Studer A810 - Heavy Wow and Flutter after 30mins power on..

[spacecho]

Hello all,

I have 2 Studer A810 2 track decks.. they all work well except after being powered on for some time they begin to have excessive wow and flutter. One deck does it more readily than the other but after say 30-45 mins they both go into excessive wow and flutter. If they are allowed to cool down they playback fine.

I should note that the sides of the decks (heavy metal heat sinks) get very hot.

Could there be an internal fan that has maybe stopped working?

Cheers

 

[SSLtech]

I had wow with an A810. -VERY bad wow.

If you're getting wow and flutter then it wasn't what I was getting. I was getting wow. -Are you being accurate with your description?

Flutter has to be mechanical on that deck. There's nothing electrical which can cause flutter that springs to mind.

In my case the wow was (and this was over 25 years ago, so I'm afraid I cant recall very much) due to either the master oscillator or the PLL. -I think it may have been the master oscillator, because I seem to recall that if we ran it on 9.6kHz external varispeed it might have been okay... but that's not 100% certain...

I do recall for certain that the problem was electronic. -I also remember how the speed used to slew. -One mix went out with speed issues after nobody noticed. -I still remember the tune, the words, the melody and how sick it sounded when I heard it back... It wasn't flutter. -There was NO flutter in there.

I own a very nice Wow & flutter meter, if that makes a difference.

 

[VertigoRecording]

when's the last time you oiled your capstan motor upper bushing?????
Charlie Bolois
Vertigo Recording Services
still working on a tape machine every day

 

[erjos]

Whow...
Charlie Bolois is here.. Nice to see you here mr Charlie.

 

[spacecho]

Thank you for your replies,

SSL tech - I think my terminology is wrong - Just 'wow' is what i have.. sorry

I haven't conducted any maintenence on the except cleaning the heads, capstans and rollers etc.. and demag...

Thanks for the tip regarding oiling the bearing - will try and acquire a copy of the service manuals and report back to the group..

 

[SSLtech]

If you have access to a 9.6kHz oscillator (or a Lynx synchronize etc) you could see if switching to 'ext' speed control improves things. -If I recall correctly, if no 9.6kHz signal is present, the unit still defaults to 'internal', so just switchign WITHOUT an oscillator present doesn't actually change anything... you have to verify that you can varispeed first before any conclusions can be drawn.

Failing that, Charlie is da man!