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Reel to Reel Tape Recorder Repairs

Since 1968 Servicesound have had the pleasure of working on some of the finest tape recorders ever made. Personal favourites are Ferrograph and Brenell but all reel to reel tape recorders have a 'mystique' about them. A combination of precision engineering and brilliant electronics leads to sound that cannot be bettered. Many recording studios are now going over to analogue recorders preferring them to the hard clinic al sound digital recorders produced.Fig.1 Brenell STB2
Brenell STB2 tape recorder.
Reel to reel machines are beginning to become scarce and expensive, perhaps the most important point is that they can almost always be repaired and bought up like new. This is where Servicesound can help. Regardless of make and age, so long as it is intact ~ Servicesound can repair your tape recorder.

Brenell Tape Recorders

In 1977 former Brenell directors and development engineers established Soundcraft Magnetics to produce world class advanced multi-track recorders, such as the astonishing "Saturn 1", in direct competition with the market leaders, Studer, Ampex and Otari. They were to be the last British tape deck manufacturer. Arguably these tape recorders are the best machines that have ever been made and was voted best looking tape recorder In the World. All the Brenell photographs used on this site are attributed to Barry Jones whose devotion to these wonderful machines knows no bounds.

Pictured in Fig.1 is a Brenell STB2, like Ferrograph these are superbly made machines and easy to repair. Parts are easy to obtain, as with most European manufactures, they used components that are readily available the shelf. Even the control knobs are still made!

Notes on Ferrograph

The Ferrograph tape recorder is, in my opinion, one of the finest sounding machines ever made. The series 7 generation has had a rather bad press due to the rubber parts melting and on the Seven, the head pressure pads causing problems. All these troubles are easily rectified and once serviced and properly set up the Ferrograph will out perform just about any machine you care to mention. They do have their little idiosyncrasies but this is what comes with a hand made machine and when one gets used to using them they are a joy. Built like a tank and easy to service these machines will go on forever. The electronics are simple and all the parts are easily obtainable. The early, round bodied, heads can be taken apart, finished and micro polished to bring them up like new. The same applies to the older 4, 5 and 6 series. These are valve based machines and have the magic that valves add to the sound.
See the spares page for all Ferrograph parts

Makes Serviced Include...

Ferrograph, Teac, Fostex, Philips, Grundig, Revox, Nagra, Stellavox, Brenell, Truvox, Aiwa, Akai, Sony, Stellaphone, Reflectograph, EMI, Tanberg, Bang & Olufsen, Pioneer, Uher, Neal, Studer Simon and many many more.

Comments

A belated thank you for your attention to my Akai 4000DS. It was a pleasure meeting you! I enjoyed your vinyl demonstration on your huge valve amp.
The Akai is just perfect, lovely and shiny out of the box and I’ve noticed that it is much quieter when in operation. All works fine, so I’m now in the process of moving recordings from Open Reel to PC and thence to .WAV and MP3. At first I fretted a bit when your invoice mentioned the worn heads, but hey, its over 30 years old and I wont use it as much as previous years.
Best wishes, good luck.
Nicky C

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