For me it is just that FWIW you might like the stock player as is and then consider the head amp.
Contemplating Reel to Reel
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For me it is just that FWIW you might like the stock player as is and then consider the head amp.
Just a quick update on the transformer upgrade for our 440's. I received the daughterboard for mounting the Lundahl transformer and I think this upgrade will work. The board is small,so it is within the parameters to be possible to mount on the existing board.
As soon as I receive the Blackgate N series caps,off I go to see Fred my tech. I get excited thinking about doing things that other's wouldn't do or think of. Although two Ampex engineers who I have talked to and given insights,"say go for it".
As soon as I receive the Blackgate N series caps,off I go to see Fred my tech. I get excited thinking about doing things that other's wouldn't do or think of. Although two Ampex engineers who I have talked to and given insights,"say go for it".
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Hi Steve,
As Roger has indicated I could get another stock card set for the machine for $80. Without exception in the past regardless of component that I have had parts upgraded I have found that the component sounds better, more natural, more life like... than the stock unit. I expect that the Ampex project will result in no less.
Additionally, after Fred has completed the work on the playback and the record cards and installed the upgraded caps, resistors, and expected transformers Roger will audition the newly upgraded cards and compare their performance to his stock Ampex and RTZ cards. I know that it will take time for the new parts to burn in, but... and Black Gates are known for having a notoriously long time to burn in.
After Roger has listened to the newly upgraded cards they will be sent on to Wayne for the completion of the build of the Ampex deck.
Rich
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Roger, Rich and Steve
The thing you guys talking about is just like the same thing I like to make sure, I posted in Tape Project forum asking about partly modify vs brand new repro preamp which will be better, so far no answer yet, it is not easy to do ABX unless there are switchable form same head to both but still count on parts' quality must be similar, but one guesting, the original circuit design for EQ and frequency respond adjustment for the machine can be more match to the head and mechanism, and those market made preamps are for all kind of transports and the design of adjustment can not as detail as the original , I think I have to find out by myself in future
cheers tony ma
The thing you guys talking about is just like the same thing I like to make sure, I posted in Tape Project forum asking about partly modify vs brand new repro preamp which will be better, so far no answer yet, it is not easy to do ABX unless there are switchable form same head to both but still count on parts' quality must be similar, but one guesting, the original circuit design for EQ and frequency respond adjustment for the machine can be more match to the head and mechanism, and those market made preamps are for all kind of transports and the design of adjustment can not as detail as the original , I think I have to find out by myself in future
cheers tony ma
Hi Tony,
You might find this interesting.
http://www.rtzaudio.com/content/archive/documents/ReproOwnersManual-Rev-D.pdf
I thought that I would upload some photos of some things that I have now received for the Ampex project. The first photo is of the 6 expensive N series Black Gate caps (no longer available, out of production, and very difficult to find, and as a result 4 X what they used to cost) in the orange and the 4 Sanyo Aluminum Caps in Blue (they may also be out of production, but I am not sure). The orange Black Gates are some of the best and best sounding caps to have ever been available. The 10 caps in the photo plus 16 additional less expensive Black Gates (Roger has these already) and 54 Resistors that are on their way to Roger will be installed on the playback and record cards for the Ampex project machine.
The next photo is of a Staco Variac 3PN1010 variable transformer to be used to adjust the voltage of the Ampex machine because it is one of the fastest rewind machines to have been made; by varying the voltage I can slow the rewind of the Ampex down and help to protect the tape.
Unfortunately the Variac 3PN1010 is not in quite the cosmetic condition that I had thought based upon the photos on eBay (you could not see the cosmetic imperfections in the eBay photos). The seller assures me that my Variac is the unit that was listed for the sale item. But, even my preview photos of the unit taken with my point and shoot Canon G10 show the cosmetic imperfections that can be seen in the above photo. The seller has indicated that the Variac was only used a few times, and it does appear to operate properly.
The last photo is of a pair of extremely nice Ampex take-up reels that I also purchased on eBay.
Rich
The next photo is of a Staco Variac 3PN1010 variable transformer to be used to adjust the voltage of the Ampex machine because it is one of the fastest rewind machines to have been made; by varying the voltage I can slow the rewind of the Ampex down and help to protect the tape.
Unfortunately the Variac 3PN1010 is not in quite the cosmetic condition that I had thought based upon the photos on eBay (you could not see the cosmetic imperfections in the eBay photos). The seller assures me that my Variac is the unit that was listed for the sale item. But, even my preview photos of the unit taken with my point and shoot Canon G10 show the cosmetic imperfections that can be seen in the above photo. The seller has indicated that the Variac was only used a few times, and it does appear to operate properly.
The last photo is of a pair of extremely nice Ampex take-up reels that I also purchased on eBay.
Rich
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Rich,
Those "N" series blackgates are like gold. The sanyo's are out of production also. We will be replacing all the tantalum caps on the boards as their sonic qualities leave a lot to be desired. The original carbon composite resistors are out of spec as they drift with age, they will be replaced with top quality metal film types and some of those are out of production also. All these parts are low ESR and the "N" blackgates are ultra low noise.
I took a look at the resistor order and I did spec in several Shinkoh resistors in critical places. The Shinkoh are famous for their signature sound and are sadly out of production due to increased labor costs.
"Shinkoh tantalum film resistors from Japan, tinned copper axial leads. Considered by many D.I.Y. experimenters to be the best resistor for audio, offering unparalleled resolving power and transparency with warmth and musicality. NO metal film or foil type resistor even comes close." Angela Instruments
Those "N" series blackgates are like gold. The sanyo's are out of production also. We will be replacing all the tantalum caps on the boards as their sonic qualities leave a lot to be desired. The original carbon composite resistors are out of spec as they drift with age, they will be replaced with top quality metal film types and some of those are out of production also. All these parts are low ESR and the "N" blackgates are ultra low noise.
I took a look at the resistor order and I did spec in several Shinkoh resistors in critical places. The Shinkoh are famous for their signature sound and are sadly out of production due to increased labor costs.
"Shinkoh tantalum film resistors from Japan, tinned copper axial leads. Considered by many D.I.Y. experimenters to be the best resistor for audio, offering unparalleled resolving power and transparency with warmth and musicality. NO metal film or foil type resistor even comes close." Angela Instruments
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Hi Roger
"N" series like gold but "WKZ" series even you have money no way to get, none on Ebay ! I have some not much, still not enough for future projects and "NXH" also gone, ENNA's cerafine same as "WKZ" just cheaper a bit but also gone, in use for coupling on sound path Solen made in France is good choice for the purpose better than tantalum caps with posts, paper in oil with copper foil is the best ( may be silver foil is number 1 choice but too expensive, and I have not try one yet because in that money level I rather take silver transformer) but do not have big capacitance only with less than 1 mu. Mallory made in USA in their computer grade also good for power supply is better than Sanyo but the price is not cheap, using caps to fine tune sound like a kind of art by personal favor, to know more their characters is by experience in modification
happy modification
tony ma
"N" series like gold but "WKZ" series even you have money no way to get, none on Ebay ! I have some not much, still not enough for future projects and "NXH" also gone, ENNA's cerafine same as "WKZ" just cheaper a bit but also gone, in use for coupling on sound path Solen made in France is good choice for the purpose better than tantalum caps with posts, paper in oil with copper foil is the best ( may be silver foil is number 1 choice but too expensive, and I have not try one yet because in that money level I rather take silver transformer) but do not have big capacitance only with less than 1 mu. Mallory made in USA in their computer grade also good for power supply is better than Sanyo but the price is not cheap, using caps to fine tune sound like a kind of art by personal favor, to know more their characters is by experience in modification
happy modification
tony ma
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After reading about demagnetizing the tape heads in our threads here on the forum, I am now somewhat concerned about where I will place the new Ampex project machine in relation to my right big OMA New Yorker speaker:
I plan to slide the First Watt M2 Power amp (amp on the top of the double rack to the left) to the right toward the other stack of amps, move the modified Lavry DA10 DAC elsewhere and place the Ampex to the left of the top surface of the rack system. The Ampex should be about 3' away from the magnet for the high/mid frequency compression horn and probably about the same distance from the woofer magnets.
Should I have any concerns regarding feedback or magnetic problems for both the Ampex Tape heads and the proximity of the speaker to the tapes that will run through the machine by placing the Ampex as I have suggested?
Rich
I plan to slide the First Watt M2 Power amp (amp on the top of the double rack to the left) to the right toward the other stack of amps, move the modified Lavry DA10 DAC elsewhere and place the Ampex to the left of the top surface of the rack system. The Ampex should be about 3' away from the magnet for the high/mid frequency compression horn and probably about the same distance from the woofer magnets.
Should I have any concerns regarding feedback or magnetic problems for both the Ampex Tape heads and the proximity of the speaker to the tapes that will run through the machine by placing the Ampex as I have suggested?
Rich
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when I first got my Studer it was positioned on a rack immediately to the left of my right speaker and I had no problems
I got into RtR just after a loan of a very humble Tascam lease I had from a friend here feeding a BH head amp, that setup is really not top notched and knocked out my analog LP source. Saying that I plan to keep both the LP and CD sources due to software availability. As Steve mentioned, there is no way-back once you hear a tape in ones system.
Tony,
Have you tried the Ampohm paper-in-oil caps? They are made in the UK, and from the few reports (among secretive manufacturers - oops!) are supposed to be very good. I don't have the time for a project at the moment to try, but they look very promising!!
http://www.audiocap.co.uk/ampohm-068uf-680nf-paper-in-oil-copper-foil-audio-capacitor-402-p.asp
Gary
Tony,
Have you tried the Ampohm paper-in-oil caps? They are made in the UK, and from the few reports (among secretive manufacturers - oops!) are supposed to be very good. I don't have the time for a project at the moment to try, but they look very promising!!
http://www.audiocap.co.uk/ampohm-068uf-680nf-paper-in-oil-copper-foil-audio-capacitor-402-p.asp
Gary
I second you advice on Ampohm - and one can get them directly from Farnell Components:
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp?N=500006+1000041&Ntk=gensearch_001&Ntt=ampohm&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial
There is however one disadvantage with this type of capacitors if you want to replace existing capacitors - their large size.
Another capacitor brand I consider highly is Mundorf from Germany. They are used by several high-end manufacturers such as Magico, Sonus Faber and now VTL in their series III products and have decent prices.
http://www.mundorf.com/english/
All I can say to you Rich is this. I've made some bad choices in the past few years trying to outfit the studio. I've chased after several deals but ended up regretting it because for the money i put into it trying to get it up and running in tip top shape, I could have bought a new or fairly new one in the first place.
Tony,
Have you tried the Ampohm paper-in-oil caps? They are made in the UK, and from the few reports (among secretive manufacturers - oops!) are supposed to be very good. I don't have the time for a project at the moment to try, but they look very promising!!
http://www.audiocap.co.uk/ampohm-068uf-680nf-paper-in-oil-copper-foil-audio-capacitor-402-p.asp
Gary
Hi Gary and Microstrip
I only tried Audio Note and Jensen ( actually Jensen made for Audio Note UK), size big is no problem ,put it outside, even with longer wire still have benefit of sound, the only problem is belong to the limited capacitance, for coupling to low resistance load like 600 to 2 K ohm needs 30 to 50 mf, the super cap (in price) belong to metal foil and Teflon, especially in silver (Kondo Audio Note) but my favor belong to transformer coupling ( I don't build xover for speaker so cap for me is only in coupling or de-coupling)
tony ma
Hi Bruce,
We are doing some upgrade replacement on caps and resistors for the Ampex R2R and Wayne Gunn of Audio Village in Palm Springs who is a well known Ampex specialist is building the machine and making sure everything is working properly to spec, aligned, etc. Wayne knows what features that we want for the machine and he is supplying the parts from his vast inventory. He built Roger's machine (with the same configuration except his is a console); he will use the best looking cosmetic parts that he has (from about 40 machines worth of parts) and the machine which is an Ampex 440C/B hybrid will have an Ampex 440C 7.5-15 ips ac capstan, which will be rebuilt as needed, guaranteed and he will be making the modifications for the machine to run with Ampex 440B electronics.
Rich
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Tony,
Have you tried the Ampohm paper-in-oil caps? They are made in the UK, and from the few reports (among secretive manufacturers - oops!) are supposed to be very good. I don't have the time for a project at the moment to try, but they look very promising!!
http://www.audiocap.co.uk/ampohm-068uf-680nf-paper-in-oil-copper-foil-audio-capacitor-402-p.asp
Gary
Hi Gary I put a few of these in my Ampex 350's. They are very highly rated, IIRC Tony Gee gave them a 12, but I thought they were no longer available.
The Mundorf's are excellant caps. I have used the supremes with excellant results. My 350's have mostly Mundorfs of many different types.
Roger - used the Mundorf Au/Ag oil caps in the King Cello preamp and they sounded far better than the stock (I think Sidereal?) caps. In fact, better in every way! And they're not horrendously expensive. I thought about the Duelands but their price was prohibitive
Roger - used the Mundorf Au/Ag oil caps in the King Cello preamp and they sounded far better than the stock (I think Sidereal?) caps. In fact, better in every way! And they're not horrendously expensive. I thought about the Duelands but their price was prohibitive
Myles,
The Mundorfs especially the supremes are excellent caps for the money. The gold and silver are some of the best film caps made, I used a couple of these in my Ampex 350's,in critical spots. I talked to my tech today and hopefully I'll have them to listen to by the EOM.
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