Quote:
Originally Posted by hillmanie
Quote:
Originally Posted by wd40addict
Here's the expensive ready-made end of the market!
this is pretty easy compared to recording when intimate knowledge of the heads in use is required.
ch
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Expensive? I'll say. One I see is $9k !!
Re pre-amp is it fair to say that even if you bought advertised as 'tape head pre-amp' you'd still have to re-design it to match to your heads? Do the characteristics of tape heads differ much?
TT |
Heads for older valve tape machines were usually high impedance and so a modern preamp would need a FET type front end. The repro head in a Tascam 122 Mk III feeds a FET front end preamp. Similarly in a higher end Akai GX cassette deck I have. I suspect the heads are of somewhat higher impedance than in run of the mill cassette decks.
But it also relates to tapes and tape formats. High speed, wide track open reel tapes were not too critical as the signal off tape was relatively strong, and that signal (including tape noise) could mask the preamp noise. But slow speed, narrow track recordings (not least cassettes) had a weaker signal so the preamp needed to have very low noise so as not to add noise to the weak signal off tape. I modded the replay preamp on my Revox A700 mainly to lower preamp noise in the slower tape speeds and with quarter track tapes. I doubt it would make any audible improvement for 15ips wider track "pro" recordings.
One of the 'advances' in tape machines was a switch which muted the play head preamp except when the tape was playing. It made it appear that any noise heard (including hum) was solely from the tape, for when the tape was not moving, the preamp seemed silent. On some of my machines I've disabled this switch so I can hear truthfully the noise the playback preamp contributes. It may seem like tape noise but it isn't.
So like some others here, I modify for an audible, measureable benefit, or for more reliability. Why else would one do it? Boredom perhaps.