Off-topic: Reel-to-reel

[Jerry]

I recently put my Akai GX-635D reel-to-reel tape deck back in service. It had been in storage for a while. I am looking for used 1/4 inch tapes on either 7 inch or 10.5 inch reels, would prefer the 10.5s. If anyone has a few lying around they would want to part with please contact me!

Photo below showing the deck with a 7 inch reel in play.



Later this spring I'll move the Akai into the house where I have my turntable and record some of my LPs on it. Right now the deck is part of my garage system and I am playing the few old tapes I had left. No turntable in the garage system, at least not yet.

[MaximPhil]

Hey Jerry,
My friend had that exact AKAI tape recorder. First tape I ever saw/ heard. That was a long time ago I'll ask around and see if anyone has the reeels.
Phil

[TopCatGr58]

Talking about OLD guys, music and such!

Hey Jerry,

Did you see the thread about OLD GUYS?

Back in the early 80's when I was stationed in Japan, I put together a little stereo system, Kenwood amp, EQ, Technics cassette and direct drive turntable, and CD player. The CD player had just come out in '81. But the cream of the equipment was my Teac X-1000R bi-directional R2R deck with the new DBX decilinear noise reduction system....IMHO was much better than DOLBY, both in tape hiss reduction, and preservation of Dynamic Response range. And so I also purchased a bunch of 10" quality blank tapes, both TDK and Maxell UDF stuff from the Navy Exchange at military discount!

I remember seeing R2R's in movies like James Bond and such, all of the "cool" playboy types had them, and that's one of the reasons why I wanted one , as well as being able to play ~6 hours of music continuously without having to remove/reverse the play source....this was well before MULTI disc CD players!

I had a modest record collection by that time, since I had originally purchased my LPs as investments against loss/damage of my 8-track tapes, recorded my own 8-tracks in the mid/late 70's. I then converted to cassettes. Saved a lot of $$ having the original music sources (LPs) to be able re-record them onto whatever media I chose to use. SO I proceeded to record many of my favourites onto the R2R tapes spending many hours doing so. I then got to use it for just a short while. I was enamored with both the purity/quietness/cleanness as well as the phenomenol dynamic range of CDs....my first one I purchased was Pink Floyd's DSOM, then WYWH.

Came back to the states, didn't really use the R2R much then either. Then in the early 90's(94+) got my first IBM box and CD burner, and soon learned to rip my LPs into Wavs to burn my own mix CD's. SO...the R2R continued to sit unused for years, decades! I tried to fire it up several years ago, but the belts inside were all worn/stretched. I was able to find a vintage parts supplier, and was able to repair the deck. But regrettably, I had kept a tape loaded onto it and against the heads, and so with just normal ambient humidity and such, the tape OXIDEs caused some mild rust/corrosion to form on the playback heads. I have since cleaned them a bit using non-abrasive chrome polish and it seemed to work okay, but I still have hard time using it when I now have thousands of MP3's on my computer/iPod, etc.!

SO.....I've been meaning to look into trying to SELL the deck, as well as the blank and pre-recorded blank tapes I have. I doubt that I'll really ever get around to using the R2R deck anymore. It's heavy as heck, and am worried about being able to properly package and ship it to a prospective buyer.

The Tapes are going to be much easier to ship. ALL of the tapes have all been kept/stored in climate controlled environment, all within their plastic wraps and boxes, so I'm pretty sure they are in very good to pristine condition, aside from any aging that will occur to them...but they were/are of quality brands and so I think they were made on very strong backing material, so they should perform pretty much like new.

I just took another look on eBay, found several adverts for the smaller 7" reels like Ampex and Maxell: http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Used-7-Amp...l/172037951019

Also while searching for info, found this site with 7" used reels: http://www.oaktreevintage.com/Reel-To-Reel_Tape.htm scroll down about 8 full page clicks to see their sets of 10 packs of regular and high bias tapes at what seems like decent prices!

The 10.5" reels are a bit more expensive at close to $30+ each for the 3600 size.
I'm not one to scalp a fellow Xsive, as well as you were gracious enough years ago to provide me with some used computers for friends and such. SO....send me a PM on what you think would be a fair price for the reels and we'll discuss the details!

I'll post a few photos later tonight of the blank reels so you can see them, brands, etc.

T.C.

[TopCatGr58]

Photos as promised!

Some of them have recordings of Harry Potter books from CD!

Others have some of my classic rock stuff...ie.
Led Zep; ZZTop; AC/DC; CCR; BadCo: Steppenwolf: Black Sabbath; Pat Benetar; Heart; Blondie: Pink Floyd.

Then some jazz type stuff: Earl Klugh; George Benson; Spyro Gyra; Herb Alpert; Chuck Mangione.

Then some funk: Earth,Wind,Fire; Brothers Johnson; Commodores:, Kool & Gang; War; Ohio Players; Isley Bros.

I just realized that you may not be able to play these with any good quality of sound due the fact that I think I used the DBX processing on all of them, so it will sound very compressed and tinny without the proper DBX decoder circuitry in your deck! SO....looks like you'll just have to record OVER them to use them!

**There's one reel that I would like to ask you to record onto CD for me?
It was recorded from home over the FM radio, set to record with a timer, when I was a guest disc jockey on the local radio station 106.9theFox, for an hour where I got to play all of the songs that I liked. It was a promotional bit called "Hey Mom, I'm on the Fox"...not sure if it was begun for Mother's Day or what? I even called my mom at home "on air" during one of the breaks to play/record the by line of the show! Corny, I know, but I think it would be nice to have it available to listen to. You wouldn't have to record the songs that I played, I have them of course, just the talking parts between songs.
**PS, I may try to play with this reel....had forgotten that I had it, and see if I can get my player to work and play/record this myself!**

Okay, here are the photos, the one showing the specs should be larger so you can click on it to see it in more detail. I don't think I got around to trying to record anything on the 7" reels, I only got them as a test to see how they sounded vs. the "quality" stuff I had.






T.C.

[TopCatGr58]

So...by the way, is anybody interested in my old Teac X-1000R deck??
I'll let you know soon if it actually still works, will take a video with sound to prove it and post it!

T.C.

[Jerry]

TopCat:

Thanks for the replies. I sold this kind of stuff (worked in retail shops) in the early '70s and liked the sound of analog sources, had an old 7" R2R that I recorded stuff on but really wanted a 10.5" deck so when I came across this AKAI I bought it pretty cheap. It seems to work fine but I've not recorded anything on it yet, just played back some of my old tapes.

AKAI had a version of the GX-635 with built-in Dolby but it is a pretty rare deck and mine has no noise reduction in it. I played with DBX but never owned the technology.

I am not an audiophile; just like having decent music quality. My garage system consists of a Denon cassette deck, an RCA CD changer, a Pioneer SX-1300 receiver/amp, a pair of Bose 501Mk III speakers backed by a second set of Polk Audio Monitor 40 Series III speakers.

I do have a clip (1:37) of the Akai in action on my blog page at http://www.appleattic.net/blog if you care to take a look.

I would be interested in getting 3 - 4 of your 10.5" tapes so I could record some of my LPs onto them. How about $30.00 each plus shipping? I don't have that many LPs left, although I just was donated a batch of about 50 from a co-worker who got them from her mother's estate. Most date from the early to mid '70s. Some are worth recording and I have a few dozen left from my '70s - '80s collection to sort through and decide what I want to record to tape.

My used Toyota RAV4 was equipped with a JVC deck that will read/play several formats from a thumb drive, up to 32gb capacity. (Requires FAT 8/16/32 format.) I am putting quite a bit of my music library on a 32gb thumb drive now, stuff that works for driving. Very convenient not having to carry a library of CDs but I have a bunch of stuff in .ra format that I need to convert as the JVC does not handle that format.

Anyway, I like the old easy listening stuff along with some jazz and some country. Not so much into heavy metal but do have some Bachman-Turner Overdrive and a few individual cuts from other bands.

Glad to know I'm not the only R2R guy out here...