Ampex A440...for home use..Steve H.?

Steve or anyone else for that matter..

I have been offered an Amperex A440...the tape unit and 4 preamps....no roller cab though...
But I do get a hige service manual..
Can anyone give me a runthrough on how this would work for a home setup? I guess I would need only 2 of the preamps?

Thanks in advance..

 

Its a A440 AG, not C...

 

I just shot an email to the guy asking which set of heads are on the tape unit....I am ssuming that maybe because it comes with 4 preamps, that maybe the 4 ch head is on it?

I want to use it just for recording LP's and radio and play back at home.

 

It was a very good sounding machine in it's day, but with the cost and scarcity of analog tape, it doesn't seem that practical for recording LP's and radio. It probably goes 15 IPS and 7.5 IPS and the tape would cost far more than the album or cd you were copying. Plus it will probably require periodic maintenance and good luck finding parts, which you will eventually need if not right away. I love analog, but it would seem much more practical to record digitally to either hard disk or even cd for your purposes.

Now if you have a bunch of pro tapes you want to playback, the machine could be pretty useful. It could also work well for recording live music. You'll have to learn how to set the machine up, but that is not too tough.

 

Parts for the AG-440 are pretty easy to get, and the machines are very reliable, far more reliable than my Ampex ATR However, if it is a standard half track machine, you record on the tape two tracks in one direction. That means on a 10.5" reel of 1.5 mill thick 2500' tape, you get approximately 60 minutes on a tape at 7 1/2 ips, and 30 minutes at 15 ips. Using 1.5 mill tape on this machine is not recommended. The transport is far too rough. With the current analog tape situation (Quantegy was just sold to Discount Tape on Thursday) they announced that pricing of their product is going to increase, but they did not say how much. I am guessing at least 10%. Right now, a 2500 reel of Quantegy 406 which is a +3 output tape, that is well suited for your purposes, is $25. Unless you are going to be doing recordings of the professional grade, I would strongly advise that you find a good consumer grade reel to reel machine. I have a Teac A3300-SX which has 10.5" reel capability, that I use for recording my audiophile vinyl onto tape, so that I dont have to handle the record. The machine is quarter track, so you can record on both "sides" of the tape. So that means you can get 60 minutes a side on the reel I mentioned above, and with 1 mill tape, 96 minutes a side. Or if you use standard 1800' 7" reel, 45 minutes a side. The nice thing about this machine is the electronics are essentially the same as the professional grade Tascam 32 recorder. These machines are very reliable, and parts are still available.

 

What is the "X" designation for? Is that auto-reverse? I have the A3300S here. Kind of bare-bones but very reliable. (I only wish it did 15ips.) Beats the crappy Sony I have.

 

Nope, no auto reverse (thank god). Those auto reverse systems can go nuts sometimes. The "X" designation is just a later, slightly more "pro" revision of the machine. The cosmetics are slightly different, and the specs are slightly better. It shares a lot of parts with the Tascam semi-pro machines. There is also a half track model of this machine, which has 15ips on it. I believe that the A3300-SX also has an internal 15ips switch, so high would be 15, and low would be 7 1/2.

 

Interesting.

I do have a service manual that came with the machine, so at least if I have to go in and troubleshoot, I'm not shooting completely blind!