Jack of all

[stuart_morgan_64]

I need a reel to reel for transferring various vintage reel to reel tapes. Mainly domestic. Probably 1 7\8 to 7 1\2 ips. Found a Brenell mark 5 M series 3.

Am I right in assuming if I play 4 track tapes I will have one track forwards and another track backwards at the same time.

They certainly have the speeds.

Any advise or suggestions please.

[Michael Maurice]

It would be helpful if we knew whether the tape was recorded on a two or four track recorder?

Is the Brenell a two or four track machine?

If the tapes were recorded on a 4 track machine and then replayed on a 2 track you will hear one track forward and another backwards mixed together.

If however the tapes were recorded on a 2 track machine and replayed on a 4 track machine, you’ll be ok.

[barretter]

It's a 2 track.

[llama]

I think the Brenell has space for another playback head so you could get hold of a "4 track" head and mount that for maximum functional flexibility. Switching could be by an added (wafer) switch or by a plug and socket arrangement.
Graham

[Ted Kendall]

This was done on the STB1/2 stereo machines. Good luck finding a viable head, though...

[llama]

Well, I was thinking more of a generic "4 track" head out of a 1960s Grundig/Philips/BSR machine rather than the correct (Bogen?) head. Tape wrap / lack of pressure pads might be an issue that would need resolving and no doubt some heads would be more suitable than others in that respect.
Graham

[Ted Kendall]

The Marriott 4 track as fitted to BSR decks is a similar size can, assuming you can find a mounting plate.

[stuart_morgan_64]

Thanks for the response, Michael it's various tapes from domestic machines, as much as I like the Brenell machine, playing 4 track tapes would be a pain to sort, perhaps using a stereo machine with a mono switch on the outputs would be the best. Not many on 1 7\8 ips, thanks for the above suggestions

[Michael Maurice]

Tandbergs have this facility.

[TonyDuell]

There are/were several Philips stereo tape recorders with 1+7/8 ips speed. If you are happy with 'domestic' quality, there's the EL3534, which also has the 15/16 ips speed (about the only real reason that I have one). Rather better are the N4418/N4510 (the former has a built-in amplifier to drive loudspeakers, the latter is line level output only) and the N4450 (which is an 'interesting' unit). There were others too.

Some Ferrograph series 7 machines had 1+7/8 ips too, and some were 4 track. Unfortunately for you, the sort of person who would buy a Ferrograph tended to want the higher speeds (and thus would have the 3+3/4, 7+1/2, 15 ips model).

[julie_m]

You needn't worry too much about the lowest speed. You can bodge it and the laws of physics will still be on your side!

Tapes recorded at low speeds tend to have minimal high-frequency content anyway, due to the nature of tape recording and how tape speed and head gap width affect the highest recordable frequency; so there is little lost in practice by playing a tape originally recorded 4.75, at 9.5 and halving the speed in software. (You're taking 44100 samples from each 9.5cm. of tape; but that is actually two seconds' worth that you are reading in, so there are only 22050 samples per second when playing back. This limits the theoretical maximum frequency to 11025Hz, when there will be just one sample defining the crest and one defining the trough.) With a four-track playback head, you can even grab both sides of a two-track tape at once and reverse the bottom track in software. And the inherent low-pass filtering provided by this process probably will improve matters a little, if anything.

[TIMTAPE]

It's not always appreciated that the slower the tape speed, the shorter the wavelength, and the more critical is good tape to head contact and alignment. A small misalignment at 7.5ips might not even be noticed but at 1.875ips or slower it could mean the difference between intelligible and unintelligible speech, especially if the original recording was borderline quality in the first place.

[jamesperrett]

I use a Philips N4515 for quarter track tapes. While not up to the performance of the best cassette decks, the results at 1 7/8ips are very respectable. Head alignment is critical at these low speeds and my Philips machine spends much of its time with the head cover off to allow access to the alignment screw.

[Hartley118]

Interesting I think that part of the technical success of cassette tape in its day was the decision to scale down all deck dimensions including track width, tape/head contact length, head gap, tape granular structure, etc As a result, the better examples of these 'scale model' decks can give quality at 1 7/8 ips comparable with an original Ferrograph at 7 1/2 ips.

Martin

[ben]

If you're looking to transfer various tapes or from unknown sources, don't waste your time with a half track unit. Sooner or later you'll come across 4 track tapes which will be unplayable.

You need maximum flexibility, so something with 3 or 4 speeds, 4 tracks, and stereo (or at least mono with stereo option/preamp output) would be best. Purists may say you'll lose some quality when replaying half track tapes on it, but in practice with the average domestically recorded tape, you simply will not notice this.

The other major benefit of using quarter track units is that you can sometimes 'recover' lost half track recordings. If someone has reused a half track tape on a quarter track deck, playing side one will give the new recording. Flipping the tape over and setting the selector to '3-2' will often allow you to hear the original half track recording (which you then can reverse in software).

I use a Philips N4420 which meets the above criteria and has the added advantage of logic so tape handling is the gentlest I have seen. The head cover unclips so cleaning can be done in an instant.
I also have a Tandberg series 15 wired up, which is horizontal, useful where lots of tape splicing or cleaning is needed (the vertical units are much more fiddly in this regard). That has a 'free head' output for stereo though I don't need it.

On the rare occasions where I have high speed half track stereo, a Sony 766-2 (7.5 and 15 ips) can be used. That has a quarter track head also.