be the case also.

By all means, it's not a deal breaker; the machine sounds great and is running well (aside from the odd meter sticking (probably because I'm pegging the levels) and having to reset a card every now and then), I love using it and learning from it. I'm simply curious about it; my mind thought that it could be that 10kHz has less "power" than 1kHz, but that's just me speculating. Would love to hear an explanation.

I'm gonna take the facing off this weekend and remove some material on the tape path where the tape has been catching a little; fun times!

Many thanks,

Robbie
 
The Teac meter ballistics aren’t up to holding steady at the higher frequencies. That’s one reason for the meter calibration at 1kHz only. Just line it up at 1kHz for the meters and then go through the rest of the procedure.
 
The Teac meter ballistics aren’t up to holding steady at the higher frequencies. That’s one reason for the meter calibration at 1kHz only. Just line it up at 1kHz for the meters and then go through the rest of the procedure.

Thanks for the explanation; good to know that it's an idiosyncrasy of these meters. I assume other VU meters can have a "better" response across the whole frequency spectrum? The machine is all calibrated, was wondering if there was an explanation for this phenomenon outside of my speculation, is all.

Many thanks,
 
The only meters TEAC/TASCAM made that were accurate from one end to the other were the old MB-20 & perhaps MU-40 meter bridge units.
 
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