Topic: A80

the Studer arrived today!

what a gigantic beast.. its actually bigger than our washing machine.. big_smile

it's an A80R in some custom bbc rack, looks to be in really good shape and has only got 1600 hours on the clock! has connections for remotes, and all kinds of tape editing extra blocks on the machine, which makes me believe it's an ex editing machine perhaps from the news service or something.

first it needs to be cleaned, and then i have to change the power supply connector, as it's now a 2-prong neutrik power connector that i'm told are impossible to find..


pics will follow soon!

Re: A80

So awesome.  Congrats again!

Re: A80

rude66 wrote:

what a gigantic beast.. its actually bigger than our washing machine.. big_smile

And as heavy as your washing machine?

Re: A80

rude, do you have a picture of the connector? i work in a broadcast facility and we have tons of old weird connectors in the workshop, including loads for psus. might be able to source one smile

Re: A80

here is the cannon connector:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/connector.jpg

the other end goes on the mains cable..

Re: A80

ahhh the Cannon grounded power connector! I remember a Cerwin Vega amp for a 10KW PA having that connector..
best thing to do is to remove that shit, machine a little bit the hole and put a computer-like VDO connector.
at least this is what I did on the C-V.
a.

Re: A80

yeah, i just did.. i took the whole connector and its internal wiring out and just wired up a normal power cable. funny, in the manual it shows a normal square connector, but this has a round hole too.. i guess it was a factory mod for the bbc..

but the beast lives! motors run super smooth.. now time for some demagnetizing and alcohol for the heads..

Re: A80

enjoy your new toy big_smile I still have to bring over here the Akai GX-370D from my mom's place...

Re: A80

btw, what is the current situation about tapes? is there still somebody manufacturing them or do we have to dig various
places to find "new tapes still in cellophan" that date back to 1977?

Re: A80

you can still find ampex, quantigy and emtec NOS in some places. RMGi here in holland still makes brand new tapes, they took part of the old emtec/basf factory from germany and are making basically copies of the basf tapes, including the studio master 911. thats what i am using..

about to load up some tape here!

Re: A80

hehe I was on the RMGi site while you posted your message big_smile

good to know, are their tapes of good quality? and at which price do they come?

Re: A80

Re: A80

and some pics:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%201.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%2010.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%2025.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%2035.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%2036.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%2040.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%2041.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%2048.jpg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rude66/images/a80/Studer%20A80%2050.jpg

Re: A80

gotta love your cat passing through the bbc rack big_smile

15 (edited by Brian Chinetti 2009-11-27 09:38:18)

Re: A80

I see the cat already sees the potential of a new hiding place?
Looks good Rude!

rude66 wrote:

you can still find ampex, quantigy and emtec NOS in some places. RMGi here in holland still makes brand new tapes, they took part of the old emtec/basf factory from germany and are making basically copies of the basf tapes, including the studio master 911. thats what i am using..

about to load up some tape here!

Be very carefull with NOS (New Old Stock) tapes, especially on e-bay. They're often from and era where all(!) companies used a new binder which leaves you with sticky shed. They are most often NOS tapes because they came from thrown away batches. There's a list on a forum somewhere on the net that tries to keep up with serial numbers of good and bad NOS tapes, but I reckon you're better of not to bother and go for RMGI (or ATR Magnetics, but they don't do 1/4" tape and I don't know how their distribution goes in Europe).

Btw, I did notice that the rmgi binder is also so/so... Do you have some (dry) shed with rmgi tapes Rude?

Re: A80

yeah, the cats love it! big_smile

i heard these stories about NOS tape, but i bought some NOS either ampex or quantigy (can't remember which) from a guy i know in the UK and it was fine.
but i agree that its better to use new tape also i think if you get shedding you can probably get a new tape. i've had one or two where the heads get dirty a little quicker, but as i clean them before any recording anyway, its really not much of an issue for me. but its not nearly as bad as i had with some old tapes..

you have to come by one of these days and see it, brian!

Re: A80

I will drop by soon, for sure. It's long overdue anyway that we met outside of the shitholes we normally meet.

As for the rmgi shed, it is indeed not that bad but I noticed it sheds faster than the Quantigy tapes I used before. Not really alarming but my last master recording started to shed after three times of playback and I was stupid enough to not make a back-up... Oh well, my recorder is kinda fucked up anyway, I need to spend some time on it... Or be as god damn lucky as you and upgrade to something that's really worth all the hassle smile

18

Re: A80

rude, do you or will you use any denoising units or are they already built in (on those cards)? is there any compression unit built in?

great piece of gear.

Re: A80

You need a studer 169 next to it smile

i don't need the gear, the gear needs me 
http://www.mono-poly.nl/

Re: A80

mr chinetti, you have mail!

there is no noise or compression unit inside (at least i havent found it yet.. big_smile but it doesn't really need it.. if you send in the levels high enough at least. in the beginning when i was sending in low levels, then the tape hiss was very loud.

those studer 169's are too small for me.. big_smile i'd need at least a 24 channel version with 2 inputs per channel.. but i get your point..

Re: A80

http://www.studio-du-moulin.com/v2/images/stories/photocrontrolroom/studer-model-369-small.jpg

369 smile

i don't need the gear, the gear needs me 
http://www.mono-poly.nl/

Re: A80

you have an answer for everything, don't you? big_smile

but that's more like it!

Re: A80

yeah answers i do, not the cash.
But you can get 3 sony's for 600 euro wink

i don't need the gear, the gear needs me 
http://www.mono-poly.nl/

Re: A80

baz wrote:
rude66 wrote:

what a gigantic beast.. its actually bigger than our washing machine.. big_smile

And as heavy as your washing machine?

much heavier than washing machine!!!

http://www.syntheticarts-studio.com

Brain is CV controlled device!!!!!! so we all are analog sequenced machines!!!! " ROBOTS "

Re: A80

wreed erg wreed, what a machine

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.  ~Bertrand Russell