How Good Are Ferrographs?

[SteveCG]

... Or "how to convert Long Play to Triple Play at the press of a button" ...

But seriously though, After using an Ferrograph 7, I still felt happier using Standard Play thickness tape on a Revox with its rewind.

[Ted Kendall]

In my experience the A77, properly operated, is gentler than any Ferrograph. The servo brakes bring the tape to a smooth and controlled halt, and the opposite wind trick will cope with the thinnest of tapes. If you want full motion sensing, this is available on the B77/PR99.

[Radio Wrangler]

It's an unfair comparison because Studer designed the A77 mechanism many years after the Wearite deck.

But it's a fair comparison for someone choosing a machine nowadays because both are available on the second-hand market with similar availability and similar prices.

The sad bit is that Ferrograph never understood that the world had moved on and they persisted with pressure pads and belts. It ended Ferrograph.

Revox sort of survive, but they"ve suffered a fate worse than death, transformed into a maker of boutique audio fripperies for silly people. Maybe progress was kinder to Ferrograph?

Perhaps that's the greatest benefit of an interest in vintage equipment. You can pick something made not only by one of the greatest manufacturers, but also from a time when they were at the greatest of their achievements.

David

[Ted Kendall]

True, the A77 and the Wearite were designed decades apart, but they were, briefly, current at the same time. Indeed, the advent of the A77 prompted the premature launch of the Ferrograph 7, a design for which I think the kindest word is "inelegant". It is, however, fair to say that the A77s predecessor, the G36, was hailed as superior in performance to the competition "to an extent that made the rest seem toys". It's an expensive proposition to restore and maintain these days, however.

Hindsight indeed knows no myopia...

[Hartley118]

To return to the original question, the Ferrograph is a very good tape recorder.

This is particularly the case today if we're comparing a group of machines all over half a century old. The Ferrograph's relatively straightforward design means that it can readily be returned to its original performance, both mechanically and electrically.

If you record at 7.5ips, playback of an FM broadcast or vinyl record will sound pretty much identical to the original with perhaps slight extra background hiss.

The Ferrograph is also good for live recording. The wide dynamic range of its valve electronics, together with its clear quasi-peak metering, minimises unpleasant overload distortion on the unexpected peaks that occur in live music. Whilst a cassette machine may superficially have a higher spec, the Ferrograph gives that extra overload margin that's crucial in a live situation.

Martin

[brenellic2000]

In fairness to Ferrograph 'not moving on', they were probably far too reliant on government contracts for machines which did the job well, to specification, and so probably didn't need 'fixing'. Leevers-Rich suffered a similar fate whereas Brenell were not so reliant on government contracts and were prepared to listen to customer needs and modify/redesign... they abandoned pressure pads in 1973 with the IC2000.

The A77 shook the world but by this time (c.1968) most British high-end deck-makers were in some financial difficulties facing a declining market and at the same time as dipping their toes in 1" and 2" territory, financially crippling most. The biggest disadvantage to the Srs 7 in the professional market was, surely, the lack of 10-1/2" spools. Their Super 7 came too late while the brilliant Logic 7 of 1974 only survived thanks to Neal-Ferrograph... by when it as too late!

[Radio Wrangler]

Britain has had a history if industries which never pushed towards the future. Motorbikes are always cited as the example, but tape recorders are just as good.

There comes a point in a successful company with a successful product when someone has an idea for something beyond what they make, and they're told to shut up about it... management don't want something that will kill off their golden goose. Of course, once something becomes possible, then anyone could do it, and if the firm doesn't cannibalise their own product, then someone else will do it for them. Sadly too many firms had leaders who couldn't work out that one way they still made money, and the other they didn't.

Almost a century ago a German general described the British army as "Lions led by donkeys"

David

[wd40addict]

On sound quality: I used to own both a Ferrograph 632 and a Revox G36. The Ferrograph did sound slightly better, but the G36 was so much nicer to use that it was the one I kept and it will play 10.5 NAB spools..

Comparing the Wearite Ferros to the A77 is a little unfair as the latter is a more modern design.

[brenellic2000]

David forgets that most British tape-deck (motor-cycle and car) makers in the 1960s/early-1970s, were still in the hands of their founding fathers (our family business is almost 50 years old) so there was always an inherent, natural tendency to know own's market and step carefully outside of it to protect one's lifetime investment (and pension!).

The problems come near the founding fathers' retirement when fresh blood comes in (new MDs, new financial investors... new ownership) with bright new ideas - yet most companies once in new hands don't survive long and are soon asset stripped and their valuable trade name applied to bought-in products... as we have all seen in the short-lived post-war audio industry! Ferrograph was starved of investment by its new owners. That's "business", unfortunately!

[AC/HL]

An all too familiar tale in many industries, but the question posed here is how good they were (well maintained, presumably).

[Radio Wrangler]

They were VERY good for their time. They were well made and performed well. Maybe the Brenell had a slight edge on performance. The G36 was a rare exotic that most people didn't know about.

For anyone wanting a tape recorder of that era, Ferrographs are available at reasonable prices. For anyone wanting a better recorder of that era, consider a Revox G or else a console machine. Anyone not tied to that era, or not tied to valves could look for an A77 or B77 and get better still performance and also good build quality. Anyone just wanting to record sound will find a PC and a good sound card very affordable and hard to beat.

David

[brenellic2000]

Oddly the last 'Ferrograph' open reel deck, the '77' from AVM-Ferrograph (ex Neal-Ferrograph) used a modified Revox PR99 circa 1985 as a low-speed logger! Just thought I'd mention it!

[Nuvistor]

Thought you may like this, from Americanradiohistory, "Tape Recorder " magazine Feb 1968.

[TIMTAPE]

Originally Posted by MeanDumpsterCat

I do think a lot of studios are using the tape recorders as a fad. I have not seen any vinyl come out recently that was done entirely the old fashioned way (Multitrack to master tape). Recording analogue sound to a digital format and using the digital file to cut the record is kind of pointless. If you're going to record an album using analogue technology then just cut the vinyl from the master tape.

There are still people today who record to tape and cut the vinyl with no digital stage. But it's not well known that for many years when vinyl was still big, a digital stage was inserted in the otherwise analog chain because it made the disc cutting stage easier and better. The digital stage was of course transparent.

I owned a Series 5 Ferro for 30 years, did a lot of repair and modification work on it, and still have the live recordings made on it. I offloaded it about 10 years ago only because I had since acquired other later machines - Revox, Nagra - which were better in almost every way. I'd only have an old Ferro now for sentimental, not practical, reasons.

Tim

[Phil G4SPZ]

Until quite recently, I owned two mono Ferrographs, a 631 and a 633. When a stereo Revox A77 and a Philips N4418 arrived, the Ferrographs had to go. They are lovely machines but, with my limited space, they were just too big and heavy, they can only be operated horizontally and they won't take 10" NAB reels. Apart from that, they're great!

[avocollector]

I used an old ferrograph I own recently to convert a friends old family tapes into cd's for him to play (fed the ferrograph output via a guitar cable into a recording deck with a HDD and cd burner). It worked very well and I was surprised at how good the quality was for 50+ year old tapes.

[Phil G4SPZ]

Originally Posted by avocollector

...I was surprised at how good the quality was for 50+ year old tapes.

Don't be surprised - despite various urban myths and rumours, magnetic tape generally survives for decades without any deterioration in the quality of the recordings, unless damaged by poor storage conditions. The oldest tape I have transcribed, perfectly successfully, dated from 1955. Magnetic tape will probably out-last CD copies, unless the CDs are of special 'archive' quality.

[Ted Kendall]

Agreed, basic quality is frequently surprisingly well preserved, assuming the tape base and binder are still sound. The major problem, particularly with the earlier low-coercivity tapes, is print-through. This can sometimes be diminished by fast-winding the tape back and forth a few times, but otherwise has to be lived with or removed with various software tools. True, there is a method involving a low current through the erase head, but for Heaven's sake don't try this at home!

I remember trying to work from an early EMI tape where the first note of one song was preceded by nine distinct pre-echoes, gradually becoming louder. Fortunately, the metal parts from the wax cut at the same time were available, and sounded better into the bargain.

[dseymo1]

It's not uncommon to hear print-through from the studio tapes at the beginning of older records, so even careful storage doesn't always prevent it. I believe that pre-recorded cassettes were made using a sort of deliberate print-through, but I don't know about open reel recordings.

[Ted Kendall]

Audio tapes have always been high-speed copied, apart from the first EMI open reels. Contact printing was developed for videotape, but this was confined to professional use - commercial videocassettes were duplicated in real time on banks of standard machines.