My friend´s new toy!

[flez007]

great sound! idle mechanism...

 

[RogerD]

Ampex 400 which the transport was one of a kind. The electronics are similar to the 350 type, Have fun with it and good listening.

 

[mep]

Rog-I was wondering where you have been.

 

[RogerD]

Rog-I was wondering where you have been.

Hi Mark,

Been busy with a project(s).

 

[flez007]

Ampex 400 which the transport was one of a kind. The electronics are similar to the 350 type, Have fun with it and good listening.

It's not mine, belongs to one of my audio-buddies down here, it is already tweaked to play thru an external taoe head preamp (a BH Repro in this case) we all liked it a tad better than a pristine ATC RTR he also has.

 

[Tom B.]

Ampex 400 which the transport was one of a kind. The electronics are similar to the 350 type, Have fun with it and good listening.

400? Nah....it's a 300-2, likely one of the later versions. Could well have been converted from a 1/2" machine, due to the two unused 1/2" idler holes adjacent to the idler roller. As a playback rig I give that 9 in coolness......

Tom

 

[flez007]

400? Nah....it's a 300-2, likely one of the later versions. Could well have been converted from a 1/2" machine, due to the two unused 1/2" idler holes adjacent to the idler roller. As a playback rig I give that 9 in coolness......

Tom

It also sounds pretty well Tom, we had the chance to compare it with an ATC and eventhough the later had a more "complete sound" delivering more information from both extremes at the audioband, the Ampex yielded a tad better timing and palpable midrange textures.

 

[Tom B.]

The 300 has a fairly long tape path, no scrape idler in the head assy (as stock), and of course the rubber-tire capstan drive...which was probably quite good when new but can be a roadblock on older machines. It seems your friend has addressed some of these issues, can you go into more detail? What head is he feeding the repro with?

Tom

 

[xcortes]

Ampex 300

I don't come much to this forum so I was surprised, while taking a quick look, to see my Ampex 300.

The machine was purchased NOS (yep, NOS) and the fine guys at "the history of recorded sound" serviced and set it up. They are into vinyl cutting lathes restoring and do know their business. We installed Flux Magnetics extended repro heads. Both 1/2 tr and 1/4 tr. Noisier (mechanically) than my Spitz ATR102 but it does sound nice. A little bit more body to the sound. Idlers are idlers.

It looks nice. It'll come to my office to live side by side with a Charles modified Nagra iv-s (with extra 1/4 track head and heads wired out), a Bottlehead repro, a custom Bottlehead WE437A headphone amp and a pair of Sony MDR-R10s.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I don't come much to this forum so I was surprised, while taking a quick look, to see my Ampex 300.

The machine was purchased NOS (yep, NOS) and the fine guys at "the history of recorded sound" serviced and set it up. They are into vinyl cutting lathes restoring and do know their business. We installed Flux Magnetics extended repro heads. Both 1/2 tr and 1/4 tr. Noisier (mechanically) than my Spitz ATR102 but it does sound nice. A little bit more body to the sound. Idlers are idlers.

It looks nice. It'll come to my office to live side by side with a Charles modified Nagra iv-s (with extra 1/4 track head and heads wired out), a Bottlehead repro, a custom Bottlehead WE437A headphone amp and a pair of Sony MDR-R10s.

That sounds like a truckload of gear!