SaSi
Seriously Illogical
I am a fan of the Technics systems of the late '70 era. I've been looking for this deck and here it came now.
It has a few bruises but all cables are there and it works fine. It needed new belts for the spools (FF was marginal and REW just wasn't there). And a good cleaning. The pictures of the area around the heads are revealing.
The deck already has new belts and is already playing fine and winding fine. Azimuth was really off (thankfully as the previous owner thought it wasn't good any more).
I cleaned the basic parts of the transport around the cassette compartment. Lot's of dust inside. Same as the M85 from the same era. I will eventually want to make a better cleaning inside. And by the way, it shares several mechanical components with the RS 673 and more with the 671. It's nice that I once got 2 RS673 for 5 euro each.
In terms of specs, it's 3 heads (with discrete rec/play heads and a tiny erase head on the left of the left pinch roller), dual capstan and 3 motors. The reels are belt driven with a motor each. The capstan motor is direct driving the take up shaft and belt driving the supply side. An extra belt is magnetically measuring the rotation speed of the take up reel and converts that into remaining time on a separate VU meter style display. Looks cool but the real time counter on the RS-1500 is better.
Impressions?
Mixed. As it was and still is one of my dream machines, I am a happy owner. It sounds good and records well as well. It looks and feels huge and solid. Larger than two heavyweight amps stacked together.
Internally, comparing it with, say, a Revox B710, the Revox wins hands down. The transport on the Technics feels flimsy compared to the Revox. And although the B710 most likely has more PCB surface, the nice modular slotted arrangement makes for a neater deck.
But what I really like on this deck is that it's a snapshot of a design era that is gone and will never come back again.
It has a few bruises but all cables are there and it works fine. It needed new belts for the spools (FF was marginal and REW just wasn't there). And a good cleaning. The pictures of the area around the heads are revealing.
The deck already has new belts and is already playing fine and winding fine. Azimuth was really off (thankfully as the previous owner thought it wasn't good any more).
I cleaned the basic parts of the transport around the cassette compartment. Lot's of dust inside. Same as the M85 from the same era. I will eventually want to make a better cleaning inside. And by the way, it shares several mechanical components with the RS 673 and more with the 671. It's nice that I once got 2 RS673 for 5 euro each.
In terms of specs, it's 3 heads (with discrete rec/play heads and a tiny erase head on the left of the left pinch roller), dual capstan and 3 motors. The reels are belt driven with a motor each. The capstan motor is direct driving the take up shaft and belt driving the supply side. An extra belt is magnetically measuring the rotation speed of the take up reel and converts that into remaining time on a separate VU meter style display. Looks cool but the real time counter on the RS-1500 is better.
Impressions?
Mixed. As it was and still is one of my dream machines, I am a happy owner. It sounds good and records well as well. It looks and feels huge and solid. Larger than two heavyweight amps stacked together.
Internally, comparing it with, say, a Revox B710, the Revox wins hands down. The transport on the Technics feels flimsy compared to the Revox. And although the B710 most likely has more PCB surface, the nice modular slotted arrangement makes for a neater deck.
But what I really like on this deck is that it's a snapshot of a design era that is gone and will never come back again.
