United Home Audio Phase 12 OPS-DC Reel To Reel deck goes full DC power

rockitman

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Sep 20, 2011
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I have had to keep this major upgrade secret since I did the upgrade to my deck some time ago. Now the cat's out of the bag. To be featured at RMAF.

UHA WILL DEBUT THE NEW
"OPS-DC"
TAPE DECK AT RMAF 2016!

The Phase12-OPS-DC tape deck is an all new version of the award winning Phase12 tape deck. However with a huge difference, this new deck operates 100% on DC current!

The outboard power supply (OPS) converts AC from the wall via two huge toroidal power transformers one for the tape transport, lights, VU meters, ect, and one solely for the UHA head amps. This separates the power supplies and most importantly it allows one huge overbuilt power transformer and bank of DC conversion devices to feed only the UHA tape head amps. This offers the purest power delivery possible to the UHA head amps. Special banks of overbuilt AC to DC conversion devices were installed in the OPS to power every part of the deck.

The result was that everything in the tape deck runs on DC power, the tape transport, lights, VU meters, even the Phase12 head amps all run on DC power! There is no AC (or any power transformer) inside the tape deck at all!

UHA will have a production version of the new Phase12-OPS-DC deck in room 9022 at RMAF!

People have asked...
Why do you use this particular Tascam deck? Certainly a factor was that parts can still be bought from Tascam, the transport is reliable and speed stable, but always in mind was the fact that the deck has all DC motors. The goal and subsequent planning was to run the deck 100% on DC power, this project spanned years of development. All this finally led to the conversion and extensive rewiring of all internal electronics and mechanical transport mechanisms to operate solely on DC power! The use of DC power in R2R playback (and also recording) is quite audible and removes issues with EMI and other AC power related distortions from the equation.
This new DC deck takes the award winning UHA R2R tape playback (and recording) to another level, you won't want to miss it!
 
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Bruce B

WBF Founding Member, Pro Audio Production Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Awesome Christian. Love how Greg keeps trying to get the last 1% out of his decks!
 

rockitman

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Sep 20, 2011
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Awesome Christian. Love how Greg keeps trying to get the last 1% out of his decks!

when I first got my deck it sounded great with the outboard AC power supply (OPS). What I like about UHA, you can upgrade the deck as new developments come out...like internal deck housing damping metal tape, the scrape flutter roller, variable hi-eq controls and now full DC power in the deck. The drop in the noise floor due to DC is clearly audible. Less noise, more of the music's low level detail can be heard.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
when I first got my deck it sounded great with the outboard AC power supply (OPS). What I like about UHA, you can upgrade the deck as new developments come out...like internal deck housing damping metal tape, the scrape flutter roller, variable hi-eq controls and now full DC power in the deck. The drop in the noise floor due to DC is clearly audible. Less noise, more of the music's low level detail can be heard.

Thats fantastic Christian. Hat's off to Greg on that one
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
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What's the price of a fully loaded, all DC UHA?
 

Ron Resnick

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Jan 24, 2015
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That seems like a significant improvement, Christian!
 

panreels

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Aug 28, 2016
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I’m confused, I thought that’s what the old outboard power supply (OPS) was suppose to do, so what did UHA do different? The Tascam BR-20 was an already a DC tape deck other than the AC to the power supply the Record/Repro amps, motors and logic controls were DC,
 

rockitman

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Sep 20, 2011
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I’m confused, I thought that’s what the old outboard power supply (OPS) was suppose to do, so what did UHA do different? The Tascam BR-20 was an already a DC tape deck other than the AC to the power supply the Record/Repro amps, motors and logic controls were DC,

The original OPS removed the Power Supply electronics out and away from the custom repro amp in the unit (a good thing). It was AC and AC went into the deck. No longer with OPS-DC. Only DC power leaving the OPS unit. The spooling motors have always been DC powered with the stock Tascam units...now DC powers the repro amp, capstan motor.
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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FYI I saw and heard this new deck during an evening tape session at RMAF. Here are some pictures:



The outboard supply:


Selection of some of the tapes:


Musical experience was not great but the Tascam deck is very nice looking.
 

panreels

Member
Aug 28, 2016
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The original OPS removed the Power Supply electronics out and away from the custom repro amp in the unit (a good thing). It was AC and AC went into the deck. No longer with OPS-DC. Only DC power leaving the OPS unit. The spooling motors have always been DC powered with the stock Tascam units...now DC powers the repro amp, capstan motor.

Are you saying that the old OPS supplied only AC to the decks power supply and the decks power supply supplied DC to the repro amp, motors and logic controls, that makes no sense, the BR-20 always had DC motors including the capstan motor, all electronic and motors were DC, so I still don’t understand UHA did with the new OPS, , I always thought the original OPS had two transformer and power supplies one for repro amp and one for the motors and controls and removed the decks original power supply.
 
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rockitman

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Sep 20, 2011
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Are you saying that the old OPS supplied only AC to the decks power supply and the decks power supply supplied DC to the repro amp, motors and logic controls, that makes no sense, the BR-20 always had DC motors including the capstan motor, all electronic and motors were DC, so I still don’t understand UHA did with the new OPS, , I always thought the original OPS had two transformer and power supplies one for repro amp and one for the motors and controls and removed the decks oridinal power supply.

Greg Beron would be a better person to describe the specifics of the DC implementation.
 

panreels

Member
Aug 28, 2016
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I went to UHA web site to see if I could understand what change Greg made, and this is what I figured out and if I’m wrong Greg would you please set me striate, the original OPS had two banks of toroidal transformer one supplied AC for the power supply in the deck that ran the motors and controls, the other bank had a DC power supply that supplied voltage to the repro head amps, the new OPS is basically the same except Greg removed the power supply from the deck and put it in the new OPS, so now we now have a dual bank DC power supply and there will be no AC in the tape deck, the original BR-20 deck had all of the motors, control logic and record/repro head amps run on DC, so is this expansive over kill, that’s for you to decide, I hope this makes sense. Pete
 

c1ferrari

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May 15, 2010
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FYI I saw and heard this new deck during an evening tape session at RMAF. Here are some pictures:
The outboard supply:
Selection of some of the tapes:
Musical experience was not great but the Tascam deck is very nice looking.
Amir, Would you know if this deck had a wired-out repro head? If so, would you know the outboard electronics? Thanks.
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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Amir, Would you know if this deck had a wired-out repro head? If so, would you know the outboard electronics? Thanks.
Hi Sam. I am pretty sure it is using the outboard pre-amp. Here is a zoomed image of the headstack:



As you see, he has taken off the wires from the record head which makes me think it is modified for outboard electronics.

He said the retail was $20,000. Does it not come without board pre-amp for that price?

That said, I don't see a picture of the outboard pre-amp: http://audiosciencereview.com/forum...urist-audio-atma-sphere-music-tri-planar.884/
 

c1ferrari

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
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Thanks, Amir. I was just wondering about the MP-1. IIRC, it can be modified to be used for tape electronics.
 

rockitman

Member Sponsor
Sep 20, 2011
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I went to UHA web site to see if I could understand what change Greg made, and this is what I figured out and if I’m wrong Greg would you please set me striate, the original OPS had two banks of toroidal transformer one supplied AC for the power supply in the deck that ran the motors and controls, the other bank had a DC power supply that supplied voltage to the repro head amps, the new OPS is basically the same except Greg removed the power supply from the deck and put it in the new OPS, so now we now have a dual bank DC power supply and there will be no AC in the tape deck, the original BR-20 deck had all of the motors, control logic and record/repro head amps run on DC, so is this expansive over kill, that’s for you to decide, I hope this makes sense. Pete

That sounds about right and how I understand it. Overkill ? When was that ever a factor in hi end audio reproduction ? Every little bit matters when you hit the SOTA ceiling.
 

Greg Beron / UHA

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Greg Beron would be a better person to describe the specifics of the DC implementation.

Actually...

The stock Tascam deck was used after realizing that I could not afford to warranty a big studio deck, nor did I need so many functions and complexities to simply play back new-gen master tape copies at 15ips.
This was discussed previously many years ago by the guys at The Tape Project on their forum as well.

The Tascam deck uses all DC motors so I always had in mind to run the entire deck on DC power emanating from an outboard power supply (OPS).

TWO large toroidal power transformers were sourced and custom configured to go into the OPS.

1.) The first one to run the new head amps inside the deck, the head amps were put there to allow for the shortest runs of wire from tape heads to head amps possible.
This was to avoid noise picked up with a longer set of wires, something we all know about.

2.) The second one to run everything else, motors, lights, transport, VU meters and so forth.

3.) There are banks of DC conversion devices inside the OPS that convert the AC from the wall to DC current and the only power traveling to the deck is DC.

There are no power transformers or any dc conversion devices inside the deck at all, everything resides in the OPS.
There is shielded Synergistic Research power cable in the umbilical between the deck and the OPS, also the power cables were routed to avoid creating any noise.
The OPS has two sheets of 3/4" MDF bolted to the top and bottom of the OPS for damping and rigidity, the power transformers sit in a sorbothane bed to reduce vibration.
The OPS also has a Furutech power conditioner on the 15a IEC inlet and a Synergistic Research RED fuse.


Because the head amps are in the deck I assume some believe they are in some way inferior to the design of having an outboard head amp.
That would not be true, the benefit of having a 2" run of specially shielded wire from the tape head to the head amp is a significant upgrade in design.
The head amps in the deck are specially designed and every aspect of their construction has been analyzed over the last 8 years.
There was ample room inside the deck for the head amps regardless of size.

As far as the head amps:
Special board materials, hyper pure copper and dielectric have been chosen because of their sonic benefits.
Wide board runs, silver solder points, special grounding runs, no capacitors in the output at all, like D'Agostino is using.
Resistors of the highest quality with crazy tolerances, each gain stages has their own power filtering systems.
And on and on....

I have done so many shows for years attempting to get the tape movement going and have had thousands of people listen to and some of them buy UHA decks over the years.
Is every room at every show, or every system I've shown with been perfect and sounded perfect, how could it???
However one thing you can see on my web site, there is something that is consistent from shows... awards.

Probably the most coveted award was in the 40th anniversary edition of The Absolute Sound, their "Top 100 Most Influential Audio products of the last 40 years".
There were only 100 products listed and UHA was honored to received one.

Here is an excerpt of a review done by one of our buddies here at WBF from the Newport 2016, UHA After Hours Events.


MONO & STEREO
THE Show Report Newport 2016
By Ron Resnick

MBL

I returned to the MBL room on Thursday night to listen to music on reel-to-reel tape for three hours. I had an absolutely amazing time as Greg Beron played a wide variety of rock and pop music. We were treated, among other things, to a fascinating set of different takes of a Dave Mason/Jimi Hendrix recording, and we listened to the re-creation of a live Loggins and Messina concert.

The sound was holographic and incredibly dynamic and driving and "live"-sounding, as MBL systems always are, but this year I found the sound to be more natural and not fatiguing. Also the 101E Mk. II sounds much more powerful in the bass than a single 12" woofer has any right to sound. One of the providers of the tapes exclaimed it was the best-sounding system on which he has ever heard his tapes played. That surely is very high praise!

I have seen Greg demonstrate his UHA tape decks many times now, and I have never seen a single hiccup or glitch of any kind with any of his decks. The UHA machines not only sound amazing, they are solid workhorses!

Thanks to Jeremy and Greg for filling the evenings of many attendees with many hours of musical pleasure!
 

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