Reel to Reel Tape Recorders www.reeltoreeltech.com

"Scrunchie" is alive! Revox B77 MKI brought in for repair by a local client. Recapped, scrunchie replaced, heads tweaked ever so slightly, and new large trimpots replaced. The motherboard had to come out to clean all the switch contacts and the controls, but that's pretty standard in a B77.
Flat to about 19Khz at 3 3/4, and 22Khz at 7 1/2. Very impressive for a B77, and this one seems to be a hair flatter than most B77s that come through here.
On test run now, heading back to the client on the weekend.

I present to you.. a hair scrunchie as a Revox B77 belt. 🤣

The ATR tape report. You'll need to use your imagination, as no pix were allowed, which I expected.
ATR Tape is located in York PA, a rural area with great diners (there was a ton of them in the area), and very close to Amish country. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Philadelphia where we were staying.
Bette Spitz, the owner met us (my fiance and I, along with Walt Wimer and his friend Bernie), and we got the royal tour, from raw chemicals to the finished product.
As you can imagine, the precision needed to make great quality tape is critical throughout the manufacturing process. From chemical vats, to heaters needed to keep said chemicals at the optimum temperature, everything is controlled.
Pretty much everything involved is US made, and there are two coating machines, one for the oxide, and one for the back coating.
Everything is spooled onto large reels, which are then slit according to what's needed, from 1/4 to 2" tape. The slurry has a very limited life span, so whatever is made needs to be used quickly.
The plant wasn't running tape when we were there, but it was really apparent that the quality, and quality control was there.
From what we were told, orders are fast and furious, coming into ATR from end users and studios alike.
Bette and the staff were very accommodating, thanks for that, Bette!
We also visited Dan at Myriad Magnetic. Dan worked at ATR Service, maintaining the Ampex decks, and then moved into downtown Philly to open his own location. Dan works on studio and pro decks only, and had a ton in. We ended up chatting for a couple of hours, so I took less pictures than normal, but I did grab some shots of some unusual and rare decks, and versions of decks that I've never seen before.
The only sad part was two Studer A820s that came out of a flooded studio, but such is life. I didn't snag a picture of a Nagra Model T, that I'd never seen before either.
Dan is super knowledgeable, and does a lot of service around Washington DC as well. Highly recommended for studio work in the area! (and a nice guy to boot... and young, so he'll be doing this for some time.!)

A week off, and success on the bench already!
This is the third ATR 102 that I've been working on, #1 is sold, and #2 still has some minor issues.
This one is already sold locally, I'm just running tape through it for another few reels. 7 1/2 and 15 IPS, flat to about 22Khz at 7 1/2, and 24Khz at 15 IPS.
Will take a look at the transport for deck #4 today, but will get back to #2 tomorrow.

While I will do a writeup on my trip, I wanted to throw out there (if it isn't completely obvious already!) that there's a massive demand for board level techs that repair not only RTR decks, but receivers, turntables, and anything to do with home and pro audio repairs.
I just found out that there is apparently no one now that repairs Uher machines, the Nagra/Stellavox type decks. Saul Mineroff (sp?) isn't doing them any more, so that leaves yet another void in the industry. I did about 4 a year up to October, with the last one shipping back to the client tomorrow.
I also got an email this morning about someone asking how feasible it is to get into RTR repair and rebuilding, and I responded positively.
So, if there's anyone out there of any age that considers them to be a competent board level tech, that isn't afraid of learning, and perhaps is dissatisfied with their full time job, consider getting into vintage audio repairs.
There's good money to be had, to me it's a ton of fun, (OK, I'm weird that way!) and if you have basic tools and test equipment already, the leap into RTRs isn't terrible (although you do need MRL tapes, which aren't cheap).

I am back from my Pennsylvania trip! I will be answering emails today, but I'll put a short writeup about meeting Bette from ATR, and Dan from Myriad Magnetic in the next couple of days. Back to working on a bunch of decks as well."
Below is a shot of some of the decks that are sitting in Dan's excellent shop/service area. Most of these are in for servicing.

Left to right: Bernie, Bette from ATR, me and Walt Wimer. We all met at ATR today and got the grand tour. No pix, as everything is proprietary, but I’ll do.a write up when I get back.

I am on a mission. I will be away for the next week, with no internet access and limited phone access. I am going here. A full report will be issued upon my return on the 30th.
Stay tuned!. :D

earth.google.com

Nothing like seeing some sloppy work to keep your own in check.
A client brought in a reasonably nice Revox PR99 that 'had been recapped' by the seller. Sure enough, there were Nichion caps throughout, and all the trimpots had been changed out, but...
-no axial caps were used. Radial lead caps had leads spread out over boards, with no heatshrink over them, so I changed them all out to the proper axial caps.
-no glue was used to hold down the heavier caps, so I added that
-a number of caps weren't flush to the board, so I fixed that
-both calibration switches were broken, so I replaced them.
-the pinch roller was scraping on the plastic protective plate, so I found that the last guy put washers under the metal standoffs that hold the front panel in place. Not sure why, so I removed them, and now the pinch roller clears the plastic.
-no flux was cleaned off the board, and whatever this stuff is, it was a PITA to scrape off. Isopropyl wouldn't get rid of it, so I had to scrape it with a dental tool, then flush it out with alcohol.
-the frequency response wasn't bad, although each channel had a 3db boost at 20Khz, so I am toning that down, and bringing the record level up by 3db so the tape level matches the input level.
-roller bearing wasn't changed, so I'll swap that out as well.
-the motor run caps were changed, but I'm seeing electrical tape over the connections, so I'll need to investigate that as well.
Not sure what else I'll find, but that was a start.

Too far gone to sell, but it makes a great test chassis!
I inherited a bunch of ATR 102s a few years ago that were stored in a damp basement for 7 years. They came out of two juggernaut Vancouver radio stations, CFOX and CFMI (both still around) when they moved. My buddy was an engineer at CFMI, and loaded them onto a flatbed trailer.. and into his damp basement. For 7 years, until he sold them to me.
A couple of the decks weren't bad, but a couple like this one were awful. I was having some problems with the VU meters on a couple of decks, so I decided to pull apart the VU meter chassis out of one console, and it's now a test bed for these meter modules. Makes life so much easier to work on these.
You can see from the missing 0-3db red indication that they were exposed to UV light (not VU light!), and the right one is faded overall. Still, to test decks and audio cards with, both the meter tray and the meter modules work just fine.

 they always look better in pairs, don’t they?
Both of these still need some work, but it looks like the second transport is now fully functional. Onto the audio section tomorrow!

‘Twas a day of expensive decks in the shop. The owner of the A820 in for service also bought the Technics 1700. 😎

10,000 followers! I am humbled, thanks!

As a sign used to read at a local pub: No one comes here, we're too crowded'

:)

Ampex # 2 is ready to go. Fully recapped, nice powder coating on the front panel, 2 speed. May be sold locally already, I'll know tomorrow.

The second of three Technics 1520s, this one is being traded straight across for a Technics 1700 that I fully serviced earlier this year.
I'm running a new roll of ATR MDS-36 through the deck, with the frequency response to about 17Khz at 3 3/4, and to about 25Khz at 15 IPS.
The 1700 will be for sale once I give it a quick once-over on the weekend.

A few interesting things in this first generation Teac A3340 that was missing the lifter arms.
1) Teac had a couple of revisions of the playback PC board, when they went from one eq trimpot to two, one per speed in this version of deck. The 3340 schematic that I have on file did not match this version of deck, which had two trimpots. I finally found a second 3340 schematic that reflected the two trimpots.
2) Due to lack of use, several trimpots were erratic and/or open at one end, so I changed all that needed to be, to get proper levels under control.
3) These decks tend to drift a lot with regards to levels and eq/bias settings, and this one was no exception. Thing was, I couldn't get channel 4 to become lower in the top end, I had a big 12db spike at 20Khz, even at 7 1/2 IPS, which is really unusual for this deck.
I won't admit how much time I spent fighting the playback eq section, trying to get the top end under control.
After taking a break, I decided to use the MRL multi-frequency tape to check the playback response, and to compare all 4 channels to see where channel 4 was sitting at. To my surprise, the amplitudes at various frequencies were exactly where they should have been, indicating that the problem was actually in the record section.
Of course, since there were several bad trimpots in the playback section, I thought I'd missed one on channel 4.
I then found that I could not get a bias amplitude peak from the channel 4 trimmer caps, and then scoping the output of the bias board, the amplitude was way down for channel 4 only. After doing some more investigating, I found that a couple of wires had come unsoldered from the outside edge of the bias board. That happens when you flip down the channel 3/4 PC boards to access channels 1/2, and the wires catch on the edge of the chassis. They could have been ripped off long ago as well, who knows, as the last person in the deck took out the lifter assembly. A bad Teac design, I am now using wire ties to keep those select wires well away from the outside edge of the deck.
Of course, resoldering the two wires brought back the bias amplitude, and the frequency response ended up being super respectable, to 20Khz at 7 1/2 IPS, and to about 23Khz at 15.
Now to run the deck, and to get it back to the client next week.

THis little beast caused me grief this weekend and today. It's the bridge rectifier out of the power supply of the customer's Uher 4400 I posted about earlier. With an external supply, I had the deck running fine. Seems like the voltage has to be above 6.00 volts constantly, otherwise all sorts of weirdness happens in the audio as well as the motor under about 5.8 volts.
With the client's supply, sometimes the deck would work fine, other times it would motorboat (farting sounds out of the speaker, normally associated with weak filter caps, etc). Also, I'd measure the output of the power supply, and with the typical 300-500mA current draw in record or play mode, I'd see the voltage of the regulated supply fluctuate between 5.8 and about 6.8 volts.
I had two spare supplies here of my own. One worked great, and the second one did similar to what I described above. I kept thinking that there was a fault within the deck, but then came back to the power supply, realizing that my external power supply had the deck running fine for a couple of hours.
I checked EVERYTHING (or so I thought) in these fairly simple supplies. Pulled all transistors and diodes, including the 6 volt zener.
I finally realized.. what if the incoming voltage from the transformer/bridge rectifier was changing due to a bad bridge?
Sure enough, I just swapped in a new bridge rectifier, and all of a sudden I had a solid 7 volts of output, regardless of the load (there's a trimpot to adjust that).
I can literally count on 2 fingers the amount of times that I've had a bridge rectifier break down at random under load. The other time was a Digikey Vocalizer where I also had random DC voltages coming out of the power supply. That was about 15 years ago.
This kind of breakdown doesn't happen often, but tomorrow I'll attack my personal Uher supply, and will change that bridge, and I'm sure that will bring it back to life as well.

TEAC 3440 first generation. What’s wrong?

Strange things were afoot in this Uher 4400. Not my favorite decks to work on, but they are an interesting marvel of engineering. Like Technics and Revox, these all need recapping, as there are Frakos throughout.
This is a stereo 4400, 1/4 track deck, and is one of the later versions due to the larger VU meters, and electronic switching to get rid of the long slide switches that move the deck from play to record, etc.
Got the approval from the client to do a full service, from belts to caps. I got the deck running, but had a massive wow in playback mode, and FF and REW were anemic.
These later decks have a tension roller by the supply reel that moves back and forth, and it's connected to a brake band that stops the supply reel when tape tension is lost, as in going from play to stop mode. I realized that releasing the tension arm a bit more than the tape tension would, got rid of the wow, and the speed was perfect.
Looking underneath, I saw a very butchered tension spring, kinked and stretched. Luckily I had a spare parts deck to rob a spring from, and the deck went back to normal.
FInal thing to repair, is the client's power supply, that isn't quite giving the current output it's supposed to, but otherwise the deck is running fine.

A nice 4 channel multitrack ready to go! I'll take $1,300 US for it outside of Reverb.

https://reverb.com/item/85178056-tascam-34b-4-channel-multitrack-10-reel-to-reel-tape-deck-serviced

Send a message to learn more

A nice 4 channel multitrack ready to go! I'll take $1,300 US for it outside of Reverb.

Tascam 34B 4 channel multitrack 10" reel to reel tape deck. SERVICED! | Reverb We are one of the only facilities in the Pacific NorthWest that buys, sells and restores reel to reel tape decks. We have over 35 years experience working on these units, and have the tools and test equipment to properly align and bring these decks to life. We are reeltoreeltech dot com.We use MR...

I was asked via PM what I use on my test bench to work on tape decks with. A solid question, so I figured I'd post here.
I have three benches going, and once I clear my shop, it will go to 4 or maybe even 5 most likely. But right now, it's:
-electronics service bench.
-calibration/test run bench
-test run bench (also used by my part time guy, and once he retires in a year, he should be in 2-3 days a week, thus the need for at least once more test run bench.

I use the service bench the most. There's no specific tape deck test equipment there, just a dual trace 100Mhz scope, a Variac (rarely used for tape decks), a tone generator, small stereo system, a laptop as a music source, and two Fluke meters. A Metcal soldering station, and a Hakko 470 desoldering station (that's more handy than expected, I bought it used this year).
To troubleshoot and repair electronics and tape decks, that's really all I need. I rarely use two probes for the scope, with the exception of Ampex ATR 102 decks, where it's mandatory.

The calibration bench can do both amps and tape decks. A SoundTech 1700B is my amp analyzer, where I can measure power and distortion, and I have 250 watt 8 ohm load resistors hung via a piece of Redi-Rod above the bench. I just got the Huntron Tracker, which is handy for checking diodes and transistors in-circuit. I also have sundry other test equipment like an ESR tester and a full Sencore that I can use to fully check caps and do inductor/transformer ringing.
I have that Neutrik A-1 amp analyzer, but don't use it often.
Tape specific equipment is a Nakamichi T-100 tape analyzer that I use to set up the basics such as level. It's handy for measuring cassette deck speed, but I use a strobe tape and neon light for RTR decks.
The unit that measures frequency response is the Soundtech 1510A tape deck analyzer. It confirms the levels I set with my Nak, and does the frequency response plots.
I can use both the Nak or the Soundtech to measure wow and flutter, but in all seriousness, I prefer my ears. They are pretty fine tuned to a solid 1Khz tone, and flipping between tape and source, it's pretty easy to hear both wow and flutter. I do vary the frequency of the tones as well during test running.
There's also a 100Mhz dual trace scope connected either to the Soundtech amp analyzer to show the sine wave output of any amp, and I use it to check head phase when connected to the output of the Nak.
I have a semi decent stereo setup here, as everything gets put through an audio test as a last test. A Yamaha 40 watt stereo receiver, and Energy 22 speakers, along with a small pair of Mission speakers to listen to amps with.
The test run bench where intermittent decks go, and decks that I want to run for 10-12 hours before selling/returning them to a client (which is all of them), has a CD player, a small JVC amp and 2 pairs of Realistic Minimus 7 speakers. I don't use them for critical listening, but as a small set of speakers to monitor a deck with, they are great.