Reel to Reel vs. Needle Drops-What's the Better Recording Option?

Thanks everyone one for your input. I am leaning towards purchasing a couple of reels to record my true treasures, such as, my original pressing of Tina Brooks "True Blue" and Freddie Hubbard's "Open Sesame."

 

Yeah, the only reason I ever fool with needledrops is portability. I've got a couple of reel decks, but they are such PITAs to load, I probably only play a tape a couple times a month.

 

There is a Swedish label with 15 ips duplication to 1/4" in real time from tape masters
They sell at 350 quid
There is a market for this........

The notion that tape at 15 ips cannot be equalled by a file is audiphool nonsense, but where there is a demand there is always a supply
I love tape machines ,not at all keen on vinyl, valve amps seem strangely anachronistic and wasteful now and 40 yr old speakers seem quaintly inadequate imho
Listen to your Studer on HD 800s or electrostatics ,hear those artefacts from your disc transfer and the tape in great glory

 

This is not a "notion". It is a personal experience. If you want to call it "phool"ish to persue something that brings pleasure and enjoyment, then that is a valid personal opinion for yourself. But I think you are in the wrong forum, if you sincerely recommend we ignore what appeals to us. We are talking about listening to music and how it "sounds" to us. We are not talking about "anachronistic" quality vs. technology.

If you want to devote yourself to thinking (instead of feeling), then you may also want to give up romance, art, sports, home cooking and fresh air, for their "inadequate" quaintnesses. These have been around for a long time, so you may just want to ignore them as "wasteful". But please do not advise the rest of us to also ignore our personal preferences, and the pleasures that we perceive as satisfying.

I mean, (tongue-in-cheek of course) have you thought about the greater technology in providing us with processed food and pollution, to name two of the non-anachronisms in contrast to the archaic pleasures I listed above?

My ears tell me what sounds satisfying and enjoyable. Your definition of "nonsense" is your problem, so please persue your goals without critisizing ours.

It is 4:30 in the morning here in Los Angeles, after my long night at a concert and late dinner. I hope I made some "audiophool sense". Tape at 15 ips, vinyl and valve amps can sound just spectacular, no matter what the pundits claim about their limitations.

 

Revisionist reply Warren,you must not edit quotes Pravda style
Audio Hardware is a bit like Prime Ministers Question Time in Parliament
A bit brash, noisy and confrontational, adversial democracy, juvenile but sometimes pleasing
The Music Forum is more controlled, like a bill of passage in the House of Lords, informed knowledge and personal experience
Feeling is vital in music ,its not anachcronistic,its bloody essential, you are traducing my statement, I love music and technology, not the museum pieces that you trade in

 

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I have never had a wav file sound worse than an recorded CD. If that was the case then the computer sound card must be loaded with jitter or other artifacts to do that. If I record those files to 2496 there is absolutely no comparison.

 

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And that might be true if anyone here was running 30 ips. At 15ips I would take 2496 and 24192. Especially true when I now have multiple ways to play and listen to those files.

 

If you can't have an intelligent conversation without resorting to insults and expressing your opinions as fact (opinions that you have already expressed ad nauseum), stay out of the discussion.

 

I'll take a well made 176k or 192k 24 bit transfer any day, but a well made reel to reel recording can also sound fantastic.

In fact, back in the late 70s I made a series of needledrop comps on to 2 track tape reels. I took this with me to many studios and every single time people were blown away. They asked me where I got access to the masters of all those songs. These were engineers, mind you.

I guess most of them had no idea that needledrops could sound so good, but it was more than that. The process of recording to tape made them sound like master tapes. Granted this was only possible because I did a really good job with the transfers, but it was the tape that made them sound that way.

One more funny story. Back in 2010 my partner and I transferred well over 100 of our reels to digital. Included in the lot was a reel with Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue by Crystal Gale. It sounded like a master (or copy) and we were both puzzled.

He asked me when I worked with Crystal. Well the truth, as I told him, is that we both did a show with her back in 1975, but we didn't record her. Besides, this was a studio production. We couldn't figure out how I got this until after the third play I noticed a slight tick. Yep, this turns out to be a needledrop I apparently made for some unknown reason, but it fooled both of us, and that's no small feat.

Btw, this proves that tapes can sound very good, but also that they have a tell tale sound. Hi-res transfers don't if they're made well.

 

Is it Martini time Ray ?

 

I always loved the sound of R2R tape, and bumping my vinyl up to tape made it all sound that much better (in the old days), even though I get the 'warmth' aspect also introduces more hiss.

 

At 15ips it will take 2 reels per album and at the current cost for new tape that means about $140 per lp. You think it's really worth it?

 

Make needledrops at the higher possible res hoping you'll never need them unless you decide to sell your wax, relax, and start listening to your vinyl. You're not gonna live forever !!!

 

Doug
Can you post a link to your best drops ?
Roger

 

Are you referring to the one's I made in 78 to 1/4"?

I believe I still have those reels around here but they'd have to be baked before they could be played. We do all our transfers at my partners studio because the gear is so much better than what I have here.

Ultimately, we transfer at 176k, but we're so backed up with other projects that it's unlikely we would get to those any time soon.

I can send you some 176k files of our recent needledrops which were basically tests before we settle on a process. He's very finicky and we don't want to start doing a lot of these until we finalize the chain, which is constantly evolving. Then again, we keep shifting gears and working on side projects.

Our tests sound very good, but of course they all have minor issues or we'd have a final process. I doubt most here would hear the faults that we hear. It's really hard to optimize all parameters for each record, but that's what we try to do.

I'm a lot easier to satisfy than he is, but we hear more on his system than we hear here. My system is pretty unforgiving, but it's a bowl of honey compared to his at times. If something is wrong there it can get pretty annoying, but that can be from any little thing in the chain causing distress. Mine is more consistent but still pleases me to no end.

 

Let's get raw. If the question is, "Which one would I take to bed and have my way with if my wife wasn't home?", the answer is, "The one on the left; 'cause, I like big reels and I cannot lie."

 

Well I'm surely not going to post it, but on my 23rd birthday my rude friends broke into my house, pulled my covers off me while I was asleep, and threw five pies on me. One of them took a picture of my naked body covered with assorted pies.

The point though is that in that photo you can clearly see my bed stand covered with reels of tape. Must be over a dozen of them. Some on the floor too.

Reels of tape and I were very close.

 

You know, reflecting on tape formulations readily available to the consumer nowadays, good lawd, it's a good time to be into tape. RMGI LPR35 is good. SM911 is crazy good sounding and I've heard they've got a level better. ATR Master Tape is said to be better still. If my memory isn't too foggy, that's better??? than the Ampex 406, 456 and Maxell stuff I used to use and certainly whipes the floor with stuff like Scotch 150, etc. (though I still kinda like the 150... at least none of mine have shown any signs of shedding, molding, and so on) Yet, there's no way my wife will let me get away with stocking up this new tape like I used to do as a teen... unless we trade in the teen-agers.

 

I loved having r2r, loved all the frou frou that went with it, making music mix tapes (3600' would run 6 hours at 3 3/4 ips but that was for parties, not fidelity). Threading the machine, adjusting the VUs, the smell of the tape....many years of enjoyment from them. Just for listening to music, not even getting into recording my own music.

 

Why not do needle drops and run the tape at the same time? If you are starting from scratch for digital, do everything at 96/24.

 

People seem very passionate about tape. All I can say is I am very passionate about doing needle drops. I spend hours working on each record. I am very happy with the sound I get from 24/96 audio. I compare it to vinyl without the pops.
So to each his own!!!

 

Can you speak to why you transfer at 176k? I assume it sounds better to your ears, but I'd like to see what your experience has been.

And as always thank you for sharing your experience -- hope people learn to appreciate all the wisdom and experience you bring to these discussions.

 

Thanks for the nice comment.

That, and 192k sound pretty much the same to us, so why use the slightly higher data requirements for 192k.

If you're referring to the difference between 88k and 96k vs 176k and 192k, well we don't always hear a difference, but at times we do. It's just a more effortless sound, as if there is no distress anywhere in the chain. Everything is exposed and things just seem to get out of the way. There is more air and space around instruments.

When we started out we did our transfers at 48k-24b merely because we had hundreds of reels and it was 5 years ago. Many of the reels were masters but at 7 1/2 ips, as was typical with our live PA recordings, mainly to get the extended play times, yet many of them go way higher than 20k. Our studio stuff was generally 15 ips and of course that can go way beyond 30k.

Also, we were mainly transferring so we could see what we had with the thoughts that we could retransfer at a higher bit rate if we were going to try to release anything. The difference between 48/24 and 176/24 is fairly significant in many cases.

 

Well said.

 

if money is no option....

reel to reel by a mile!!!

the best music ever made comes from those babies!

RickB