Part Two of Technics Mod

[Hxt1]

Man!!! It must be nice to have guys like Charlie close enough to come and visit you and personally work on your deck(s)!
I've been looking at those Technics decks for some time now,
I'd like to ultimately have 2 track 15ips and 4 track 7.5 ips playback on one machine!
WAF probably won't allow for 2 decks in the rack. But I think I have a solution.

 

[Fast/Forward]

Man!!! It must be nice to have guys like Charlie close enough to come and visit you and personally work on your deck(s)!
I've been looking at those Technics decks for some time now,
I'd like to ultimately have 2 track 15ips and 4 track 7.5 ips playback on one machine!
WAF probably won't allow for 2 decks in the rack. But I think I have a solution.

Dont't you think you may miss your wife? ;-)

 

[alexz]

Nortronics PB head

View attachment 2141 View attachment 2142


Charlie King was gracious enough to come over today and do part two of the mods to my Technics 1500. Charlie put a Pro Nortronics narrow gap head in the Technics headblock, aligned it and then checked FR. In addition, I opted to bypass the 2/4 track switch as really have no interest in 4 track tapes Again, less in the signal path!

Here are some pics of the deck now.

So far so good The new PB heads are far, far better than the stock heads. Better extension at both extremes and resolution. So far what I find shocking is the depth and tightness of the bass! Going to play them for a week and let them break in a little as Charlie suggested.

Part 3 will come in a month or so when replace the Mundorf with Dueland caps. Charlie will probably also take out the output cap - -as Mike L. suggested -- no cap is better than any cap.

Myles,
Could you please let me know what Nortronics head you are using and how in your opinion it performs competed to flux magnetics one.
Thank you,
Alex

 

[rockitman]

That Nortronics head in a technics is a game changer over stock. Love the sound of mine. Nice job. Have you done the tape path roller bearing upgrade from bottlehead ? Well worth it and better on your tapes.

 

[alexz]

Yes, I did path upgrade. Actually, I even posted in the bottlhead forum about it. This thing totally against laws of physics... How changes outside of the closed loop can have such impact ???
Anyways, I'm in mental phase of head upgrade (technics one, not mine) from remapped stock one. Here is the crossroad: flux magnetics or Nortronics ?
Thank you,
Alex

 

[MylesBAstor]

Yes, I did path upgrade. Actually, I even posted in the bottlhead forum about it. This thing totally against laws of physics... How changes outside of the closed loop can have such impact ???
Anyways, I'm in mental phase of head upgrade (technics one, not mine) from remapped stock one. Here is the crossroad: flux magnetics or Nortronics ?
Thank you,
Alex

Alex,

I've never compared the FM with the Nortronics. I know some others have heard the two heads. One thing one has to take into account is the head output and your tape preamplifier. I don't think (I could be wrong) that the FM is medium to low and makes matching to the electronics a consideration. Others like Charlie (Stellavox) or Rich (U47) could give you a better opinion. If you use something like Charlies King/Cello, there shouldn't be any problem with head output.

 

[alexz]

Thank you, Myles. I,m using Bottlehead Eros, planty of gain with the stock heads, should be no problems with the FM head as well.
Any recommendations are very welcome.
Thank you,
Alex