How Good Are Ferrographs?

[MeanDumpsterCat]

Originally Posted by SteveCG

I would say the real challenge will be for you to find some suitable tape to use on these lower-bias-era machines...

Really? I didnt think there was much of a difference in tape stock

[Radio Wrangler]

Some of the research into 'high energy' formulations to improve the performance of cassettes fed into open reel tapes and these do require quite a bit more bias current for best results. Earlier machines were never intended to drive or bias at this level or to erase it. To some extent component value changes can help, but there is a point where the edges of head gaps start to saturate. But there was a lot of tape made of the older era and not all of it suffers 'sticky shed' problems.

David

[MeanDumpsterCat]

Huh. I didnt know that. Thanks for the info. Do you know if the tape branded as 'Ferrotape' is any good. I see a lot of used reels of that going on eBay

[Restoration73]

Ferrotape could be Scotch or Zonal from examples I have. With the exception of spoken word or radio broadcasts, most music was mastered at 15 ips anyway. I remember that "valve sound" - shot noise, microphony, and hum.

[Hartley118]

I've always been an admirer of Ferrographs ever since my student days when they were an unaffordable aspiration. They have the advantage of being infinitely maintainable, with no tricky plastic bits that break off or belts that become unobtainable. I seem to have accumulated one or two nicely working specimens tucked away into odd corners - the weight ensures that they rarely move far!

Like many machines of the period, they were designed to put up a good performance at 7.5 ips, but are less satisfactory at 3.75 ips, where wow can become intrusive.

If you have one of the 3-speed Ferrographs, you'll find that 1 7/8 is really only usable on speech, having a distinctly 'medium wave' quality. I always found it remarkable that the better Compact Cassette machines produced such high quality at that slow speed. If only Ferrograph had had that technology in their time!

Martin

[MeanDumpsterCat]

Yeah I only ever use 7.5 IPS. I have a strange feeling i've seen a Ferrograph that has 15 IPS but i'd say those were pretty rare as i have only ever seen one. But the appeal of the Ferrograph is just how well designed they are. Built (and look like) tanks!

[Radio Wrangler]

The other tape machine which looks a lot like a ferrograph... well, its industrial cousin... is the Vortexion. They used the same deck and heads, but built their own amplifiers and case. They carried a premium price. I was looking at one round in a friend's garage only 2 weeks ago. Compared the the Ferrograph, Vortexions are rarer and therefore a bit more sought after, but they are uglier and I'm not convinced of any performance benefit.

David

[MeanDumpsterCat]

Yeah I saw the Vortexion on a YouTube video by Seblington. It really does look pretty ugly. Dont really see the benefit of having a stereo Ferrograph these days though. I already have a more modern Akai if I need stereo recordings

[Ted Kendall]

Series 5 and 6 addressed the wow question by halving the capstan diameter, pushing the wow upstairs. That said, it was a better wow performance than the average Akai, with its ghastly capstan sleeve.

Most of the poor HF performance at low speeds is down to the relatively wide head gaps - ye canna change the laws of physics, captain!

High speed versions were in the catalogue from Series 2, with a /H suffix. Used by studios, mostly - the BBC seldom used Ferrographs for on-air purposes, more audition and logging, for which purpose the the standard speeds were adequate . There was a move to use 3.75 for broadcast on World Service at one time, but that was on rebuilt Leevers-Rich machines, and was a disaster.

[Hartley118]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

The other tape machine which looks a lot like a ferrograph... well, its industrial cousin... is the Vortexion. They used the same deck and heads, but built their own amplifiers and case.

I always viewed the Vortexion as a competitor in the 'who can design the heaviest machine?' stakes. The stereo model with an amp at each end was in practice a two-man lift!

For the domestic user, the Ferrograph scored by having a decent 10x6 internal speaker - good enough so that I guess that many users didn't bother to listen on an external speaker. The Vortexion on the other hand had a rather smaller speaker radiating through a small slot and sounded very boxy - only intended I guess for little more than checking that you actually had a recording on the tape.

Martin

[SteveCG]

Don't forget that a Ferrograph of the valve vintage you are interested in uses pressure pads - and that means that the tape has to be of the earlier shiny backed variety. Later Ferrograph models - the Super 7 and Logic 7 could use matt-backed tape.

I'm fairly sure Ferrotape B was low-noise type Scotch tape. Ferrotape, or perhaps I should now say Ferrotape A, was a non low-noise formulation which required a lower bias setting (easy to set on an F7). Note that the more recent tape formulations require a higher level of bias than Ferrotape B.

There was a Ferrograph 7 /H (15, 7.5, 3.75 IPS), also a Dolby B version of it.

[MeanDumpsterCat]

Yeah I thought that would be the case. I'm pretty sure I have some older tape around anyway.

[SteveCG]

BTW, I think Ferrotape B was Scotch 203 (as seen on a standard 8 1/4 inch spool). The earlier Ferrotape may have been on the Ferrograph 'special' spool.

[Ted Kendall]

The Super 7 still had pressure pads. They didn't disappear until the Logic 7. Not that any 7s were any great shakes - the Revoxes by that time had them beaten all around the course.

[SteveCG]

Ted, thanks for the correction concerning the Super 7. I've never used one but can remember being told it was a stretched 7 - just to be able to use 10.5 inch spools. I had thought the move to pressure padless operation came a the same time. So really a Super 7 is of limited use now given that all the later tapes I've come across are matt-backed.

BTW I would suggest that the variable rewind (down to zero if so selected) on the F7 was a lot kinder to tapes than the full bore Revox rewind. Also you could easily adjust the bias level on the F7 something that was useful when dealing with different brands of tape - unlike Revox. Mind you, I would not disagree with what you say concerning out-and-out recording quality.

[MeanDumpsterCat]

Originally Posted by SteveCG

BTW, I think Ferrotape B was Scotch 203 (as seen on a standard 8 1/4 inch spool). The earlier Ferrotape may have been on the Ferrograph 'special' spool.

I've bought some Ferrograph branded tape but the eBay photos do not show the labels on the boxes. It's on the reels with the removable hub (Sounds like that could be useful) but i'll try them out on my Akai deck and see how it sounds.

[brenellic2000]

I'm afraid buying second-hand tape, unless from a reliable source, is no guarantee the tape, spool or box were the original set! Many 'branded' tapes were spooled on to an unbranded spool for side B but were never respooled! At least many BASF tapes had the tape type printed on the leader and/or tape.

Most 1960s/70s quality domestic/professional tapes were to the Scotch formula including Pyral (Zonal, Ferrograph), Ferrania. Later Ferrograph tape came from Scotch's Welsh plant and its binder is more stable than American-made Scotch.

[SteveCG]

Tape wound on Ferrograph's special spools (ie those with a built-in hub-lock) rides at a slightly different height than tape on normal DIN (sometimes called cine) spools. So you may need to adjust the spool carrier heights on the tape-recorder.

[Radio Wrangler]

The revox wind/rewind is fine. The spool motors act as torque generators, so with the tape whistling through at full speed, you can select the opposite direction and watch the thing gently slow pass through zero speed through to full speed in the new direction without any disturbances, maintaining constant tension.

The disaster with the A77 is someone who presses stop, doesn't wait for it to brake to a stop, and presses play with the tape still motoring.

David

[julie_m]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

The disaster with the A77 is someone who presses stop, doesn't wait for it to brake to a stop, and presses play with the tape still motoring.

Ah, yes. Usually someone who grew up casually flicking a cassette deck between PLAY and WIND / REWIND without going through STOP.

You can get away with that sort of behaviour when the full "spool" is only about 4 cm. across and the motor not very powerful ..... But it doesn't scale up