rob aylestone
Moderator
I think I’m old enough now to be able to listen to things and make, in the main, accurate judgements on audio quality. My purchase of a Tascam 4 track and a Revox 2 track has proven to have been a waste of money.
it was great seeing the tape move, and real meters flick, but my conclusion after a few months is that while lovely to have, in every way, both via my ears and my eyes, they’re inferior to all the digital equipment I have. The worst case is when you record tones doing the lineup and can detect the minute ‘warbling’ tape has as tiny speed errors and drop outs happen. At 15ips, they’re small, but even when I’m using brand new tape, like a tiny intonation problem on a 12 string, it’s there. My modern test gear shows the tiny flutter components, even when my ears aren’t sure, and the hiss is always there, but of course very low. What really made this certain is when I tested the cheap Chinese preamps. I grabbed an elderly Panasonic Laptop, the cheap interface and discovered it sounded better than the Tascam and Revox. Even worse, the Tascam now needs a light bulb fixing and the Revox constantly needs the heads cleaning to retain the HF.
So both are mothballed. I’ll hang on to them, but I cannot record on them. If I record on either of the two main computers in the studio, if the record light comes on, the recording is fine. The only real risk is kicking the power cable out of the external drive, as it’s currently on the floor, or forgetting to save. Entirely my fault, not the kit. With the reel to reels I need to check the quiet section to make sure it’s noise free, something you never have to do with digital. The worst feature though is simply running costs. A 32gb SD card costs very little, and works for ever. A spool of tape costs £70 to put on the shelf. This is unsustainable. I can buy a cheap hard drive and backup, but as I run NAS drives now between my two studios, storage is effectively a tiny cost, and always backed up.
I could record on the Tascam or record on a Zoom H6. Both need just plugs shoving in holes. Two recorders, which sounds best for noise, distortion and transparency? Easy. The Zoom, every time. I’m off on a job today, and the music is on an SD card, which will go into a laptop or a dedicated media player, or even the mixer with an adaptor. Should I put a reel to reel into the chain? Would it improve quality? No absolutely not.
nothing I have recorded since having them has been better than what I had without them. Nothing! At first, I thought I could hear something special, something older and nice, but with eyes open, it was noise, distortion, wow and flutter.
it’s a done deal now. Two really nice mechanical machines that have absolutely no quality increasing potential at all, eat expensive tape, and need constant time consuming cleaning and maintenance. I predict that in six months time, they wont have been used at all, apart maybe, from impressing a few people who might be under 25 and dribble.
it was great seeing the tape move, and real meters flick, but my conclusion after a few months is that while lovely to have, in every way, both via my ears and my eyes, they’re inferior to all the digital equipment I have. The worst case is when you record tones doing the lineup and can detect the minute ‘warbling’ tape has as tiny speed errors and drop outs happen. At 15ips, they’re small, but even when I’m using brand new tape, like a tiny intonation problem on a 12 string, it’s there. My modern test gear shows the tiny flutter components, even when my ears aren’t sure, and the hiss is always there, but of course very low. What really made this certain is when I tested the cheap Chinese preamps. I grabbed an elderly Panasonic Laptop, the cheap interface and discovered it sounded better than the Tascam and Revox. Even worse, the Tascam now needs a light bulb fixing and the Revox constantly needs the heads cleaning to retain the HF.
So both are mothballed. I’ll hang on to them, but I cannot record on them. If I record on either of the two main computers in the studio, if the record light comes on, the recording is fine. The only real risk is kicking the power cable out of the external drive, as it’s currently on the floor, or forgetting to save. Entirely my fault, not the kit. With the reel to reels I need to check the quiet section to make sure it’s noise free, something you never have to do with digital. The worst feature though is simply running costs. A 32gb SD card costs very little, and works for ever. A spool of tape costs £70 to put on the shelf. This is unsustainable. I can buy a cheap hard drive and backup, but as I run NAS drives now between my two studios, storage is effectively a tiny cost, and always backed up.
I could record on the Tascam or record on a Zoom H6. Both need just plugs shoving in holes. Two recorders, which sounds best for noise, distortion and transparency? Easy. The Zoom, every time. I’m off on a job today, and the music is on an SD card, which will go into a laptop or a dedicated media player, or even the mixer with an adaptor. Should I put a reel to reel into the chain? Would it improve quality? No absolutely not.
nothing I have recorded since having them has been better than what I had without them. Nothing! At first, I thought I could hear something special, something older and nice, but with eyes open, it was noise, distortion, wow and flutter.
it’s a done deal now. Two really nice mechanical machines that have absolutely no quality increasing potential at all, eat expensive tape, and need constant time consuming cleaning and maintenance. I predict that in six months time, they wont have been used at all, apart maybe, from impressing a few people who might be under 25 and dribble.
