AardvarkBry
Tinkerer who doesn’t know nearly enough to fiddle
I’ve been restoring an old Ampex 960, the old late 50s/early 60s tube model. I finally got it all up and running electronically, but there are some noticeable issues. When I record, there is a considerable amount of flutter and wow. There seems to be a little too much slack on the tape, and when I rewind and fast forward, it’s kind of sluggish to engage. It only works half way decent at 3 3/4 speed. The 7 1/2 speed is a disaster. Also, the stereo heads setting sounds pretty bad, but mono doesn’t sound half bad. I was thinking it probably needs new belts, a head alignment, and possibly heads demagnetized. One curious thing, when I play commercially produced tapes, they sound great. It’s only when I record something that I really notice all the flutter and wow, which makes me wonder if I just have a bunch of bad tapes? Any help is greatly appreciated.
