Which tape recorder

This is subjective.


The idea is using a top quality moving cool mic(s) feeding a Pleiades V6 booster mic amp feeding a top quality analog recorder.


Just thoughts. Everything could be wrong.


This is on how the Pleiades choice will be made.


It is about the use of a reel to reel analog tape recorder for live and or portable recording of the best possibly quality to listener's brain.


It is not about about re-recording a CD to a tape ie fitting something small, to something big. (A commercial CD music production has a typical dynamic range of say 20dB, easy to verify by just looking at a VU meter). On the contrary it is about fitting something tremendous such as close miked live, even softly played, music to something small such as a reproduction chain which may even be a digital path such an audio file to YouTube to listener. See Hamm reference.


Cassette is dismissed as the speed is low. Unless someone achieves safe running of the motor at high speed and simplify rec and play EQ such as in reel to reel at high speed, increase bias frequency, use with special heads the full width of the cassette in one pass which is slightly wider than half of 1/4in. Use discrete active amplifying devices with minimum feedback or component count.


What is the Pleiades choice?


Since reel to reel was seen in a dream standing at the highest place of a room, being taken care of by a woman, all cassette is abandoned and attention is placed on reel to reel.


Ferrograph series 6, Uher 4200, Nagra IV, Sony TC-510-2. Which ones?


All should be brilliant but a choice must be made.


The brilliant Sony will possibly not be, as it should consume a lot of power, (batteries for 2 hours?). If also has many transistors from mic to recording head. 9 transistors?
https://elektrotanya.com/cgi-bin/download2.cgi?fid=179010&file=sony_tc-510-2.pdf


The brilliant Nagra. Heavy. Almost everybody seems to want one. So the answer is possibly no.


Ferrograph series 6 definitely in for Pleiades experiments. Built like a battle ship. Reminds the great EMI BTR or Studer C37 at a smaller size. All electron tube. One module for playback amps with input transformer matching from head to grid. One module for recording amps. One module for psu and push pull bias oscillator with ECC82. Just 3 electron tube stages from mic to tape. Just 3 from tape to out. Brilliant. 3 motors. Very heavy. It was seen in a dream today liking very much the Basf SM 911.


And now to Uher 4200.
Lightweight, only 3Kg?
Just 3 transistors from mic in to tape.
Low power consumption.
Brilliant simplicity.
Simplicity of knobs.
Nice servo controls.
Germans invented the magnetophon.
Does have only what is crucial for a top quality recording.
7.5ips 1/4in 2 track stereo. No monitoring. Nice servo motor. It should be possible to easily play with varispeed by adjusting an internal trimmer.
Belts can be changed very quickly.
It may be called repairman's paradise.
But they do not seem to break much either.
Caution is on the rubber of the flywheel. A very cheap one was bought from eBay. It had an external part which was rusty. Nobody wanted it. Although advertised as not working it did work, one channel only, and the tape speed is very constant, perhaps moisture kept the rubber soft?


The reel to reel seen on the dream did not look like a known reel to reel recorder. It may have looked like a table Sony model that could also take batteries.


But a choice has to be made. The Uher sounds nice (so far playback on one channel was tried). And it does not have complexity and things sticking out all over the place.


The Pleiadss lab has a Ferrograph series 6, a Uher 4200 and a Sears Silvertone 5240. They sound great and another Uher 4200 is being expected. The Sears Silvertone csosbke of 7.5ips is heavy. It is electron tube. The fast forward, rewind switching arrangement is brilliant. There is motor, running noise. As if someone might have twisted deliberately the flywheel rubber band to make it shorter?! It is quarter track. The sound is remembered to be very nice. 2 Sonotone ceramic mics were used to record a piano. Spaced omnis, one on the left and the other on the right of the piano resting in cushioned chairs. The loudspeakers were placed were the mic were, just below, on the floor. At (the single ended electron tube in class A) reproduction sounded as if the sound was coming from the piano itself.


Reference:


Tubes vs transistors (vs op amplifiers), Is there an audible difference? - Russel O. Hamm - JAES