So Just How Good Could a Tascam M50/512/520 Sound?

[bobboyer]

It's probably academic, but I've been pondering that question whilst reading the rebuild threads here and making some decent recordings of bluegrass and other acoustic ensembles on a pretty-close-to-mint condition M-50 I picked up a couple of years ago in Atlanta. Pots occasionally need twisting and/or Deoxit and the channel 12 fader needs some encouragement to get up and running but otherwise, the function is flawless. As is the appearance. This board lived a quiet life.

Which leads me to the sound. We all know these boards, like Mackies and other budget gear of today, are built to a price point. The sound is pretty good, but not up there with the heavy hitters. I'm well aware that recapping everything with stock-equivalent components will provide a nice improvement because of the age of the capacitors but how good is the circuit design and how close to great sound can you get with a serious recapping/rebuilding effort using top line components? More importantly, is the cost justified (leaving out the labor costs as this would fall under the "personal quest" category) or would I be better off just cranking up a new Toft ATB or Soundcraft Ghost or such? Balanced vs. unbalanced isn't much of an argument with my setup as the cable runs are all pretty short (15 ft or less).

Those of you who have rebuilt Tascam boards from this era - what do you think they're capable of if you really went all-out on new circuit components of the highest quality? No mods to the circuits themselves allowed - just upgrading the existing design to its ultimate capabilities.

While I much prefer the look/feel/build quality of my Tascam to any of the newer boards, I'm also willing to say it may not be the best sounding piece (for its price point) out there, even with those upgrades. But I'd be curious to hear the opinions of the folks who have tread these paths previously before going off on the wrong rabbit trail.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

I think what TASCAM was going after on the 50/500 series boards, as well as the 300 series from the same era, was simply to make reasonable clean and quiet mixers that didn't really add or subtract any "character" to the sound. The goal in that era was to be neutral, flat and unapologetically boring. The character was supposed to come from the tape and from your mic sellection and effects. The mixers were just supposed to route and mix stuff and otherwise not be the star of the show, color-wise.

Don't know specifically about the recapping deal other then possibly adding a bit of headroom before clipping if your going for over spec caps. But otherwise, if it ain't broke, why fix it? Besides, changing the OP amp integrated circuit chips are more akin to getting real characteristic changes and members like Beck here can tell you more about the different chips and what they'll do to the sound.

To me though, boutique pre-amps are more of a necessary element when you're recording straight to digital which has a ruler flat response and no tonal character of its own; thus you try to get some of that with very un-flat boutique pre's. But going to tape, all the flavor is on the oxide, no extra charge.

Higher end mixing desks would mostly offer more transparent summing amp stages so that there's greater intelligibility to your mixes. The TASCAM boards tended to sound a bit cloudy/murky in that department. Though careful EQ settings can compensate for that to a degree.

Cheers!

 

[bobboyer]

Interesting thoughts. As I'm approaching this recording hobby from a "straight-wire-with-gain" audiophile perspective, I originally acquired stuff with the intention of not really using EQ circuitry. The mics and the tape decks provide the flavor, as you suggest, and if I wanted to change the flavor, I'd change the mic. Hmmm...

Many thanks. I'll be curious about what others have to say with that bit of historical perspective.

Regards,

Bob

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Interesting thoughts. As I'm approaching this recording hobby from a "straight-wire-with-gain" audiophile perspective, I originally acquired stuff with the intention of not really using EQ circuitry. The mics and the tape decks provide the flavor, as you suggest, and if I wanted to change the flavor, I'd change the mic. Hmmm...

Many thanks. I'll be curious about what others have to say with that bit of historical perspective.

Regards,

Bob

No problem.

One thought I might add about your audiophile perspective of not wanting to use any EQ;

I can see the merit of that philosophy as an end consumer of better quality playback gear to attempt to obtain what the original artists and engineers intended with their commercial releases. But realize that virtually all musicians, producers and engineers will make full use of EQ during the tracking and mixing stages of putting their albums together and mastering engineers will also do so to get the sound right to their ears and to consider those changes using different sets of monitors to approximate the variety of playback mediums their products might get heard on. So while I agree that microphone selection and placement are definitely part of the process of making a good recording, they should by no means be considered the only acceptable way of achieving that. There are also many articles out there on subtractive EQ which you might want to read up on to give you some additional insight on how to make us of your EQ from a cutting perspective rather then a boosting one, but to to abandon using EQ because of a borrowed hi fi virtue would be a somewhat misguided idea.

Cheers!

 

[Doon]

I have a Tascam M-30 mixer along with a Tascam 32 and 38 tape decks which makes a nice all analog recording system.
I too cleaned all the faders, and rotary pots. Works great. All the connections to my reel decks are all the standard Tascam unbalanced wiring.
I also wondered if doing a recap on the mixer would make things any better.
In fact I did this to both channel boards on the 32 deck and it did improve the noise floor slightly, and now sounds great....or as good as it's going to get.
After doing that and reading some technical info on doing recaps on audio circuits, I realized that if you do use modern higher quality caps, about the only thing that changes sound wise is the noise floor.
The discrete circuit design itself has more to do with changes in "sound" quality. So your talking different opamps or transistors or modifying something in the design.

I also use an Allen & Heath ZEDR16 which is (to me) astoundingly quiet. More so than the M-30. So if your M-50 mixer is already pretty quiet and not broken or distorted, then changing caps will probably not make any change that you will notice.
If it is noisy then changing caps could improve that. It just may not be very noticeable or significant to you. So the money and time spent may not be what you think or will hear is a worthwhile improvement.
Now in the EQ circuits the mylar caps or non-polarized electrolytics can sometimes make improvement in the "tone" controls and along with having that lower noise floor might give you a more accurate clean signal with something that will sound like a change in "color".
Part of belief in all this is if it ain't really broken, why fix it?....you could make things worse, but then some people just like to experiment and play with that sort of thing.
At some point the sound is just the sound...at a certain point you should just use it and enjoy!

 

[bobboyer]

...At some point the sound is just the sound...at a certain point you should just use it and enjoy!

And I can attest to doing just that. And yes, the M-50 is pretty quiet. Listening to a couple of mixes up in Nashville on a big MCI board and Focal monitors revealed sound that was basically very good. A bit of air could have been added up top, but nothing that couldn't have been touched up by an educated mastering engineer. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty happy with the results of an organized, well-executed low budget search for studio equipment. Just kinda curious about how far it could go, is all...