Hi SB,
Thanks for chiming in, I have the Tascam 30th anniversary book which has good info and nice photos, I was not familiar with the 70, is that the Series 70? I see there is one on Reverb for sale.
Its good to have an accurate account of all their models, though from an actual buyer's perspective, the ones I mentioned would be the practical ones to consider, and even from those, a 58 would be somewhat rare to find, let alone its price tag and so forth. The 38 would probably be the first that comes to mind or perhaps a TSR-8, I suppose...., I imagine a 48, though older, might be better built than a TSR-8?
Its really up to the guy who asked, but I think a 4 track like the A-3440 would be a great choice, if they are available where he is in Australia.
Yes the 70-8 is part of the 70 series. That one on Reverb…people can ask what they want for their wares, and I guess somebody might buy that at that price. What I can tell you is electronically and mechanically there is nothing special about it…I owned at one time, in a strange turn of events, a complete amplifier module chassis for a 70-8. Everything about it was poor quality. My opinion. Bad design all around. And I got ahold of the schematics and service manual and the signal path is significantly underwhelming. I don’t know much about the transport but I don’t expect that to be a home run either. I think it’s a curious machine and appreciate what it is in the history of the multitrack open-reel tape machine, but I would never choose to own one. There are scads of 1/2” 8-track offerings on Reverb (for instance) right now between Tascam and Otari for a *much* lower asking price I would pick way before the 70-8, for their design, sonics and reliability.
I have that Tascam book as well.
The 48 is a more robust machine than the TSR-8 and, seriously, for any regular production work, if given the choice between one or the other, I’d always choose a three-head machine. But that comes with a bias because I’ve spent enough time setting up cassette-based and open-reel two-head machines and it’s just a pain…record level, bias and record EQ…all three of these things play on each other so when you adjust one the others have to be tweaked as well, rinse and repeat until the channel is in spec, and having to do that, each round, record tone, reproduce tone, blindly tweak the trimmer and hope you’re “there” the next pass vs on a three-head machine being able to run tone, record and monitor off the repro head in real time and just watch the meters and line it up…feels like a dream after wrestling with a two-head machine. I pity the tech that has to service an MSR-24 1” 24-track two-head machine. So that’s the real downside to me on the TSR-8, which otherwise is a nice package. I like the onboard noise reduction and the transport itself is really gentle on the tape. I don’t like the 12-segment LED bar graph meters…they’re fine, but I like a meter with more resolution than that. My console has 30-segment meters and I find it to be more practical. And overall I prefer analog VU meters. So the TSR-8 is a fine machine and has some advantages for sure, but it wouldn’t be my choice. The other difference with the TSR-8 is the signal path…it is a lower headroom more garden variety design than the lineage of the more professional line of machines, which started with the 58, then 48, then ATR60 series (stick the MS16 in there too around the time the 48 was introduced). These machines all use a similar signal design that is higher headroom and pretty sweet…a servo-type design with very few coupling caps in the signal path…the 38 and TSR-8 are both more typical designs…they are fine but you look at that other branch and there’s no comparison. I agree the prices on the 58 are nuts right now. I’ve owned three of them…currently have one…they are my favorite of the bunch, but the 48 and ATR60-8 are easier to service…better designs that way. They all sound good, so as far as that goes any of them are a fine choice, but the 38 doesn’t have as nice a signal path, is a lot more plastic, and just not as sophisticated a machine…between the 38, 48, 58 and TSR-8 I think the 38 would be my last choice but a toss-up with the TSR-8 because of the TSR-8’s two-head design. The 48 is kind of a sweet-spot considering market price, design and sonics, but you typically want the outboard noise reduction units. I think what it really comes down to is whatever can be found relatively locally that is in decent running condition. So if you think of it that way, if I was in need of a 1/2” 8-track, and needed to find it locally, I’d take any one of them price and condition dependent. But honestly I’d be including the Otari MX-5050-8 series in there…professional build quality, simple reliable transport design…more robust overall than the Tascam machines, and good sounding.
There was a time I was thinking about an 80-8. I thought it might be the sonic equivalent of the 3340S 4-track I used to have which really, really sounded nice. Later in life after it was long gone I was studying the schematics and realized the signal path is all discrete. I thought the 80-8 was the same, but it’s not…opamp-based like the others. But the 3340S really did sound nice.
