[Bill Noble]

When I was in high school, the Magnecord 1024 was considered among us "high
school experts" to be THE thing to have - of course none of us had one, but
nonetheless, it was desireable and wonderful and we all wanted one.
Eventually, I got a Tanberg deck that meets my needs (actually,it is a
really excellent deck), and the fancy passed. Then I ran across a 1024
transport locally, bought it, played with it a bit and came to the
conclusion that my house is really crowded and I really don't have a need
for another tape transport, no matter how nice (and it's really nice) - I
don't think even the "pro" decks of today are built this way - though I
haven't looked at a pro deck in quite a while - nice heavy castings, the
transport alone weighs almost 40 pounds - three motors with torque control
on the takeup motors, all solenoid controlled, all those things that we
thought were just beyond cool at the time.

What did kind of surprise me about this unit is that it has two heads, and
a
switch to select head 3 or 4 on the front - without a manual it's a bit of
a
guess, but my other decks have at least three heads (erase, record,
playback, in that order) - this appears to have no erase head - and the
front panel switch is a bit of a puzzlement.

I'm getting rid of it via the usual auction site - I'd like to at least know
what is
going on with the heads before it goes to its next home - anyone know? I
presume the record/playback amp, which I don't have, was a tube type unit -
the info I could find freely on the web didn't really say much about that
part of it. In fact the info on the web is pretty sketchy.

--
Bill
www.wbnoble.com

[Sonnova]

On Mon, 1 Sep 2008 19:27:22 -0700, Bill Noble wrote
(in article ):

When I was in high school, the Magnecord 1024 was considered among us "high
school experts" to be THE thing to have - of course none of us had one, but
nonetheless, it was desireable and wonderful and we all wanted one.
Eventually, I got a Tanberg deck that meets my needs (actually,it is a
really excellent deck), and the fancy passed. Then I ran across a 1024
transport locally, bought it, played with it a bit and came to the
conclusion that my house is really crowded and I really don't have a need
for another tape transport, no matter how nice (and it's really nice) - I
don't think even the "pro" decks of today are built this way - though I
haven't looked at a pro deck in quite a while - nice heavy castings, the
transport alone weighs almost 40 pounds - three motors with torque control
on the takeup motors, all solenoid controlled, all those things that we
thought were just beyond cool at the time.

What did kind of surprise me about this unit is that it has two heads, and
a
switch to select head 3 or 4 on the front - without a manual it's a bit of
a
guess, but my other decks have at least three heads (erase, record,
playback, in that order) - this appears to have no erase head - and the
front panel switch is a bit of a puzzlement.

I'm getting rid of it via the usual auction site - I'd like to at least know
what is
going on with the heads before it goes to its next home - anyone know? I
presume the record/playback amp, which I don't have, was a tube type unit -
the info I could find freely on the web didn't really say much about that
part of it. In fact the info on the web is pretty sketchy.

--
Bill
www.wbnoble.com

Now, without more info, I cannot say for sure, but USUALLY, when a tape
RECORDER (as opposed to merely a player) has only two heads, it's because one
of the heads IS the erase head and the other is a combination record/playback
head. Combo record/playback heads are a compromise because record heads
require a wide gap between poles for optimum recording and playback heads
require a narrow gap for good high-frequency response. Obviously, a single
dual-purpose head cannot simultaneously be optimized for both. Also, two head
decks cannot have a direct tape monitor feature (essentially a
read-after-write function) and therefore not only can one not listen to the
difference between the input and the tape made of it as the tape is being
recorded, but it makes it very difficult and time consuming to bias and EQ a
two-head deck because of that lack of feedback. One has to record a section
of 400 Hz (usually) tone, then play it back, and repeat this procedure -
increase bias drive, record a section at -20 Vu, rewind, play the section
just recorded and not whether or not the playback on the tape has increased
in volume. One is looking for a peak here and it's a pain to do it this way
and can take many minutes to effect. With a three-head deck, it's easy. While
monitoring the tape from the playback head. one merely records the 400 Hz
tine while adjusting the bias level. One then watches the meter level rise to
a peak and then fall-off as bias is increased. Then one merely backs the bias
control off a hair so that the tape is over-biased by about 1 dB. Takes
seconds to do.

There is, however, another possibility and that is that the erase head and
record head are in the same housing and are physically right next to one
another. You can tell by the number of wires going to the head. If it's just
4 to each head (assuming a stereo deck) then its a two head deck with a combo
record/playback head. If one of the heads (the first one on the left,
usually) then the record head has the erase head in the same housing with it.
And, of course, if it is a three-head deck, it will likely have a source/tape
monitoring switch on it.

The bottom line here, of course, is that since the Magnecord 1024 is a
recorder, it pretty much HAS to have an erase head. The 1966 Layfayette
catalogue says that the 1024 is a three-head recorder, so there it is.

[[email protected]]

On Monday, September 1, 2008 at 7:27:22 PM UTC-7, Bill Noble wrote:
When I was in high school, the Magnecord 1024 was considered among us "high
school experts" to be THE thing to have - of course none of us had one, but
nonetheless, it was desireable and wonderful and we all wanted one.
Eventually, I got a Tanberg deck that meets my needs (actually,it is a
really excellent deck), and the fancy passed. Then I ran across a 1024
transport locally, bought it, played with it a bit and came to the
conclusion that my house is really crowded and I really don't have a need
for another tape transport, no matter how nice (and it's really nice) - I
don't think even the "pro" decks of today are built this way - though I
haven't looked at a pro deck in quite a while - nice heavy castings, the
transport alone weighs almost 40 pounds - three motors with torque control
on the takeup motors, all solenoid controlled, all those things that we
thought were just beyond cool at the time.

What did kind of surprise me about this unit is that it has two heads, and
a
switch to select head 3 or 4 on the front - without a manual it's a bit of
a
guess, but my other decks have at least three heads (erase, record,
playback, in that order) - this appears to have no erase head - and the
front panel switch is a bit of a puzzlement.

I'm getting rid of it via the usual auction site - I'd like to at least know
what is
going on with the heads before it goes to its next home - anyone know? I
presume the record/playback amp, which I don't have, was a tube type unit -
the info I could find freely on the web didn't really say much about that
part of it. In fact the info on the web is pretty sketchy.

--
Bill
www.wbnoble.com

When I redid the sound system at Wayfarer's Chapel in mid 1970s, I got three well-worn Magnecord 1020s as part of the spoils. The four-head system let you have erase, record, 2-track play, and 4-track play, and the 3/4 switch let you select the playback format. The really hard-core folks would own a 2-track machine with an extra 4-track play head, and a 4-track with an extra 2-track head, for universal compatibility and dubbing.