Re: Grundig Tape recorder

I have a Grundig type TK 28 WE which has nothing left but the reading

> head and the reel drives in a very Heath Robinson condition. There is
> no pre-amp in this arrangement.
>
> What I want to do is run this to play some old (reel) tapes. I have
> managed to run the assembly and get a very low audio signal out. >
> What I want to know is how to connect some (externally powered) simple
> pre-amp to boost the signal up to the point where it can be fed into a
> more modern recording system.
>
> TIA

Where are you getting the low audio from ? Would it be possible for you to connect this output to a HI-FI system AUX input and run it that way ?

What you are trying to do probably isn't worth the effort. Tape equalisation is very exacting, needing a considerable boost at low frequencies with the risk of hum and a variable boost at high frequencies depending on how the tape was recorded NAB or CCIR.

There must be reel-to-reel tape machines available from ebay or loot, you should be able to pick up a good working machine somewhere. In the last year I have disposed of 3 studio quality machines and could not get more than £50 each for them. Most sound recording is now digital and the old tape machines sit in the corner gathering dust.

If you have a very precious recording you would like transferred to CD contact me via

In article , Martin Angove writes

If you want a nice studer/revox I have a few around surplus to requirements.

I'd love one (not that I have many tapes - just for nostalgia value), but the wife'd kill me :-) How come you have some spare, and which models are they?

Hwyl!

M.

In article , Martin Angove writes

Couple of A77's B77 x 2 and a B67 undergoing refurbishment to become a piece of living room furniture!...

Boost at both LF and HF? ;-)

If anyone needs any transferring done, I can cope with pretty well any speed and format, including Dolby A,B and SR. Even the old 'eight' tracks.;-)

In message , tony sayer writes

Ooh yes please

I worked on the design of tape recorders in the 60's when tape heads were not up today's standards. We always added HF boost on playback circuits and usually some on the record side.

You gvae really two choices - one is hire a professional reel-to-reel and duplicate your tapes onto decent media - CD or cassette and seriously I recommend this. You will have the best chance of getting the best results.

The other is to use something like a microphone amplifier. Or possibly the phono input from a record deck and mess with the equalisation to get the sound right. From memory the equalisation is close. Probably would need a lot of bass cut , thats all.

I use that sort of technique to recover some data of an old wire recorder years ago with a graphic equaliser..

No. About 2mV from a tapehead - similar to phono cartridge or microphone, and AFAICR a steady falling response above 1khz is needed to remove the pre-emphsais used to de-hiss the tapes.

Aux is 100mv-1v sort of level usually.

Glad I never bought a tape machine from you if you *added* HF boost on replay.

I'm not sure then why a good recording studio etc would have both CCIR and NAB replay test tapes - at vast cost?

I'd agree many domestic machines didn't attempt to follow any real standard which accounts for the variability when tapes were swopped.

Indeed. Some call it the good old days of pre digital. Good for keeping the engineers in work lining up machines, though.

In article , derek writes

We had a Ferrograph at school, series 4 it was. Super machine for its day, built like a brick shitesznhaus

I have to own up to something here......

When I was a young lad my Mum bought me my first tape recorder, probably at a jumble sale or something like that (no instruction manual). I'd heard the term "wiping the tape clean" for removing previous recordings, and I remember spending a non-profitable morning winding the tape between a cloth :)

I've since learned that you just bung the tapes in the washing machine.... ;)

Andrew

Do you need a handyman service? Check out our web site at

This is stort of nagging at my mind with the OPs original request. How old are these tapes? It's not unknown to only have one chance to play an old tape before the oxide is scraped off.

In article , Andrew McKay writes

fifties and he tried that one on me round their house one day. He had a machine there the like of which I'd never seen, IIRC it was like an EMI BTR4 if I remember those numbers correctly..

Yes - it's a technique used for tapes which are shedding oxide - but I'm told it's a once only chance to recover the original by copying. So only really applicable to valuable master tapes. I've got some 30+ years old tapes which still play ok. And they are rubbish brand BBC stuff.

BTR2 was the common one - about the size of a 'cooking theatre'...

I'll bet there are still some in use somewhere, despite being 50 years old.