Remember the bin-loop master that ran off onto the commercially-released dubs is at LEAST 4 maybe even 5 or 6 generations down from the stereo mixdown master that cut the LP not to mention they were doing 16:1 and even 32:1 dubdowns by then.
The reverse-o-matic tone is the same 25Hz that the bin-loop dubbers use to be able to tell where to cut between copies of the same album - since they are not individually wound right after duplication the way a cassette would be.
Splicit is the new name for Joel Tall Industries which invented the first EdiTall block back in the early 50s. They acquired their one and only serious competitor Xedit some years later, and then the whole thing was bought by Splicit.
As far as the Capture tape -
https://audioimpressions.wordpress.com/ ... -the-blocknever used any myself but heard about the slit being closer to .250 than the .246-.248 it's supposed to be (Pyral, RMG, whatever remains of Zonal Magnetics etc) which means edge shavings are forever piling up on the guides.
Personally I wd order a promo sample and see if it's got the same problems or not - I mean it's been three years since this review so hopefully they got all the kinks worked out.
As far as sound quality - it's supposed to be a hybrid of ZonalHD and Ampex 456 which means it doesn't have the headroom of a 499 or the noise floor of a 911/996 but it IS supposed to give one of the better combinations of low noise and wide range around.
As far as a splicing kit - yes kids just learning and other semi-pro's have been buying various versions of that kit for 60 years - but in the advent of eBay and Amazon - I'd see about getting a used one and buying the splicing tape and leader tape along with the alcohol tapper and swabbies and packs of single edged razor blades and a box cutter and etc. all independently.
One reason is - apart from the fact that it's very tough to mess up an aluminum splicing block - the amount of leader and splicing tape and foil and etc they give you is miniscule compared to what you will need going forward.
Foil for example comes in 1000' foot rolls similar to masking tape both in half-inch versions as well as 7/32 - both of which can be had considerably cheaper from e.g. the window-security people, the sun-block window coating people or the film-preservation supply houses.
The same foil can indeed be used for 8-track cartridges and films and anything else that uses a proximity detector. Although you shouldn't need the 7/32 width foil for 8-tracks - using the standard half-inch laid diagonally across and shaved inside the channel the same as splicing tape should serve you fine.
One thing you might do though that they never did is apply real splicing tape on the opposite face of the tape from where you have your foil - and that holds doubly true for reel-to-reel unless you are as I said using 7/32 lengthwise on your leader right after the splice from the album. But then you have to worry about using too long or too short of a piece and wasting it.
Leader is the same - comes on 2500-foot cores (reels cost extra) on pancakes by the 10-pack - AND you can mix and match your colors as you see fit.
Splicing tape also comes in a large desktop-style tape dispenser roll several hundred feet on a 3-inch spool to the point where you can mount both your splicing tape and your sensing foil on independent cores in the same tape dispenser and use what you need when you need it.
Razor blades come in thousand-packs by the brick for a lot cheaper than you can get them through the tape supply companies.
And for all of these - if you find yourself having too much around - you can always spool off little bitty $1.98 snippets and sell `em online for $14.99 a spool the same as everybody else.
As far as re-dubbing old reels off of CD you might want to be a little bit selective.
As far as WOA - that tape - which is a double-album - is not that hard to come by. But being A 4-track stereo and B dubbed off in the 70s in the era of voice-grade mil-thick tape being ran off at 3-3/4 IPS for music - I can see why you'd want to do that one over again.
I'd say don't do it for a few reasons
1. Dubbing off a 16-bit 44.1 CD is going to lose a LOT of definition. I mean yeah sure you can do it til you get a better real copy and offload the leftovers like that in the swapmeet to some unsuspecting junior reel aficionado or other - but eventually your ears - and certainly those of the shmo to whom you offloaded it - are going to develop to the point where it will sound like nails on the blackboard.
Well maybe not but you get the idea.
I was doing that in college in the 80s and 90s but I was so glad I kept the originals on different (smaller 5-inch) reels so that when I got a better one later I could spool the better dub onto the better reel and put it in the better box and etc and then all the ``blank tape'' I offloaded - all these kids got all kinds of nice little surprises.
Since they were all 3-3/4 and I had a boatload of empty blank 1958 Quick Load Cartridges (see other thread abt that) - I wound `em all into different carts and wrote what it was in grease pencil just like the dubbing houses back then would do before attaching the labels and boxing them up to ship out.
2. Now you can do a lot better with a SACD or DTS or 24/96 DVD-A or some such and that will be better - but eventually you'll still be able to tell even the hi-res as having been bounced to digital and back.
3. Best to befriend a reviewer for all the new 15 IPS 2-track 10-1/2 inch stereo generation-and-a-half dubdowns that have been coming out for awhile now direct from the stereo session mix and do your 4-track stereo dubs from there.
They take the quarter inch session master, fly it over to a custom one-inch 2-track from JRF - make the half-inch 2-track bin-loop masters from that and so your release dub picks up a couple half-generations - one from being flown over to the one-inch and the other one from being flown back to a half-inch 2-track.
If you want to be picky - the guys that fly `em over to 30 IPS in the case of the 1-inch the half-inch or both - picks up maybe another quarter-generation since there's no EQ to worry about at 30 IPS
Me - in the case of the WOA or any other 3-3/4 album from the 70's - or 7-1/2 record club edition - I would just wait for a better one to show up - especially from Japan where a surprising number of U.S. titles from the post-Vietnam era were dubbed onto 7-1/2 instead of 3-3/4 the way they were in the States.
Since they used genuine Sony, 3M and other major brands instead of the generic or ``white-box'' tape they were using here by then - and since they were still doing 1:1 and 2:1 dubbing over there until almost the end of the Reel Era - even if it IS 3-3/4 - it's bound to sound better than a domestic release all other things being equal.
So welcome to the world of the reel to reel. Although it's just as expensive by percentage now as it was in the 50's, 60's and 70's if not more-so - you will find as your ears develop that it is well worth the effort.
