Hi Aramis. No sorry we took them down. too many trolls. youtube is a nightmare. sorry.

Chris do you still have this video with John Panos?? I have been trying to watch it again but it’s been deleted from YouTube. I used to watch it all the time and would love to see it again.

Hey Chris,

Regarding the PT-6, I think you want to use something akin to the ancient brown-oxide low-bias tapes of that era. Ampex/Quantegy 632 or 642 might do the trick. I think a high output tape of the late-analog era would have problems with bias and erasure on a 1950s tape deck. And maybe back-coated won’t work as well with that transport?

I’m not sure who’s expert on those machines. Maybe ask John French at JRF Magnetic. There is a lot of knowledge about Ampex, Studer and a few other tape machine brands. But Magnecorder was never ubiquitous enough, and got out of the tape machine business so long ago. So I’m not sure how much living knowledge exists on those machines. It’s too bad Bert Whyte is long dead, he was the man on those machines.

— Tom Fine

Thanks man! Got some really great ones coming up this fall, keep watching and pls spread em around! best, c.

Got it; that makes sense. Def gonna hunt for one of these… thanks Tom – hey BTW – do you have any sense of which model of 1/4″ tape (7″ reel, if that matters…) would give the best quality with my ancient magnecord PT6 (it’s a 7.5 ips model). I don’t wanna overspend but I honestly have no idea… i used to use 456 and 499 back in the day with my 1/2″ machine, but that was am 80’s tascam… Any thoughts pls LMK! thanks – c.

Hi Chris:

See page 6 of the manual:
http://tascam.com/content/downloads/products/325/130_manual.pdf
They actually did a nice automation thing with the monitoring, which can be overridden at any time with the front panel button. When it’s in rec-pause, it automatically monitors the source. When it’s in rec, it switches to monitor the tape. When it’s in play, it monitors the tape. The front panel button allows switching back and forth by the user.

— Tom Fine

Great advice tom – thank you. I would not have guessed that the 130 is a 3-head, cos there does not appear to be a “tape/input” monitor switch on the front panel? Is it hidden?
And I am gonna look into NJ Factory Service – I was not aware of them, thanks! c.

Chris, one good three-head model that shows up often is the Tascam 130. This was their late-era budget-priced but still good-quality deck for broadcast and church production. It didn’t have the features or the hearty mechanism of a 122mkIII (their best 3-head deck), but it will easily serve the purpose I described above, and the sound quality is quite good. I’ve had one of these for a while and am using it in a large-scale cassette transfer project right now. You can get one non-working for almost nothing (the thing most likely to break is the motor and/or cam that raises the head into the cassette well) and Russ at NJ Factory Service can restore it for about a C-note.

As far as consumer 3-head decks, they were mostly top-end so therefore not as common as 2-head decks. Technics, Pioneer, Teac and Nak had 3-heads in the middle of their ranges.

Between the variety of cassette tape types, and three different NR options on later-era decks (no NR, Dolby B, Dolby C), there are a lot of different “sound flavors” to be gotten out of a cassette deck.

— Tom Fine

Hi steve. That is an excellent point. I have yet to find any scully-folk who want to talk. So ladies & gents, if yr out there and you want to go on record, drop us a line!