Hello!
Just wanted to say hi and thanks to all the forum members for all the helpful posts here. I'm hooked and I have not had this much fun in audio for many many years. Special thanks to Charlie King and Rich Brown - both have really helpful and very patient with my questions.
I have known Charlie for some years - having met up at audio shows and I have thought about getting into tape for a while now. What slowed me down was the same thing that most guys run into - a perceived lack of source material. Although I really like Dan and wanted to support the Tape Project the idea of having a new source just to spin those handful of tapes (even as good as they are) was not that attractive. Then at RMAF Dave Slagle introduced me to Nick Doshi ( http://www.doshiaudio.com/ ) and later that day I dropped by his room. Very nice sound and a really nice guy. Then he started up a Basie live reel and that was it. It was an audio moment and that combined with me starting to see there was actually a fair bit of music around on tape I was hooked. Charlie's 2 track tape list is wonderful and great for seeing what is around. I wish 10 years back I had got smart and dove in instead of spending and embarrassing amount of money on an SACD front end......
On getting back home I mentioned how excited I was about tape to a local friend and he promptly shows up a few days later with a Teac A6300 deck in his arms for me. Bit of a nice surprise for sure! At that point I did not know even about 4 track vs 2 track. The fellow he bought it from also included a couple reels and with some fiddling to un-cease a few bits inside it came to life. Sonically it was not so exciting yet - mostly due to the only tape I had here being a 3-3/4 IPS of some pop tunes recorded from cd's or vinyl. I grabbed a bunch of 7-1/2 IPS 4 track tapes from e-bay - pretty much any I could find to get here quickly. I grew up in the 60's and 70's so it is actually a fun subset of music to pick from. First it is not stuff I tend to have a lot of here and second much of it brings back memories or tapes I recall my dad spinning back then like Herb Alpert and many others. To top it off as long as I avoided the 'collectibles' and rock titles they were dirt cheap too.
About the time I ordered these I called Charlie to get his advice on decks and he had a Technics 1500 around that he kindly offered to pack up and send. Even before calling I had leaned enough to know that it was a 2 track higher speed machine that I'd need. It was just too tempting to get rolling that easy so I got that on the way along with the direct head output to his King / Cello 'tape stage'. I think he also had installed a 'new Nortronics head' but I am not sure of the details. I had feared shipping a heavy deck like that and originally planned on getting a local deck I could drive to scoop but he packed it great and it arrived just fine. Once it was here and powered up the fun really started. Spinning some 2 tracks along with a few master dubs I have stumbled into I am in heaven.
I can't really do much of a review in particular of how the King / Cello compares to stock or other options but the combo of the deck with the stage and the tapes is so far beyond any source I have had it is just nuts. I have been manufacturing audio stuff and doing OEM design for some time and get to play with some decent gear (some of it many times more expensive than this set of parts) but nothing is even close. Like many manufacturers I had gotten kinda out of the habit of listening just for fun - spending so much time listening for sonic testing alone zaps the fun out of it. Now every day I try and plan when I can slot in some listening and it has been ages since I was that excited about listening to music. The tapes just sound natural and the low end (the sense of the original acoustic space) just seems to extend down forever. Drums in particular are startlingly real.
Also although I am new to ebay I am getting the hang of it. Lots of tapes on the way now and a handful ( well - more like a big armful ) of Tape Project tapes are also on order.
Charlie mentioned the new heads had a higher output than typical and although I don't know what typical would be there is a lot of gain in the head/tape stage combo. He suggests 50db gain mode usually but even set to 40db there is lots of gain with my passive pre-amped systems. I look forward to trying it out as a phono stage too - that should be fun. The unit is the 'Basic' unit and so I will likely dive in and play with caps as has been suggested in some threads here.
Next up aside from gathering tapes is getting down to a tape club meeting. I am in Vancouver and Rich has kindly invited me down a few times to some Seattle based get togethers. One of these days soon it'll work out. Years back I heard Mike Lavigne's system and it is still the finest system I have ever heard and particularly the most well rounded - it play'ed everything well. That was with the Kharma's and before he moved and set up the Man Cave (Charlies apt description). Seems some of the get togethers involve some time in the cave and that would be great. Always look forward to seeing Mike at RMAF and I use similar drivers to those used in his new speakers here in a speaker I made so it would be fun to see how much better they sound down there - I am sure the Evolutions are miles ahead of the crazy creation I built here....... .
On a final note if anyone on the west coast of BC is interested in hearing some tape they are welcome to drop by or if it works out maybe I can scoop the gear up and drop by your place.
Thansk!
John Chapman
www.bentaudio.com
BTW - curiosity question. I had been following this tape on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260723333355&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
Couple of my fav artists to be sure and I thought I would take a stab at it. I was shocked how high it went price wise and curious if anyone knows why that might be? Particularly rare or sonically spectacular?
Just wanted to say hi and thanks to all the forum members for all the helpful posts here. I'm hooked and I have not had this much fun in audio for many many years. Special thanks to Charlie King and Rich Brown - both have really helpful and very patient with my questions.
I have known Charlie for some years - having met up at audio shows and I have thought about getting into tape for a while now. What slowed me down was the same thing that most guys run into - a perceived lack of source material. Although I really like Dan and wanted to support the Tape Project the idea of having a new source just to spin those handful of tapes (even as good as they are) was not that attractive. Then at RMAF Dave Slagle introduced me to Nick Doshi ( http://www.doshiaudio.com/ ) and later that day I dropped by his room. Very nice sound and a really nice guy. Then he started up a Basie live reel and that was it. It was an audio moment and that combined with me starting to see there was actually a fair bit of music around on tape I was hooked. Charlie's 2 track tape list is wonderful and great for seeing what is around. I wish 10 years back I had got smart and dove in instead of spending and embarrassing amount of money on an SACD front end......
On getting back home I mentioned how excited I was about tape to a local friend and he promptly shows up a few days later with a Teac A6300 deck in his arms for me. Bit of a nice surprise for sure! At that point I did not know even about 4 track vs 2 track. The fellow he bought it from also included a couple reels and with some fiddling to un-cease a few bits inside it came to life. Sonically it was not so exciting yet - mostly due to the only tape I had here being a 3-3/4 IPS of some pop tunes recorded from cd's or vinyl. I grabbed a bunch of 7-1/2 IPS 4 track tapes from e-bay - pretty much any I could find to get here quickly. I grew up in the 60's and 70's so it is actually a fun subset of music to pick from. First it is not stuff I tend to have a lot of here and second much of it brings back memories or tapes I recall my dad spinning back then like Herb Alpert and many others. To top it off as long as I avoided the 'collectibles' and rock titles they were dirt cheap too.
About the time I ordered these I called Charlie to get his advice on decks and he had a Technics 1500 around that he kindly offered to pack up and send. Even before calling I had leaned enough to know that it was a 2 track higher speed machine that I'd need. It was just too tempting to get rolling that easy so I got that on the way along with the direct head output to his King / Cello 'tape stage'. I think he also had installed a 'new Nortronics head' but I am not sure of the details. I had feared shipping a heavy deck like that and originally planned on getting a local deck I could drive to scoop but he packed it great and it arrived just fine. Once it was here and powered up the fun really started. Spinning some 2 tracks along with a few master dubs I have stumbled into I am in heaven.
I can't really do much of a review in particular of how the King / Cello compares to stock or other options but the combo of the deck with the stage and the tapes is so far beyond any source I have had it is just nuts. I have been manufacturing audio stuff and doing OEM design for some time and get to play with some decent gear (some of it many times more expensive than this set of parts) but nothing is even close. Like many manufacturers I had gotten kinda out of the habit of listening just for fun - spending so much time listening for sonic testing alone zaps the fun out of it. Now every day I try and plan when I can slot in some listening and it has been ages since I was that excited about listening to music. The tapes just sound natural and the low end (the sense of the original acoustic space) just seems to extend down forever. Drums in particular are startlingly real.
Also although I am new to ebay I am getting the hang of it. Lots of tapes on the way now and a handful ( well - more like a big armful ) of Tape Project tapes are also on order.
Charlie mentioned the new heads had a higher output than typical and although I don't know what typical would be there is a lot of gain in the head/tape stage combo. He suggests 50db gain mode usually but even set to 40db there is lots of gain with my passive pre-amped systems. I look forward to trying it out as a phono stage too - that should be fun. The unit is the 'Basic' unit and so I will likely dive in and play with caps as has been suggested in some threads here.
Next up aside from gathering tapes is getting down to a tape club meeting. I am in Vancouver and Rich has kindly invited me down a few times to some Seattle based get togethers. One of these days soon it'll work out. Years back I heard Mike Lavigne's system and it is still the finest system I have ever heard and particularly the most well rounded - it play'ed everything well. That was with the Kharma's and before he moved and set up the Man Cave (Charlies apt description). Seems some of the get togethers involve some time in the cave and that would be great. Always look forward to seeing Mike at RMAF and I use similar drivers to those used in his new speakers here in a speaker I made so it would be fun to see how much better they sound down there - I am sure the Evolutions are miles ahead of the crazy creation I built here....... .
On a final note if anyone on the west coast of BC is interested in hearing some tape they are welcome to drop by or if it works out maybe I can scoop the gear up and drop by your place.
Thansk!
John Chapman
www.bentaudio.com
BTW - curiosity question. I had been following this tape on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260723333355&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
Couple of my fav artists to be sure and I thought I would take a stab at it. I was shocked how high it went price wise and curious if anyone knows why that might be? Particularly rare or sonically spectacular?
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