Tube Recorders et al

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technoplayer

Recovering Gear-aholic
I have noticed that the price for old hi end tube reel machines and mixers ( AMPEX specifically) are crazy high on E-Bay. Are people really buying these to use, or is it a high end collectable trade type thing? Are any of you ACTIVELY using tube reel machines? And how many have one, but just display it? It just seems ...well...odd that these are so pricey.
 
Once or twice I've pondered getting a G36 or a Ferrograph, but they are extremely heavy, bulky and mostly low-speed machines. I think I have enough tape decks to be getting on with (although a Pr99 would be nice)
 
technoplayer said:
I have noticed that the price for old hi end tube reel machines and mixers ( AMPEX specifically) are crazy high on E-Bay. Are people really buying these to use, or is it a high end collectable trade type thing? Are any of you ACTIVELY using tube reel machines? And how many have one, but just display it? It just seems ...well...odd that these are so pricey.
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I use an Akai M6 for mix down, a very nice machine actually. An absolute pain to get working, but worth it.
 
I have a Concertone 1/4" mono recorder. Its a network recorder, comes in two pieces with the preamp and the reel to reel in seperate carry cases. It records at 71/2 & 15ips. I'm in the process of restoring it so we'll see how it sounds if I get it working right. I can tell you the preamp sounds great. It's extremely powerful.

I can tell some people are buying them for thier preamps, others probably just sound great.
 
The same goes for Tandberg TB2. (And their other models with the "magic eye"). People around here (Norway) use the preamp in them to "warm up" guitars etc. The sound of the preamp is marvellous, but I dont know about the recorder itself. Never heard anything recorded on one.
 
technoplayer said:
I have noticed that the price for old hi end tube reel machines and mixers ( AMPEX specifically) are crazy high on E-Bay. Are people really buying these to use, or is it a high end collectable trade type thing? Are any of you ACTIVELY using tube reel machines? And how many have one, but just display it? It just seems ...well...odd that these are so pricey.
Click to expand...

I had a Studer J-37 for a while but it needed a little transport work I couldn't quite suss out. I sold it for what I had in it to my far more competent and well heeled friend, Mitch Easter, and he is just now, after at least six years, IIRC, getting it going with the help of Fred Hill. I think he's going to add VU meters. He hopes that some folks will want to record live instrument tracks in stereo on it and then add vocals.

The Ampex electronics channels in those old machines are often ripped out to make "toob mike preez". You could have some fun making a modified machine using some Ampex tube electronics channels with a better transport, say, a 3M, Studer or ATR, but with heads with appropriate values to deal with the old Ampex electronics.

Cheers,

Otto
 
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