Hello music friends !
By surfing the net i happened to find this very interesting forum about reel to reel tapedecks and like to share my interests in this field also.
At home i have about 4 reel to reel machines in use.
I use regularly my Akai GX 620 for putting tracks from CD's to the tape or make recordings from the radio on it.
Then i have a Akia GX 646 and X 201D and 4000DS MkII.
Also 2 old Grundigs with valves TK 5 and TK 54, both half working.
Then an old Elizabethan and a very heavy Philips 11 track voice tape recorder with 22 CM Ø reels.
Then a dead GX 620 which i rescued from the tip, which when time allowes try to get going.
I like to see the reels turn round and round when listening to the music. Al these new gizmo's are boring. A CD dissappears, a compact cassette is to small to see turning around from the other side of the room.
Just some words to start it off. I do speak and read a little German and lots of Dutch because i was born in Groningen , The Netherlands.
Kind regards, Freundlichen Grußen
Raymond
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Zitat:RODALCO postete
I like to see the reels turn round and round when listening to the music. Al these new gizmo's are boring. A CD dissappears, a compact cassette is to small to see turning around from the other side of the room.
Raymond
Hello Raymond,
welcome to the forum! I fully agree with you and would like to add one thing that is important to me: the lovely smell of these old machines, particularly of those with valves in them. I have a Revox G36 which fills the whole room with its sweet, lovely smell when it is warm. 40 years ago I got my first tape - recorder, a Grundig TK245, which is still in good condition, and I often find myself sitting in front of this old machine and putting my nose on it just to enjoy the smell of 1967.
Do you have any records and record players? That is great fun, too.
Most of the time I use CDs because they are easy to handle and need no cleaning and no attention when running. But wintertime is tape-recorder-time!
With kind regards to NZ,
Heinz
Hello Raymond
welcome to the forum and a lot of greetings to you! But please tell us a secret: How do you got the Grundig ? I think the Akais are imported from Japan to New Zealand. I hope you will find some information about the Grundig inside the BBS. If you need some translation of some special text section, please let me know.
cheers :bier:
Michael
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Hello Raymond
Welcome from my side, too...
Your Akai-"portfolio" is nearly the same as mine (620, 635, 201, 4000DS,
265). `Cause of beeing quite popular in the world (...and in Germany too..)
you will get lots of informations about these Akais. About the Grundigs my
knowledge is nearly "0" but they where discussed several times
here in this forum I guess. Maybe you know these links for
more Grundig-info? (
http://www.useddlt.com/grundig.0.html ;
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_tk54.html;
http://www.grammofoon.com/frameset.htm?&ContentFrame)
But what is an "Elizabethan" and I also didn`t seen
that Philips machine ... maybe some more info + photos possible?
Regards to NZ...
...or shall I write "toot ziens"...
Peter
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. (...soll Groucho Marx gesagt haben, aber so ganz sicher ist das nicht...)
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Hallo Raymond,
It is very interesting to read about your collection. Maybe you have been bitten by the collecting bug? Before too long - tape recorders in every room in the house and in every cupboard. I know about that because I have been bitten too!!!
The only way to avoid the bug - don't look on eBay!!
The Akais are well known everywhere, but the Elizabethan is an English manufacturer that had quite a large share of the UK domestic tape-recorder market in the late 1950's and 1960's. They were made by E.A.P at Romford, Essex, England. It is an Elizabethan "Major" that I used for my Avatar. Maybe you have a similar model?
I would guess that the Elizabethan would be in New Zealand because of the British Commonwealth? Probably, the same is true with the Grundig? Grundig had a large share of the 1960's domestic Tape-recorder market in the UK. Many Grundig tape-recorders that sold in the UK were made at the DUNMURRY (Thanks Alard) factory in N.Ireland. Maybe it was some of these UK made Grundigs that sold in NZ?
I have many Philips machines in my collection, but I don't know any model with 22 cm reels - What model is it?
I agree with you about the boring Gizmo's, Mp3, CD etc. but I have to confess to liking cassettes!! I still like to use them for music in my car and as a convenient method of recording from the radio. The audio performance of a good cassette deck isn't far behind reel to reel. And besides, they were first marketed in the year I was born.
Best Regards,
Peter
England.
Hi, thanks for the welcome on this great forum.
Yes I like the older technology, At home I have a turntable, but looking for an other stylus, the current stylus has nearly had it. This is a Philips 22GA 312 with a GP 400 stylus.
Also i have lots of 45's and 33's records. Most of them are on reel to reel tapes, to keep the originals as best as possible.
Indeed as new technology gets forced onto you, in our cars we have now CD players so i have to convert some of the good tracks from my reel to reel to the computer and burn them on CD so i can enjoy the good recordings i made over the last 30 or so years.
Heinz I have to agree there, the smell of a valve machine when warm, is very special and adds to the overall atmosphere of seeing it work and enjoy the music.
Both my old Grundigs have some intermittand problems. The TK 54 has some dodgy paper capacitors. The TK 5 has belt and clutch problems on the take up reel. When warm the sound distorts intermittendly. Haven't had the time to sort it out yet. We have two young children at home and I usually work about 60 hours a week for Siemens for the local powerboard on faults maintenance.
GXNet The Grundigs as well as the Akai's i took with me from The Netherlands when i immigrated in 1988.
Thanks for offering translation in case i get stuck in my German language.
My German is reasonable and at work ( Siemens) we have German management in New Zealand, which i did ask an occasional translation.
PeZett I got the Elizabethan from a second hand shop for NZ$ 10, abour 5.50 Euro's, 8 or 9 years ago. The Philips with the 22 Ø cm reels i got from an electronics second hand shop. I believe it was used at the airport for voice recording. It runs at 2.375 cm / sec. compleet with 100 reels of good quality tape on Aluminium reels.
Peter.H The Philips is type ?, not on the recorder. I will take some photo's of it and will post them. It is about 80 Kilo's heavy, so not really that portable.
Cassettes i use too. I have an Akai CSM 01A deck from about 1980 which is still running fine and the quality is good.
On my good old Akai 4000DS Mk 2, I like the Sound on sound option for creating an echo effect. great to have that so easy accessible by the flick of a switch.
I get some photo's soreted this weak and will post the link soon.
Gruß, Kind regards, Tot ziens,
Raymond
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Hello Roland,
welcome! I agree with you and the others that these vintage machines are fascinating. How did you find this forum ?
The main page
www.tonbandinfo.com is like an umbrella group where this forum (sometimes called "Forum2 ") and Forum1 (the residential neighborhood
- both deals mainly with reel-to-reel -) and Forum3 ("the SABA Forum") share a common entrance. There's much more, a common market place, a galerie with beautiful and impressive pictures, a music forum, a corner with downloads and some more hifi-specialities.
Each form can be adressed like this:
www.tonbandinfo.com/forum (neighborhood)
www.tonbandinfo.com/forum2 (this one)
www.tonbandinfo.com/forum3 (Saba)
www.tonbandinfo.com/galerie (gallery)
www.tonbandinfo.com/marktplatz (market place)
and so one.
Main language is german (i assume this is obvious
) but a lot of german sites do not have any problems with foreign languages. If you want to translate some words (e.g. pinch roller -> Andruckrolle) please visit
http://dict.leo.org/ a service from the university of munich with more than 300.000 hits per day. You may find some other useful online translators like "Babelfish" or a service from google.
B.R.
Wolfgang
Willi Studers Bastelkisten
