WTF is in a Revox that makes it sound SO GOOD??

R

rorohello

Member
Ok, so long story short. No stranger to tape. I don't like those equipment in signature things or GAS tracking areas of these forums, but me = Tascam 388 (since 1998); Otari MX-5050 BQII 4 track; MSR-16S(yes, the SSssss) all in constant rotation and all professionally checked and calibrated.

Took a chance recently with an eBay auction for a Revox B77. It's a "low speed" model, so the price didn't go to high. I wasn't expecting the moon. I wanted mainly as a guitar delay.

The guy was obviously a tech. I don't think anything was recapped or replaced, but it arrived calibrated for 406 and tape handling/FFWD/RVRS all stellar.

I ran some mid 90s Albini recorded Mp3 into it first thing. 4 min song. Rewind, press play expecting the highs to come back totally different. NO. Highs are perfect. And the thing just made the track sound AMAZING.

So instead of relegating it to tape delay territory, I've spent the last week (quarantine style) running 8 tracks of drums recorded onto the 388 into this thing as a sort of mastering experiment. Sometimes straight in. Just the RCA to RCA. Sometimes I get fancy and go into my pair of modded tube Berlant pres I have racked, and then slam that into my Burl Bomber.

The reason I'm writing this (to try and cut to the chase) is to ask the more knowledgable people in this group what the hell is in this deck that makes it sound like magic???? This things SLAYS on drums at 3 3/4 (all freq of my cymbals are there) and if I take it down to the 1 1/8 it just FATTENS them in the bestest of westest way. I'm smitten. More like...in love physically with this machine.

It has a US Gov id tag on the back, and I've read a few places that the low speed models didn't get head wear as bad because (obvi) the low speed! Is it just a combo of German tape handling and me luckying out on a good set of heads? Was it an expert tech that knew exactly how to calibrate?? What the heck is in this thing that just sounds amazing?

I can't believe they sold an amplifier for it because the signal comes out so hot. What IS THIS THING??? I want more of them!
 
Its obviously the elves that built it!

Gee, its been more than 40 years since I touched a Revox. Can't say I remember it sounding a whole lot different than the Ampex above it in the rack, but that was SO long ago.

I wonder if you could post a track, then post a copy that was run through the Revox. It would be interesting to hear what it does. Is it the proverbial "silk purse from a sows ear"?
 
I’d have to look at the schematic for the amplifier section to see if there is any magic shiz in there, but depending on how the machine was calibrated (i.e. what the reference fluxivity was), the fact it is running +3 tape, you might be getting some good harmonic distortion (tape sat) off the tape if it was set to 250nWb/m, and the slower speeds means typically healthy LF response. You might just be experiencing good old analog tape saturation due to the lower operating level tape and good LF head bump. I’m curious to look at the amp design now.

Revox was the consumer division for Studer. They had an intentional focus toward “good sound”. I’m experiencing that with my 928 mixing desk.
 
We are up on the Russian River waiting this thing out, but I think I have something on my laptop that I can post. Does the forum have a CMS and you just upload an MP3?
 
rorohello said:
We are up on the Russian River waiting this thing out, but I think I have something on my laptop that I can post. Does the forum have a CMS and you just upload an MP3?
Click to expand...

Pictures, yes. MP3 - I doubt it. I think most people post links to SoundCloud or YouTube.
 
Ok here are two renders. One is just the drum bounce from the 388 to the Revox. Straight in via RCA. No external tube processing, and the only effect/processing present is an EH Holy Grail reverb pedal using a reamp box and level up on return to FX return.

The other has a guitar track present (just messing around) which was my partscaster straight into a Sound Workshop stereo spring reverb and then out to the Burl and then Reaper.

Revox Forum Samples by mannequin flywalker | Free Listening on SoundCloud
 
rorohello said:
When I listen back via SoundCloud I hear a phasing sorta sound on the cymbals that is not there on my original render files FYI...

Uhm why do you guys use Soundcloud? SoundCloud Lowers Sound Quality On Uploads By Half - Magnetic Magazine

Those tracks sound NOTHING like my original files.
Click to expand...

Well, you can't compare bit rates like that. An 8-bit 6KHz stereo file will have a bit rate of 96Kbit, but it will still make that opus file sound like the pinnacle of high-fidelity recording.
That said, the artifacting in your music is very obvious and horrible so I apologise for what has obviously been a bad suggestion.

Frankly I usually upload the files to my private webspace and share the links. However Soundcloud is what everyone else seems to use so...
 
You could always make the files downloadable from Soundcloud if you want us to hear the full quality. I'd agree that there is something about a Revox that puts it above the home audio competition. There's a certain solidity to the sound that you only get from a decent professional recorder. The Studer heritage certainly shows. The issues with a low speed machine are that there is a smaller dynamic range and the maximum output level and high frequencies is reduced so cymbals will sound less metallic and more like white noise if they are recorded at a high level.

If the seller didn't do any recapping then you are almost certainly going to need to replace the gold coloured Rifa capacitors as they have a habit of cracking and then exploding. Hopefully the seller will have done this already but it is worth taking the cover off and checking.
 
jamesperrett said:
If the seller didn't do any recapping then you are almost certainly going to need to replace the gold coloured Rifa capacitors as they have a habit of cracking and then exploding. Hopefully the seller will have done this already but it is worth taking the cover off and checking.
Click to expand...

I will ask the seller, and I thank you for this tidbit!

If others start banging down the door to hear the tracks without the artifacts I'll see what I can figure out, but I feel the smack of those toms and kick are coming thru to wit!
 
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