Fresh Tapes (RTM , RMGI etc..) vs Old Tapes Basf ,TDK ,Ampex - Diference in Quality

[Aleksei77]

Does new tapes sound better than the old tapes?

I have coulple old tapes from teac, basf, tdk here, but i want to know if the new gresh tapes will recorde and sound better than the old ones, anyone made a test? does it worth buyng new tapes?

 

[Blue Shadow]

New tape starts at very good and goes to excellent. There are some that old machines can't use, not enough bias, and others that mimic old favorite brands. The LPR is very close to Maxell. The Capture tape is a very good economy tape available today. In the ATR line the MDS 36 is a good lower priced tape. The best in either RGMI/Pyral or ATR require more bias than most older machines can supply. Sometimes setting the machine up for these tapes is possible but it is not a switch position from back in the day, these +9dB and higher tapes didn't exist.

Unless you have some special old tapes, those brands are just regular tapes. BASF and TDK did have some pretty good tapes though. I think you will be happy with the performance of new tape, most are.

 

[Aleksei77]

Ok i have a teac 2300SX and a Tascam 32 . I would like recomendation of new tapes i will give preference for RMGI or ATR, i would like wich tape formulation i can use in those reels, someone said that i still can have enough bias for SM911 (but not with SM910) and LPR-35

I would like to know some help on wich best fresh new tape models from brands, im starting to record my music and its very important to me, Thanks.

 

[Thierry]

It's not because I'm french and those are made in my country, but I find tapes made by Recording The Masters absolutely perfect on every aspect.
I use the Studio Master SM911 on all my STUDER and Revox machines with great results (all have been biased for this tape).
Plus there's a large choice to pick from. Abundant datasheets are available.

 

[Blue Shadow]

I would like to know some help on wich best fresh new tape models from brands, im starting to record my music and its very important to me, Thanks.

[QUOTE="Thierry, post: 11398961, member: 16257"...I find tapes made by Recording The Masters absolutely perfect on every aspect.
I use the Studio Master SM911 on all my STUDER and Revox machines with great results (all have been biased for this tape).
[/QUOTE]
That part in bold is the answer. Have your old, tired machines properly set up for the tape you will use and it will work very well. If you are not going to have the machine set up (eq and bias) for the new tape, find out what the machines were set up for in the past and get the closest to that which is probably the LPR. The manuals should have a list of tapes for each of the tape selection switch settings. You could try a few different reels to find the best if you don't get the machine set for the tape. I had this done with my new tape deck in 1980 after buying a case of reels. Worked great.

 

[Thierry]

Biasing a recorder for a specific tape formulation is the key to get the best distortion / frequency response / SNR the machine is capable of.
Here are for instance two examples of results I got after full alignment and bias adjustment for RTM SM911 with one of my good old Revox PR99 MkIII @ 15ips :

And this is on the STUDER B67, same tape, same speed.
One would say I could have done a better job for linearity in the midrange section, and I'll agree, but this isn't noticeable when listening to music :

 

[Blue Shadow]

Studer 50-20kHz ±2dB. nice
Revox 20-20kHz ±3dB. Numbers aren't as good on this one but the bump on the bottom (all decks have bass response issues it is part of the fact that it is tape) but the numbers could be 40-20kHz ± 1.5dB if you want to make the numbers look the best.

These machines should sound excellent

 

[stoutblock]

I only record on my Sony APR5003 using two track 15 ips and typically playback on my Sony TC-880-2. If you can get access to a well calibrated pro deck to do your recordings you will find they will sound superb on most any deck you play them back on (assuming the playback deck has been calibrated with MRL tapes). That SM911 tape is great tape but the 1.5 mill tape keeps a 10.5” reel at only 2500’ which is typically not enough to record an album at 15ips. My main interest in open reel recording is to capture vinyl albums with a good 100% analog kit so I use 1 mill tape which has 3600’ on a 10.5” reel. I like Maxell UD, XL1 and TDK Audua but only if it is healthy and very, very cheap. I have found these tapes sound very good and are typically very durable. If I can’t find them cheap, I buy new LPR35. For non-pro use I think LPR35 is an excellent tape and very reasonably priced. In any case, the quality of your recordings is totally dependent on setting up the deck correctly for playback and then calibrated correctly for each type of tape you record with. I can calibrate my APR5003 to record most any tape in less than an hour and it allows you to store three calibrations for each speed. MRL playback calibration tapes are a mandatory investment. I did have RTM make me up a couple of custom 12” reels of SM911 tape for my APR that I look forward to using to capture a couple of albums in the future. Not too many decks can use 12” reels so this is mostly a novelty item to play on my APR.

 

[qdrone]

Check your Owners Manual if you have one. It will basically tell you the best tape for your machine.
Like this

From Sansui sd 7000 reel to reel

 

[mcgjohn]

Ok i have a teac 2300SX and a Tascam 32 . I would like recomendation of new tapes i will give preference for RMGI or ATR, i would like wich tape formulation i can use in those reels, someone said that i still can have enough bias for SM911 (but not with SM910) and LPR-35

I would like to know some help on wich best fresh new tape models from brands, im starting to record my music and its very important to me, Thanks.

the Tascam 32 should bias up fine with SM911, it biases up very closely to the original Ampex 456. With the Teac2300, tough to say.... you will likely have to do a bit of a trade off between optimum bias point and flat freq response, since I am pretty sure there is not an EQ adjustment on the record side.

I used to have a trio of 32s, all biased up for 3M Scotch 206/207; very nice sound, flat freq response and quiet. There is still quite a bit of 206 207 on ebay, or you can try tapetape dot com and see if he has any.

As far as being better, that is a tough qualifier. Some tapes will be quieter than others,and some will offer greater head room, but they all should record well, especially at the higher tape speeds.

J