I'm considering a purchase of a 2" tape machine that a friend has for
sale. It's been in a professional home studio, and I am planning to
send the heads to a tech for inspection. What other inspections I
should perform or look out for when I go to look at the machine?

Thanks for your help.

Matt wrote:

I'm considering a purchase of a 2" tape machine that a friend has for
sale. It's been in a professional home studio, and I am planning to
send the heads to a tech for inspection. What other inspections I
should perform or look out for when I go to look at the machine?

Thanks for your help.

People here have lots of specific info about various machines, so
letting them know what make and model you're considering can be very
helpful if you are seeking worthwhile information.

--
ha

Matt wrote:
I'm considering a purchase of a 2" tape machine that a friend has for
sale. It's been in a professional home studio, and I am planning to
send the heads to a tech for inspection. What other inspections I
should perform or look out for when I go to look at the machine?

1. Ask to the see the maintenance log. You don't have to actually read it
or anything. Just make sure it's there.

2. Ask to see the owner do an alignment. Watch what he does. Do you get
a nice flat line on the 16 KC tone, or does it wobble a lot? When the
playback EQ is set, are all the controls more or less in the same place
or are they all over the place? Are the treble EQ screws for the edge
tracks cranked way up compared with the other tracks?

3. Check the pinch roller. If it's glazed and cracked, nobody has been
paying much attention to the machine recently.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article writes:

I'm considering a purchase of a 2" tape machine that a friend has for
sale. It's been in a professional home studio, and I am planning to
send the heads to a tech for inspection. What other inspections I
should perform or look out for when I go to look at the machine?

Before sending the heads off for evaluation, put on an alignment tape
and see how it plays back. Make the playback adjustments and see where
they sit and whether it's possible to get playback response flat
within +/- 1 dB, and that the level doesn't wander, particularly at
high frequencies. If you're not sure what to do, ask the owner to go
through the alignment with you. If he doesn't know how to do it, ask
for the name and phone number of whoever maintains the machine. If he
doesn't come up with someone, forget it unless you want a project. If
you get a name, talk to the maintenance tech - he'll tell you what
shape it's in.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

(hank alrich) wrote in message ...
Matt wrote:

I'm considering a purchase of a 2" tape machine that a friend has for
sale. It's been in a professional home studio, and I am planning to
send the heads to a tech for inspection. What other inspections I
should perform or look out for when I go to look at the machine?

Thanks for your help.

People here have lots of specific info about various machines, so
letting them know what make and model you're considering can be very
helpful if you are seeking worthwhile information.


It's an MCI JH-24. Thanks for the advice everyone.

On 11 Oct 2004 20:41:55 -0700, (Matt) wrote:

(hank alrich) wrote in message ...
Matt wrote:

I'm considering a purchase of a 2" tape machine that a friend has for
sale. It's been in a professional home studio, and I am planning to
send the heads to a tech for inspection. What other inspections I
should perform or look out for when I go to look at the machine?

Thanks for your help.

People here have lots of specific info about various machines, so
letting them know what make and model you're considering can be very
helpful if you are seeking worthwhile information.


It's an MCI JH-24. Thanks for the advice everyone.


Call Randy Blevins in Nashville - Blevins Audio (if he's still
around.) Everything you need to know - he already does. You will soon
have a relationship with him for spares and other necessities.

Watch for - capstan bearings, unalignable cards, bad crosstalk, edge
track dropouts. Get a good test tape with it.

Great sound, endless alignment, fussy servo loop speed control. Only
buy one if you get the ALIII remote.

Good luck

Kurt Riemann wrote:


It's an MCI JH-24. Thanks for the advice everyone.



Call Randy Blevins in Nashville - Blevins Audio (if he's still
around.) Everything you need to know - he already does. You will soon
have a relationship with him for spares and other necessities.

Watch for - capstan bearings, unalignable cards, bad crosstalk, edge
track dropouts. Get a good test tape with it.

Great sound, endless alignment, fussy servo loop speed control. Only
buy one if you get the ALIII remote.

Good luck



Agreed, Randy, Steve and John at Blevins are invaluable
if you own one of these machines.

We replaced all of the electroytic caps on our JH-24 and
it has helped considerably. Alignment stays pretty
stable for a long time and the transport runs smoothly.
Generally speaking, keep it clean and cool. Clean the
connectors and reseat the transport cards now and then
and clean out the power supplies with a vacuum cleaner.
There are lots of spare parts on eBay fairly cheap
lately, so stock up on spares. Keep some IC chips handy
also.

Over the years there have been many JH-24 maintainence
issues discussed on this and other forums. A google
search will yield a wealth of information.

--
--
John Noll
Retromedia Sound Studios
Red Bank, NJ



visit the new website: http://www.retromedia.net

Kurt Riemann wrote:

Watch for - capstan bearings, unalignable cards, bad crosstalk, edge
track dropouts.

And clean the power supplies regularly.

--
ha

On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:43:05 GMT, (hank alrich)
wrote:

Kurt Riemann wrote:

Watch for - capstan bearings, unalignable cards, bad crosstalk, edge
track dropouts.

And clean the power supplies regularly.

I had a cap explode in one of my JH16-24 power supplies from heat
exhaustion and too much tequila. The papery guts shot out through the
boxer fan (before it wound down) and got everywhere. Part of the
problem was that we modified a 16 to 24 and the power supply couldn't
take the stress. We didn't know that at the time, though.

Then came the funny time when my tape out sensor didn't work and my
locator put the machine in rewind on (from what we could figuer)
Friday night and I came in on Monday to find the vicinity covered in 2
inch confetti from the 40 mph whipping the tape end received.
Fortunately I was in the habit of starting recordings 60 seconds in,
so I still had about 10 feed of leader remaining. I still find bits
behind racks and in the wire trough.

Aaaaahhhh. MCI. Those were special days.

I'd still be using it in 16 track / 15 ips for drums if I had the time
.. . .

Kurt Riemann