When I started back in the 70s, I learned to edit with one like this:
You ran your thumb up at the right edge of the head cover to mark it. The splicing block was marked accordingly. Flawless edits every time at 7 1/2 ips!
Any of you guys own/use one?
Doug
My first reel to reel was a Voice of Music 714 which my parents purchased but it seems as if I was the only one who used it. Used to record music off the air and rebroadcast it over my Part 15 AM station while in high school and I also used it to record our H. S. band performances. I kept it running for 15 years until I could afford to buy my own Sony deck.
The Sony served me well for many years and I dug it out of storage a few years ago and it barely worked. The single knob for FFWD, REW, and PLAY just wouldn't stay in its setting. A teardown revealed that the grease in the mechanism had turned to glue so a good cleaning and adjustiment restored it to like new condition. After this fix, I spent a lot of time converting my tapes to digital so they wouldn't be lost with age but the loss would be due to media deterioration rather than the Sony giving up.
Editing was always fun but also a challenge since I didn't have a splice block so I would snip the tape with scissors and apply splicing tape and trim the top and bottom edges so the tape would not contact the heads. This was not very efficient but it got the job done.
The Ampex and Roberts were beyond my budget so I made do with what I had.
Neil
I've got a Tascam 32 and Teac A-3440. Both have fantastic playback quality, the Tascam has warped motors and an intermittent problem when recording that causes audio to briefly drop out. Still plays just fine though, if you can ignore the reel scraping against the case screws.
The Teac is used for the station since it is the better one of the two with no problems at all.
Wow, Neil! That VoM 713 look like this?
Not too shabby! The Ampex was beyond mybudget too, but when I was in Germany, I bought one of these brand new off the showroom shelf:
But that Ampex was bullet-proof! The first one I used professionally was WRUM Rumford Maine in 1976.
Doug
The TASCAM 32! This beauty:
I wanted one of those! And the 4 channel Teac!
Good GOSH man! Classics!
Doug
Yes, your linked picture is the one! I still have it but haven't run it for quite a while. The rubber brakes on the reel spindles are dried out so when it is switched from rewind or fast forward to stop it snaps the tape. Not worth fixing this. One weakness of this model was the capstan roller. This rubber wheel would only last about a year and then the tapes would have horrenous wow and flutter. My cousin had the same model and his did this also. Fortunately, there was a VM distributor near us and I could easily get the rollers on the cheap. Replacing them took about two minutes.
The machine weighed about 32 pounds and for a 6 foot tall 125 lb kid lugging this around was quite a task but it was good exercise.
One thing which never satisfied me was the sound quality since it always seemed distorted. I spent a lot of effort to make it better including bias adjustments and recapping. It was several years later that I realized that the distortion was in the original signal sources (pre recorded tapes and off the air material). Live recordings sounded much better. The recorder used class A amplifiers which are inherently not good regarding distortion. The Sony which is solid state and used good feedback techniques performs much better.
Nonetheless, it was great fun and I learned a lot messing around with it.
Neil
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Great read! I've always loved tape machines. My first exposure was a rim drive 3 1/2" portable when I was about 12. Later my Mom got me a 7" Webcor at the Top Value Stamp store. A half track mono 7". Didn't sound very good. I still have a recording made with that machine when a very popular Cleveland DJ (Jerry G) did his last show. Made a digital copy a couple years ago and sent it to him. He's in California working at KPOP. He was very greatful and sent me a copy of his tour program with the Beatles called "There's More There Than Hair" and he offered a free meal at his seafood restaurant if I ever got out that way.
The Webcor was followed by a 5" Lloyds 6 transistor portable. Yep, still have a recording of my buddy's band made with that one.
Onward! While working at a local discount department store I bought a Concord 509D 7" stereo tape deck. The best yet for me. That was around 1970. Of course I was drooling for a Teac or Tascam but out of my price range at the time.
Now that I'm older and those old greats are available on Ebay I've been buying.
I have a Teac 2340 and 3340 (both 4 track simul-sync) and an A-4070. Also a Fostex Model 80 8 track 7". I found a Concord very similar to the 509D I had. It was on the curb for trash day. Of course I rescued it and have it working although it needs a new head. I also found my Lloyd's 5" on Ebay. That tape of my buddy's band plays perfectly on it. That was recorded around 1965.
I used professional Tascam 8 track digital machines in our studio, great machines, but the maintenance/repair is to expensive. When the heads fail it costs over $600 to fix doing it myself. I did that to one machine-once. The heads are good for about 1000 hours.
Someone recently gave me a 1956 Keystone 7" half track mono destined for the trash. It was made by Magnecord. Needs a couple tubes and some mechanical work. The head was in such bad shape I tried lapping it with some carborundum paper. Helped although I wouldn't recommend doing that to heads you thought were usable. The Jury is still out on that one. It may be parted out.
I like my digital recording equipment but I love my tapes...
My Revox A77 MKII was "lost" along with my vinyl collection at my parent's place many moons ago....
When I was in Texas in the late '70s I bought a Teac 3300SX/2T...GAWD!! What a sweet machine!! Alas.....THAT beauty was truly LOST to thieves who broke into my apartment while I was working a double shift....computer, TV, ham equipment...POOF!!:(
Luckily I DID have renter's insurance....so I got SOME compensation....but losing that Teac still hurts to this day.....!!
The reason I brought up the Ampex 600, is look what you can buy for $360!
That is the EXACT machine I learned on! KFXM, San Bernadino, 1970!
Doug
The TASCAM 32!
Neil,
The Radio and Television class at Scarlet Oaks had two Tascam 32 decks and the smaller version, cannot think of the model number right off the top of my head.
When they were new the decks worked flawlessly.
Barry
Edited: Tascam 22-2 Reel to Reel was the smaller version i was thinking of, it was in the televsion studio. 
Mention of the Voice of Music reel to reel tube recorders, brings me to mention I still use a VOM 722 reel to reel here in my studio, still works very well. I can't post a picture here, but view my station's facebook profile picture, you can clearly see the Voice of Music 722 over the turntables in the upper portion of the profile picture. I have mine sitting vertically, although, they were meant to be used like a record player laying flat on a table.
Bruce.