Tube Tape Head Pre Amp Almost Complete (Thank Goodness!)

Hello my reel to reel friends,

The tech who has been working on my tape head pre amp thinks he will have completed it by the end of this month. The reason it has taken months was, early on I let him know I was in no hurry and wanted to give him as much time as he needed to work out the circuit and related details. Now that he is almost done I had at least one concern .... Where should the trim pots be placed?

The tech (Mr. Amina) sent me an email stating he was finalizing the pre amp and had placed the trim pots on the front of the pre amp. He thought that was a mistake. The pre amp will have a separate power supply and will be encased in wood. I suggested he might want to place the trip pots on the top which is metal. Then, it dawned on my that it might be important to be able to adjust the pots while the music is playing which would mean this would be made easier if the trimmers were placed on the front of the pre amp. I thought this would be preferred because some tape-o-philes might want to place the pre amp on a middle shelf in the audio system. Mr. Amina may decide to sell this pre amp on his website to other tape lovers later. Is so, placement of the trim pots may be important.

Most here on this forum have used or been exposed to one of the outstanding tape head pre amps available. Tell me if it's important where the trimmers are placed and if it's important to be able to make adjustments while listening to a tape? Thanks all and I would appreciate all suggestion and your experience.

jazzbo

Dear Ki,

Thank you so much. Actually, I just got word back from the tech noting he is having problems with poor interaction with the EQ filters due to impedance mismatch. He also notes that the playback head on my Tascam has very low output which caused some hiss problems. So, until he can work out these problems, and I don't know how much time that will take, I will be back in touch when I have better news to report. Ki, I will send you a personal email. Thanks all.

jazzbo

Hello all,

Tony Ma thanks for chiming in sir. I just sent Ki a PM explaining in more detail what the excellent tech is experiencing as he works to complete my tape head preamp. Once he began adding circuits for the high freq trimmer pots was when the problems started. He said the sound was not good at all. He said he lost much of the highs and the low end was diminished in a major way. The tech has already designed what he considers an excellent phono tube pre amp and wants to base my tape head pre amp on that design and circuit.

Having had some TV repair training many years ago, I understand that designing and building these kinds of components is not that easy. This is why he has been working at this for about 5 months now. Of course he also is one of the best audio/tape repair experts in the Atlanta Georgia area so has lots of audio repairs to complete. So, he works at my pre amp as he has the time. That's perfectly OK with me. I am not pushing him at all and am willing to give him all the time he needs to develop a great sounding product.

Tony it's great to hear that you also have had problems with developing these kinds of electronic circuits. That tells me it's not so easy as some of us might imagine. I am more impressed that it is a time consuming effort that may or may not turn out right the first or second time. Thanks again.

jazzbo