travelin travis
New member
My grand parents came to visit today and my grandpa brought me an old AKAI 1710W tape machine. He said he almost left it behind in his last move but figured I might like it so he held on to it. I'm glad he did.
I recorded a couple of bits with it to try it out. This thing is pretty cool. It has a speaker on each side with little flaps over the speakers to direct the sound. I think it's a 2-track although it has a track selector for 1-4, stereo, and 2-3. It has a high/low tape speed selector but grandpa told me that he lost the capstan adapter for running it at it's highest speed. I assume that with the adapter it will run 4 different speeds. Also, he put some springs over the things that the reels slide on to. He said it originally had some little rubber holders but it seems to work fine with the springs although the tape rubs the reels some.
I tried doing an overdub with it but it did'nt work so I'm assuming it's a 2-track machine that can record left/right on either side of the tape. It records and plays with the track selector in all positions. It has left/right 1/4" mic inputs, rca phono radio inputs, preamp outputs, external speaker outputs, a 5 jack that says "record p.b", headphone out, and it has tubes.
The only issue that I've noticed so far is that I have to hand brake one of the reels after a rewind if it's set to high speed.
If anyone knows anything about this thing, anything at all, please let me know. I'd like to work it into my recording setup and try some things with it.
I recorded a couple of bits with it to try it out. This thing is pretty cool. It has a speaker on each side with little flaps over the speakers to direct the sound. I think it's a 2-track although it has a track selector for 1-4, stereo, and 2-3. It has a high/low tape speed selector but grandpa told me that he lost the capstan adapter for running it at it's highest speed. I assume that with the adapter it will run 4 different speeds. Also, he put some springs over the things that the reels slide on to. He said it originally had some little rubber holders but it seems to work fine with the springs although the tape rubs the reels some.
I tried doing an overdub with it but it did'nt work so I'm assuming it's a 2-track machine that can record left/right on either side of the tape. It records and plays with the track selector in all positions. It has left/right 1/4" mic inputs, rca phono radio inputs, preamp outputs, external speaker outputs, a 5 jack that says "record p.b", headphone out, and it has tubes.
The only issue that I've noticed so far is that I have to hand brake one of the reels after a rewind if it's set to high speed.
If anyone knows anything about this thing, anything at all, please let me know. I'd like to work it into my recording setup and try some things with it.