Not hitting stop on Teac 3440 transport when going between play and FF/RW - bad?

[fazeka]

Am looking at a 3440 and upon having the seller (original owner) demo for me, I noticed they go from play to FF/RW (and vice versa) without hitting stop.

It kinda took me aback when I saw the owner do that, TBH. I would NEVER do this on a Teac/Tascam or most other machines.

I didn't confront or lecture the seller about it. Didn't feel right to do so.

I have to imagine it's BAD to do as it seems like it causes undue wear on motors, brakes, and other items like linkages, etc.

What say you? Should I just bow out of considering the deck suspecting/assuming the owner has been doing this since day 1?

Otherwise the deck looks nice with supposedly 1/2 dozen reels of tape recorded on it over the first decade of it's life. Not sure what that quantity means in reality vis-a-vis running the transport that way as I've done LOTS of shuttling on just one reel when I owned and recorded on one 30 years ago. Speaking of which, I'm interested in it to digitize said tapes I recorded with my band while in college back then.

TIA

 

[RRuskin]

That machine has no trouble being used in that manner.

 

[fazeka]

Thank you for the information!

How about going from FF direct to RW and vice versa. Presumably fine?

 

[sweetbeats]

That’s been common practice in machines for decades…it’s called shuttling…like when the machine is screaming in FFWD you directly hit REW and when it comes close to a stop *then* you hit STOP…common practice. You’re over-thinking it…no offense. Nothing that owner is doing is harmful or untoward. In fact shuttling saves wear and tear on the brakes if the machine uses mechanical brakes. Which most do.

 

[fazeka]

That’s been common practice in machines for decades…it’s called shuttling…like when the machine is screaming in FFWD you directly hit REW and when it comes close to a stop *then* you hit STOP…common practice. You’re over-thinking it…no offense. Nothing that owner is doing is harmful or untoward. In fact shuttling saves wear and tear on the brakes if the machine uses mechanical brakes. Which most do.

I am familiar with this technique on older pro machines (e.g., Ampex 35x, 440, etc.) but didn't realize the late 70s Teacs allowed for same.

Back in the day, I seem to remember shuttling or "feathering" my AG-350 by kind of "rocking"/alternating between RW and FF until the machine slowed enough to stop the tape. FWIW, the seller/owner didn't seem to be shuttling/feathering the tape to slow it down; he just had it going full RW then hit FF (or vice versa, can't remember).