speaker proximity to tape?

  • Thread starter Thread starter lonewhitefly
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lonewhitefly

lonewhitefly

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what are general guidelines for placing tapes near speakers? some say 3" is fine, others say at least several feet. i have a PA speaker about a foot apart from my tape decks in a somewhat cramped workspace ... wondering if i should move the speaker.

thanks
 
Move the speaker. I've done magnetic damage to CRT computer monitors with speakers set one foot away from the screen.
 
Don't take any chances. It's better to be safe then sorry.
 
lonewhitefly said:
what are general guidelines for placing tapes near speakers? some say 3" is fine, others say at least several feet. i have a PA speaker about a foot apart from my tape decks in a somewhat cramped workspace ... wondering if i should move the speaker.

thanks
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There was an article put out by Electro Voice 20 years ago that dealt with this and they concluded that 3" was enough space between speaker magnets and magnetic tape. Seems kinda close but it does give you an idea of what it would take to screw up some tape.
 
cool i will err on the side of caution ... i have not put any tapes near it yet so i'll move it. but does it matter if the speaker is on or off? i will never be using the speaker at the same time a tape is nearby, it would be off. it's a vocal monitor for live rehearsals.
 
hmm, yes it would seem that you would have to be very close to cause harm. i normally have a twin reverb about 3-4 feet away from my master tapes without problems.
 
lonewhitefly said:
cool i will err on the side of caution ... i have not put any tapes near it yet so i'll move it. but does it matter if the speaker is on or off? i will never be using the speaker at the same time a tape is nearby, it would be off. it's a vocal monitor for live rehearsals.
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My understanding is that it's moot whether the speaker is on or off, it's the speaker magnet that's a concern.

The electrical current from the speaker on won't do anything I don't think.

That amount of current will not make any significant EMI.
 
That's right, its the magnets themselves in the speakers so it is a consideration whether they are making noise or not.

I try to keep my tapes at least a foot away from any unshielded magnetic source...this includes by electric guitars...My tape shelf is directly over my monitor speakers...probably about 9" away but they are shielded.

I would move that PA speaker a bit further away if possible...it is probably unshielded and PA speakers tend to have bigger magnets.
 
I just recently left a 1" tape on top of my Mackie HR824 monitor. I think they are shielded, and the tape seems unaffected.
VP
 
Since your kind of new here I'll just let you know that if you ever have any questions about tape Beck is the man with all the knowledge in thees matters. If you have some time just take a look at some of his extensive threads.
 
thanks all ... i have moved it to the other side of the room! incidentally, i was talking to a friend the other night and he mentioned someone once set a pair of headphones on a tape box and it caused an audible dropout. something else to keep in mind ...

i have my tapes stored away from speakers/magnets but somewhat close to my mixing board ... i am assuming this is okay? i have not had problems before.

and yes i have indeed learned quite a bit from Beck's posts ... i have been on here for awhile but post rarely. so thanks Beck! I found your posts regarding tape types to be very useful when buying old tapes on eBay and trying to figure out the difference between 406, 226, 111 etc last year when mixing my first album.
 
Beck said:
Far, Far away... three or more feet for storage as a general rule.
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YUP!


If you ever measured the magnetic field around a pair of speakers...you would see that it's stronger than the point where demagnetization is needed on a typical R2R deck.
IOW...if you're heads had even half of that strength, you would want to demag them.

I keep my R2R tapes in another room. :)


Oh...and even watch out for vacuum cleaners....their motors kick off a rather strong magnetic field...so don't run them real close to your tapes or PC drives.
 
I always kept my reels about 8' away.

As well as vacuum cleaners, any motors like a desk fan can put out EMI.

I had a clip on fan next to a video monitor, and every time the fan swung towards the monitor the picture screwed up.

I have a Radio Shack bulk tape eraser I bought in the 70's and it came with a paper sheet that said not to operate it if you had a pacemaker.

I always wondered what the incident was that prompted them to include that warning!
 
dintymoore said:
I always wondered what the incident was that prompted them to include that warning!
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I recently read the story behind this. It had something to do with Billy Joel's producer nearly having a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack.
 
lo.fi.love said:
I recently read the story behind this. It had something to do with Billy Joel's producer nearly having a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack.
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Ya, and the crowd loved it so much now he's gotta do it at the gig every night!
 
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