1420-1503 said:
I can by above mentioned professional tube reel deck for €200 and wonder if it's a deal to be taken or not? It's being offered for sale locally so there won't be an extra shipping cost to add to the price.
I'm asking the question in the hypothese that the unit is in excellent technical condition.
Of course I don't know that is the case so, therefore my second question:
Is it worthwhile to buy such a vintage tubed unit versus a transistor consumer grade but newer unit? I say 'professional' unit because if I'm not mistaken I think the Akai M8 actually records at 15 ips!
Thank you.
I have an old Roberts 997, which I believe was virtually identical to the Akai M-7 tube unit. I have owned
LOTS of open reel decks (Akai, Ampex, Revox, Sony, Tandberg, Teac). IMHO, about the only tube units worth messing with are the old Revox G-36s. Now those are beautiful machines!
Here is my take on the M8: $200 is not a good buy, unless this thing looks like it just came out of the factory. And even then, it is poabaly only worth this to a collector. I believe that others are correct who say that you need to place a little sleave adapter on the capstan to make it run at 15 ips. That certainly was true with my 997 (M7). And even when you run it at 15 ips, its transport is so primative that the flutter can be audible. Worse still is that you can't bias it high enough to run anything even resembling a modern tape.
And lastly, this is a effectively a two-head deck (I'm not counting the cross-field head here, so as not to confuse matters any more). So, in all candor, you are NOT going to get anything resembling studio-quality performance out of this deck, even if you modify it greatly. And frankly, even an old modest Sony TC-377 will completely embarrass this unit int terms of its performance. And I say this as a registered level 4 bottlehead! :lmao:
If it is the tube-factor that has you all excited, you might see if you can find a Revox G36 (I think it was called the 736 in Europe). These are REALLY nice tube decks with a modern 3-motor transport, and 3 heads. The only other tube based units that I would consider might be the Tanberg 64, or 64x. But they do not have the professional 3 motor transports like the Revoxes. Those are decks that are worth the effort to fixup and modify.
Good Hunting!