My wife has ordered that for every new piece of equipment I get, one old one has to go. Over the past year I bought two R2R machines (two Ampex ATR-102 pro monsters). So I am selling my older R2R machines. One has already gone, and I am selling the other - a great machine for someone who wants to get started in tape, without a big investment.
This is an Otari MX5050 BIII, dating from the 1990's. I bought it in 2009 from a person who had bought the contents of an FM station that had closed. The machine was one of four R2R they had and was the newest and least used - in really fine shape. I had it checked over by my local tech, and had the heads relapped by JCF and a new pinch roller installed by Athan Corporation. It works great and plays 2 track and 4 track tapes in both IEC (e.g for Tape Project and most other current tapes) and NAB equalization at both 15ips and 7.5ips. It records 2 track, but not 4 track. Both record and playback electronics are fine and it sounds very good. I did not have the electronics bypassed, since within a year I bought a tricked out Bottlehead Technics play only machine with a BH external prepro. So most of the time it has been used to rewind tape and do some dubbing. This is actually more of a pro machine, since it has only balanced inputs and outputs. However, I used it with cables to connect balanced to RCA and it works fine that way.
Price - $800. I will include a sturdy road case with it and also a couple of super nice 15ips 2 track tapes (PM me for details). Prefer local pick up in the SF Bay Area, but will ship if needed.
Larry
This is an Otari MX5050 BIII, dating from the 1990's. I bought it in 2009 from a person who had bought the contents of an FM station that had closed. The machine was one of four R2R they had and was the newest and least used - in really fine shape. I had it checked over by my local tech, and had the heads relapped by JCF and a new pinch roller installed by Athan Corporation. It works great and plays 2 track and 4 track tapes in both IEC (e.g for Tape Project and most other current tapes) and NAB equalization at both 15ips and 7.5ips. It records 2 track, but not 4 track. Both record and playback electronics are fine and it sounds very good. I did not have the electronics bypassed, since within a year I bought a tricked out Bottlehead Technics play only machine with a BH external prepro. So most of the time it has been used to rewind tape and do some dubbing. This is actually more of a pro machine, since it has only balanced inputs and outputs. However, I used it with cables to connect balanced to RCA and it works fine that way.
Price - $800. I will include a sturdy road case with it and also a couple of super nice 15ips 2 track tapes (PM me for details). Prefer local pick up in the SF Bay Area, but will ship if needed.
Larry
Last edited:
