AK (hot rodded) Ampex ATR-102's w/MR-70 Preamps replaces my Studers.

[Mike Lavigne]

3 years ago my local friend Andrew Kosobutsky (AK) finally convinced me to allow him to bring one of his his Ampex ATR-102's over to my room to directly compare to my Studer A-820 with King Cello repro. even at that point in his ATR-102 development/optimization process, it easily bettered my Studer/King Cello combo. Andrew had been working on Ampex ATR-102's for awhile, investigating, upgrading, tweaking, and had talked to me about switching to his massaged Ampex's. but i loved my Studers, the elegance, the beauty, the ease of tape handling, and really was not wanting to change. but he did plant the seed. since then Andrew has continue to work on his growing collection of ATR-102's and has also been working on assembling MR-70 preamps and refining the ATR-102/MR-70 combination. he has supplied ATR-102's and MR-70's to a few friends of mine and they are thrilled. and as good as it was 3 years ago, it's better now.

last September i agreed to buy 2 rebuilt decks from him; one ATR-102 with 1/4" and 1/2" heads and guides, and another ATR-102 with 1/2" heads optimized for the MR-70 preamps. i would need to sell my 2 Studer A-820's and King Cello repro pre to fund this move. both these 'AK' ATR decks have outboard power supplies, and are heavily modded. the non MR-70 deck can record, the MR-70 deck is not set up to record.

you might see ATR-102's out there. you might see MR-70 preamps out there. but don't confuse any stock aged ATR or stock aged MR-70 pre with these. i asked Andrew to write some info details about his work on these decks and pre's. he was wary to share some of his hard learned tricks. but i did get him to list this;

AK upgrade work for the ATR-102 tape recorder:
This is a hi-end audiophile (AK) approach to make whole system (electronically and mechanically) to reproduce tape records as close as possible to original recording.

Rebuild and critical upgrades includes:
-Power Supply – solution implemented to achieve a high-quality remote power source for all electronic parts and circuits.
-Common and Audio grounding upgrade.
-Top hi-end quality of power cable, interconnect wires, sockets and plugs.
-Internal Electronic Cards and Audio In/Out System upgrade - substantially improved audio circuitry and mechanical controls.
-Capstan, motors, tape guides full revision and bearings upgrade.
-Numerous tests and analysis to optimize the deck performance to achieve 0db deviation…within +/- 0.25 (highs, mids), +/-0.5db (lows).
-Full cosmetic restoration.
-Flux Magnetics heads set.

As an option, the ATR-102 can be wired for reproduction combined with Ampex MR-70 Preamps.
-Flux Magnetics playback head used per the MR-70 spec.
-Electronic circuitry upgrades and modifications for optimal performance and cohesive synergy with the ATR-102 deck.
-Top hi-end quality of power cable, interconnect wires, sockets and plugs.
-Full cosmetic renovation.
-Adjusted and calibrated for +/- 0.25dB flat frequency response.

30 ips, 'AK' ATR-102



15 ips, 'AK' ATR-102/MR-70

 

[Mike Lavigne]

 

[Mike Lavigne]

picture 1---the two external power supplies with attached 'AK' power cords. notice the silver on/off switch on top of the power supply. the normal one near the heads is disabled.
picture 2---other side of the power supply.
picture 3---close up of the left side 1/2" MR-70 ATR-102
picture 4---custom umbilical to power supply.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

 

[Mike Lavigne]

how do they sound?

i mostly listened to tape all last week. both the 'AK' ATR/MR-70 and the hotrod stock 'AK' ATR-102. i'm in lust. i was in Dallas this past weekend Thursday to Sunday. i've not yet pulled out my vinyl to put it to the test. any perceptions are provisional. but the sky is the limit. i'm going to slow walk this part and not get ahead of myself.

it could be the finest reproduced music source anywhere. but i have work to do.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Congratulations, Mike, on embarking upon this new project! I look forward to learning about how far the ATR-102/MR70 combination can raise the ceiling on tape playback!

 

[andromedaaudio]

Fantastic mike congratulations great thread.

 

[bonzo75]

Foxbat has 5 Ampex machines including the ATR 102, and also other decks including Studers. I think he loves his ATR 102 and Ampex 350 the most. Some of his comments here

added a 3rd Studer A-820 Mk2 with both 1/4" and 1/2" heads, guides and hubs

a little question, why is nobody using an Ampex 351 or a Telefunken M5. this is how the best recordings of classical music have been made. excellent tube head amps are also on board Ampex 351 Telefunken M 5c Telefunken sounds much better imo . That would be a candidate for me , portable...

www.whatsbestforum.com

Telefunken M15 vs Studer A80RC

I have done that... I recorded the same material on six different high caliber decks, including these two. These two finished last in the group. And that was the opinion of several different listeners, on more than one playback system. Amazingly, people assigned similar sounding...

www.whatsbestforum.com

added a 3rd Studer A-820 Mk2 with both 1/4" and 1/2" heads, guides and hubs

been there, done that. at one point (2011) I owned 7 tape decks. in addition to the one's in that picture, at that point I owned a pristine Technics RS-1500, a really fine Nagra IV-S, and an Ampex 351. prior I had sold my de'Paravincini modified Technics RS-1700. so I learned that in some things...

www.whatsbestforum.com

 

[dminches]

Great stuff Mike. I am always most jealous of optimized tape playback.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Foxbat has 5 Ampex machines including the ATR 102, and also other decks including Studers. I think he loves his ATR 102 and Ampex 350 the most. Some of his comments here

added a 3rd Studer A-820 Mk2 with both 1/4" and 1/2" heads, guides and hubs

a little question, why is nobody using an Ampex 351 or a Telefunken M5. this is how the best recordings of classical music have been made. excellent tube head amps are also on board Ampex 351 Telefunken M 5c Telefunken sounds much better imo . That would be a candidate for me , portable...

www.whatsbestforum.com

Telefunken M15 vs Studer A80RC

I have done that... I recorded the same material on six different high caliber decks, including these two. These two finished last in the group. And that was the opinion of several different listeners, on more than one playback system. Amazingly, people assigned similar sounding...

www.whatsbestforum.com

added a 3rd Studer A-820 Mk2 with both 1/4" and 1/2" heads, guides and hubs

been there, done that. at one point (2011) I owned 7 tape decks. in addition to the one's in that picture, at that point I owned a pristine Technics RS-1500, a really fine Nagra IV-S, and an Ampex 351. prior I had sold my de'Paravincini modified Technics RS-1700. so I learned that in some things...

www.whatsbestforum.com

'AK' has an original MR-70 transport, the Ampex 351, he will be doing his magic with. of course, it will be 'improved' in his own way as are the 'AK' ATR-102's like mine. not sure he will do as much painstaking work on every system as with the 102 efforts. we will see.

can't argue with Foxbat.....

back in 2007-2011 i did own a refurbished (by Precision Motor Works) 'stock' Ampex ATR-102 which when compared directly to my stock Studer A-820 at the time i did very slightly prefer. with the King Cello i then preferred the Studer by a larger margin, and with it's more user friendly interfaces especially switching EQ's i ended up mostly using the Studers. later i added the 'Studer' Trafoless output cards to (all three of my) the Studer(s) which possibly might have boosted the 'stock' Studer performance beyond the stock ATR-102.....although by that time i had sold my ATR.

 

[dcathro]

Wow, they look just gorgeous! Congratulations!

Do they sound identical, or is there some personality to the two machines?

 

[bonzo75]

'AK' has an original MR-70 transport, the Ampex 351, he will be doing his magic with. of course, it will be 'improved' in his own way as are the 'AK' ATR-102's like mine. not sure he will do as much painstaking work on every system as with the 102 efforts. we will see.

can't argue with Foxbat.....

back in 2007-2011 i did own a refurbished (by Precision Motor Works) 'stock' Ampex ATR-102 which when compared directly to my stock Studer A-820 at the time i did very slightly prefer. with the King Cello i then preferred the Studer by a larger margin, and with it's more user friendly interfaces especially switching EQ's i ended up mostly using the Studers. later i added the 'Studer' Trafoless output cards to (all three of my) the Studer(s) which possibly might have boosted the 'stock' Studer performance beyond the stock ATR-102.....although by that time i had sold my ATR.

So you are just starting another cycle. wonder where your analog goes next.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Maybe one of Mik's hot rodded Rockport Sirius?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Wow, they look just gorgeous! Congratulations!

thank you!

Do they sound identical, or is there some personality to the two machines?

mechanically they are the same. 'AK' (my friend Andrew Kosobutsky) did the same upgrades to each you can read about in the original post. but the MR-70 deck has a different version of the Flux Magnetic heads to conform to the MR-70 spec, and then of course it has the outboard MR-70 preamps....compared to tweaked original internal solid state output circuits in the non MR-70 deck.

i'm still getting my head around the sonics, so it's early to try and define the differences exactly; but maybe for now think about the stock 'AK' as a supercharged version of what my solid state Studer/King Cello was doing, whereas the MR-70 lives in a 'Nuvistor Tube' world beyond in terms of ease and musical rightness. the MR-70's preamps were the best of the best in the late 60's......and this is a bettered version of that. trying not to get into any sort of relative descriptions yet.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

So you are just starting another cycle. wonder where your analog goes next.

just living in the moment.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Maybe one of Mik's hot rodded Rockport Sirius?

i know what some have paid for those, and i could never even think about it. one of his i use to own. selling it, maybe the biggest gear mistake i've made......although not sure i had the resources or single-mindedness to overcome the maintenance challenges that Mik did to get it to where it is now.

 

[Tom B.]

As a fellow MR-70 owner, I'll be enthusiastically following this thread to read about your ultimate opinion on the Nuvistor-based electronics. Despite a fair number of excellent tape machines and PB electronics having passed through my shop/audio room - the MR-70s have pretty much set a high mark (pic shows alignment of machines before recent shootout).

Much of what you'll read about the MR-70's development and production numbers is purely lore, but the performance the Ampex engineers were after was absolutely achieved.

-Tom

 

[bonzo75]

As a fellow MR-70 owner, I'll be enthusiastically following this thread to read about your ultimate opinion on the Nuvistor-based electronics. Despite a fair number of excellent tape machines and PB electronics having passed through my shop/audio room - the MR-70s have pretty much set a high mark (pic shows alignment of machines before recent shootout).

Much of what you'll read about the MR-70's development and production numbers is purely lore, but the performance the Ampex engineers were after was absolutely achieved.

-Tom


View attachment 103834

Wow tape through Martin Logans. Great system

 

[Tom B.]

Wow tape through Martin Logans. Great system

Martin Logans - Atma Sphere...and...more MR-70s. So yes - very familiar with their sonic characteristics. Anxious to hear what Mike reports back about his A.K. built machines.

Tom

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Martin Logans - Atma Sphere...and...more MR-70s. So yes - very familiar with their sonic characteristics. Anxious to hear what Mike reports back about his A.K. built machines.

Tom

hi Tom,

blown away by your Ampex collection. Bravo!!! well done Sir!

are some of those Ampex 300/350-2's or 300/350-3's? or are they all MR-70's?

i don't know the visuals well enough to tell. i did briefly own an original 350-2 in travel cases but traded it for other gear years ago.