Tascam Porta 03 running at turbo speed?

This should be a great machine. In can be read in a forum how good it sounds.


No EQ, bass treble etc like high end amplifiers.


This may be one explanation for its good sound quality, simple signal path, fewer components between source and end product.


How about running it at high speed?


The transport looks very nice. Push buttons operate mechanically. This is an advantage if the motor is supplied by a higher voltage to get higher tape speed without breaking the mechanism! At your own risk. It seems the power connector supplies to the motor before the regulator for the other circuits. So if one is very very careful with little modification the machine could be able to run at very fast speeds.


Then playback and recording characteristics would have to be changed or realigned which means even less hiss.


The 4 separate output from the head are balanced! Like moving coil microphones!


And there is a small connector that disconnects them all.



If 2 pairs are made by connecting for each pair 4 wires to make 2 wires, one could make a good approximation of 2 track cassette. 2 tracks covering most of the width of the tape.


Would it make a great mastering deck?


How would the heads sound with Pleiades electron tube battery preamplifiers. Input transformers could be connected to the heads as is done on EMI BTR2, Ferrograph series 6 and of course moving coil microphones.


Post emphasis would be needed to cut treble. Would 70μs be a suitable time constant for stopping cutting high frequencies?


How about recording with electron tubes at 7.5 ips.


7.5 ips on cassette should correspond to 15 to 30ips on 1/4 reel to reel since the air gap specification on cassette heads is just 2 microns. So at 7.5 ips cassette should go beyond 20KHz without treble boost needed tricks. If a time constant of 35μs is used on cassette?! Just like reel to reel at 15ips. The fact that 2 tracks are used for one channel and the 2 other tracks for the other channel (when using a standard Tascam 4 tack head) may be beneficial for low frequencies because of adjacent leak of tracks carying the same information. The other 2 tracks for the other channel are further away as seen in the Philips reference.


References:


http://www.extra.research.philips.com/hera/people/aarts/_Philips%20Bound%20Archive/PTechReview/PTechReview-31-1970-077.pdf


http://www.mrltapes.com/equaliz.html