Hello everyone, and even if it's a little late, merry Christmas!🎄🎅🦄
It's been a while since I published my last post, and I guess I've already said this in most of my posts. This blog is not going to be abandoned any time soon, but it's not my highest priority either. I will continue making posts about things I love, even if I won't make them often.
For Christmas, Santa Claus got me a 1989 Kashtan-1 4-track consumer reel to reel recorder. Where he got it from, I don't know. Does Santa Claus have deposits of ancient products? Who knows. Maybe he's a fan of old technology too.
I can finally say that I am seriously getting into reel to reel audio (My last recorder from 1968, even though it's probably much cooler and more valuable than this one, doesn't come near to the sound quality of this one, because, first of all, this one passes the tape trough the heads at twice the speed, and second of all, this one is glorious STEREO)
Glorious, it even has the same shiny metal color that my cassette/cd/radio/amplifier has, which is perfect for my Hi-fi setup. The only thing left for me to get (Especially since I have lots of records now, thanks to an amazing friend who got me 11 for Christmas) is a record player. I'm going to get an old but good and cheap one from okazii probably, since an ok turntable these days is crazy expensive. (for my budget, at least)
This reel to reel recorder only cost me 300 lei, with some 1970s ORWO tapes included, and some replacement rubber belts for the motor. (the seller was very nice, and made sure that when the belts perish, I'll have some replacements at my disposal)
In recent years there has been a huge vinyl resurgence, which I'm pretty sure everybody knows about, but there's also been a small, limited reel to reel recorder comeback. Reel to reel is by many considered to be the best sounding format in the world. It also is the most expensive one. (If we're talking about the high-end recorders, not what I've got to show here)
For a recorder to be considered "high-end", many would say that it requires a tape speed of 15 inches per second (or 38.1 cm per second) and the large, 10.5 inch (or 26.6 cm) in diameter reels. This Kashtan has a tape speed half of that, 7.5 inches (or 19 cm) per second, which was considered the consumer standard, and the standard speed for pre-recorded tapes (until they started being released in 3.75 inches (or 9,5 cm) per second, because of the cheaper cost. Of course, quality got worse.) Also, the maximum size of reels it takes is 7 inch ones, or 18 cm.
For comparison, a standard cassette moves at 1⅞ inches (or 4,7 cm) per second, which is half of the half of my reel to reel recorders speed (or a quarter, to be more precise). The tape is also half the width, at 1⁄8 inches. And, except for the extreme hiss, cassettes still sound great if played on proper equipment. I think you can only imagine how perfect a 15ips reel to reel recorder would sound.
For more information about reel to reel recorders, and other vintage music formats, I highly recommend a youtuber that goes by the name of Techmoan. His channel is one of the highest quality ones I've had the pleasure to follow, and all of his videos are so technical, yet easy to understand and extremely informative.
Here's one of his videos about reel to reel recorders:
But we're here today to take a look at a less professional, but still incredible, 1989 Kashtan-1. These recorders were manufactured in the USSR, and are actually of a really high quality.
Let's take the cover off and take a look:
This is where the tape goes. The one of the left is the supply reel, where the tape is stored initially, and the one on the right is the take-up reel, where the tape is stored during playback or recording. If you noticed, the one on the right is smaller than the one on the left. That is because the actual supply reel is the right one, it's only that I've flipped them to listen and record to the other side of the tape. If one has a smaller take-up reel than the actual supply reel, that may be problematic, because there could be more tape than the take-up reel could handle.
The tape I'm using here is a 1978 ORWO tape (which, according to some printed information on the tape itself, is actually BASF tape, only rebranded) made in GDR (yes, the tapes are communist too.)
I actually have a pretty large collection of ORWO tapes, because they're dirt cheap here in Romania. I got 8 of them for 60 lei total, alongside the ones I already had. (14.72 US dollars)
One of them, by the way, had a recording from the 16th of January 1983. It was a recording of a dad listening to his boy, who was saying lots and lots of poems, which he probably had to learn in school or late kindergarten. Judging by his voice, the boy was probably 5 or 6. It's really emotional for me to know that I own a tape recorded back then with something like this. I also have a tape completely recorded on both sides with Adrian Paunescu, recorded off the radio, probably. The only tape I recorded over was the one in the pictures, because it was recorded, probably for testing, by the seller off of modern radio stations.
There's a pretty neat locking mechanism for the tapes. There's a little knob, that can be twisted, preventing the tape from being removed and wiggling.
The "STEREO TAPE RECORDER" part can be removed, revealing the tape heads and mechanism:
Mine has a little piece of plastic broken, but still works perfectly.
There are four knobs on the left, one for volume, one for treble adjustment, one for bass adjustment, and one for balance. These, however, only affect the internal speaker (which can be enabled or disabled by pressing the button below the treble knob) and the external speakers, if you've got some connected to the passive speaker ports. I, however, don't have the matching speakers for this recorder, so I've connected it using the line out port to my aux input on my all in one amplifier/cassette/cd/radio.
This is the switch for the operation mode of the recorder. In the picture, it's set to off. If I twist it to the right, it gets set to amplifier mode. This way, you can connect any sound device to it and it will output trough the internal speaker (or any other speakers connected to it).
If I twist it once more, it starts the motor, and I'm able to record or playback tapes at 9,5 cm per second. This speed on this particular recorder is very disappointing; it sound terrible compared to my 1968 Telefunken recorder, which sounds ok even on 4,7 cm per second.
But, twist it once more, and you get the full speed of 19 cm per second. At this speed, the tape sounds glamorous. A subtle is noticeable, but only at a really low volume.
On the bottom-right of the recorder, the vacuum fluorescent display VU meter is located, along with some additional controls. On the top-left of the picture, there are controls from switching between channel 1, channel 2, or stereo. What I really like is that if I choose to listen to only one of the tracks, it still gets sent to both the speakers, creating a pseudo-stereo effect.
On the bottom-left, is the record button. To record, one must keep it pressed down while playback starts. After that it is kept pressed down automatically. Next to it is a little LED, which becomes red while recording. Below the display, are the last two knobs: These adjust the recording volume for each track individually. The idea is that you'd want to get the highest volume possible (for less hiss) but also not too high, for it to get distorted. If the VU meter shows the recording volume reaching 3+, it's still ok probably, but after that it'll get distorted.
These are the last of the controls: The switch for rewind, fast forward and play, next to the pause switch.
For fast forward and rewind, one must simply switch it to the right or the left. For playback, it must be pressed down, and then switched to the right. The pause button must be pressed down, and then move up to be locked. This way, one can start a recording while paused to monitor the loudest points of a song, or anything else.
These are the ports on the right of the machine. These are all five pin din connectors. I bought two adapters for these kind of ports to standard rca jacks (I also have 3.5mm jack to rca adapters). Amazingly, I found and bought the adapters at my local Media Galaxy. Couldn't believe it.
The top connectors are for microphones, the left bottom one is line in, the middle one is line out, and the right one is line in, but for recording. You can also record from the left line in connector, but the record level knobs don't work.
These machines are simply beautiful, and so well made. I recorded a video of my recorder playing Bohemian Rhapsody, which I recorded to it from my computer using the highest quality digital format, 24bit FLAC (which, on my computer, occupies 324mb, while the mp3 takes up only 8, for comparison. On the recorder, they both take up the same amount of tape.)
The audio is captured directly from the line out to my computer, again, edited and synced over the recorded video. By the way, it's probably going to sound much worse on youtube, first of all, because I recorded it to my computer again (meaning some quality was lost there) and second of all because of youtubes compression of audio. Also, there are a few slight dropouts, because of the age of the tape. Here it is:
There is one practical reason I've wanted one of these so much: Because they're an analog recording medium, just like vinyl, I can actually record fragile and valuable vinyl records to a tape, and the sound would remain analogous to the original recording. That way I could listen to true analog sound, without gradually wearing out a record. And also, I could record crazy large digital recordings to tape.
Well, that's it everyone. Hope you learned something new today, and, as always, thanks for reading, and merry Christmas again!🎅🎄🦄
It's been a while since I published my last post, and I guess I've already said this in most of my posts. This blog is not going to be abandoned any time soon, but it's not my highest priority either. I will continue making posts about things I love, even if I won't make them often.
For Christmas, Santa Claus got me a 1989 Kashtan-1 4-track consumer reel to reel recorder. Where he got it from, I don't know. Does Santa Claus have deposits of ancient products? Who knows. Maybe he's a fan of old technology too.
I can finally say that I am seriously getting into reel to reel audio (My last recorder from 1968, even though it's probably much cooler and more valuable than this one, doesn't come near to the sound quality of this one, because, first of all, this one passes the tape trough the heads at twice the speed, and second of all, this one is glorious STEREO)
Glorious, it even has the same shiny metal color that my cassette/cd/radio/amplifier has, which is perfect for my Hi-fi setup. The only thing left for me to get (Especially since I have lots of records now, thanks to an amazing friend who got me 11 for Christmas) is a record player. I'm going to get an old but good and cheap one from okazii probably, since an ok turntable these days is crazy expensive. (for my budget, at least)
This reel to reel recorder only cost me 300 lei, with some 1970s ORWO tapes included, and some replacement rubber belts for the motor. (the seller was very nice, and made sure that when the belts perish, I'll have some replacements at my disposal)
In recent years there has been a huge vinyl resurgence, which I'm pretty sure everybody knows about, but there's also been a small, limited reel to reel recorder comeback. Reel to reel is by many considered to be the best sounding format in the world. It also is the most expensive one. (If we're talking about the high-end recorders, not what I've got to show here)
For a recorder to be considered "high-end", many would say that it requires a tape speed of 15 inches per second (or 38.1 cm per second) and the large, 10.5 inch (or 26.6 cm) in diameter reels. This Kashtan has a tape speed half of that, 7.5 inches (or 19 cm) per second, which was considered the consumer standard, and the standard speed for pre-recorded tapes (until they started being released in 3.75 inches (or 9,5 cm) per second, because of the cheaper cost. Of course, quality got worse.) Also, the maximum size of reels it takes is 7 inch ones, or 18 cm.
For comparison, a standard cassette moves at 1⅞ inches (or 4,7 cm) per second, which is half of the half of my reel to reel recorders speed (or a quarter, to be more precise). The tape is also half the width, at 1⁄8 inches. And, except for the extreme hiss, cassettes still sound great if played on proper equipment. I think you can only imagine how perfect a 15ips reel to reel recorder would sound.
For more information about reel to reel recorders, and other vintage music formats, I highly recommend a youtuber that goes by the name of Techmoan. His channel is one of the highest quality ones I've had the pleasure to follow, and all of his videos are so technical, yet easy to understand and extremely informative.
Here's one of his videos about reel to reel recorders:
But we're here today to take a look at a less professional, but still incredible, 1989 Kashtan-1. These recorders were manufactured in the USSR, and are actually of a really high quality.
Let's take the cover off and take a look:
This is where the tape goes. The one of the left is the supply reel, where the tape is stored initially, and the one on the right is the take-up reel, where the tape is stored during playback or recording. If you noticed, the one on the right is smaller than the one on the left. That is because the actual supply reel is the right one, it's only that I've flipped them to listen and record to the other side of the tape. If one has a smaller take-up reel than the actual supply reel, that may be problematic, because there could be more tape than the take-up reel could handle.
The tape I'm using here is a 1978 ORWO tape (which, according to some printed information on the tape itself, is actually BASF tape, only rebranded) made in GDR (yes, the tapes are communist too.)
I actually have a pretty large collection of ORWO tapes, because they're dirt cheap here in Romania. I got 8 of them for 60 lei total, alongside the ones I already had. (14.72 US dollars)
One of them, by the way, had a recording from the 16th of January 1983. It was a recording of a dad listening to his boy, who was saying lots and lots of poems, which he probably had to learn in school or late kindergarten. Judging by his voice, the boy was probably 5 or 6. It's really emotional for me to know that I own a tape recorded back then with something like this. I also have a tape completely recorded on both sides with Adrian Paunescu, recorded off the radio, probably. The only tape I recorded over was the one in the pictures, because it was recorded, probably for testing, by the seller off of modern radio stations.
The "STEREO TAPE RECORDER" part can be removed, revealing the tape heads and mechanism:
Mine has a little piece of plastic broken, but still works perfectly.
There are four knobs on the left, one for volume, one for treble adjustment, one for bass adjustment, and one for balance. These, however, only affect the internal speaker (which can be enabled or disabled by pressing the button below the treble knob) and the external speakers, if you've got some connected to the passive speaker ports. I, however, don't have the matching speakers for this recorder, so I've connected it using the line out port to my aux input on my all in one amplifier/cassette/cd/radio.
This is the switch for the operation mode of the recorder. In the picture, it's set to off. If I twist it to the right, it gets set to amplifier mode. This way, you can connect any sound device to it and it will output trough the internal speaker (or any other speakers connected to it).
If I twist it once more, it starts the motor, and I'm able to record or playback tapes at 9,5 cm per second. This speed on this particular recorder is very disappointing; it sound terrible compared to my 1968 Telefunken recorder, which sounds ok even on 4,7 cm per second.
But, twist it once more, and you get the full speed of 19 cm per second. At this speed, the tape sounds glamorous. A subtle is noticeable, but only at a really low volume.
On the bottom-right of the recorder, the vacuum fluorescent display VU meter is located, along with some additional controls. On the top-left of the picture, there are controls from switching between channel 1, channel 2, or stereo. What I really like is that if I choose to listen to only one of the tracks, it still gets sent to both the speakers, creating a pseudo-stereo effect.
On the bottom-left, is the record button. To record, one must keep it pressed down while playback starts. After that it is kept pressed down automatically. Next to it is a little LED, which becomes red while recording. Below the display, are the last two knobs: These adjust the recording volume for each track individually. The idea is that you'd want to get the highest volume possible (for less hiss) but also not too high, for it to get distorted. If the VU meter shows the recording volume reaching 3+, it's still ok probably, but after that it'll get distorted.
These are the last of the controls: The switch for rewind, fast forward and play, next to the pause switch.
For fast forward and rewind, one must simply switch it to the right or the left. For playback, it must be pressed down, and then switched to the right. The pause button must be pressed down, and then move up to be locked. This way, one can start a recording while paused to monitor the loudest points of a song, or anything else.
These are the ports on the right of the machine. These are all five pin din connectors. I bought two adapters for these kind of ports to standard rca jacks (I also have 3.5mm jack to rca adapters). Amazingly, I found and bought the adapters at my local Media Galaxy. Couldn't believe it.
The top connectors are for microphones, the left bottom one is line in, the middle one is line out, and the right one is line in, but for recording. You can also record from the left line in connector, but the record level knobs don't work.
These machines are simply beautiful, and so well made. I recorded a video of my recorder playing Bohemian Rhapsody, which I recorded to it from my computer using the highest quality digital format, 24bit FLAC (which, on my computer, occupies 324mb, while the mp3 takes up only 8, for comparison. On the recorder, they both take up the same amount of tape.)
The audio is captured directly from the line out to my computer, again, edited and synced over the recorded video. By the way, it's probably going to sound much worse on youtube, first of all, because I recorded it to my computer again (meaning some quality was lost there) and second of all because of youtubes compression of audio. Also, there are a few slight dropouts, because of the age of the tape. Here it is:
There is one practical reason I've wanted one of these so much: Because they're an analog recording medium, just like vinyl, I can actually record fragile and valuable vinyl records to a tape, and the sound would remain analogous to the original recording. That way I could listen to true analog sound, without gradually wearing out a record. And also, I could record crazy large digital recordings to tape.
Well, that's it everyone. Hope you learned something new today, and, as always, thanks for reading, and merry Christmas again!🎅🎄🦄
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