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Wich were the best?

S

SFM-Ptgal

Let's pull some memories back...

Wich were the best cart machines you ever worked with? And the worst?

My preferred ones were/are the Sonifex, something like the U.S. Tomcats PR cart machines. For sentimental reasons BE 3200 Triple decker and for the design the ITC Delta III.

And what about turntables? There's a class of U.S. broadcast turntables that look the same between them (the Idler -wheel driven ones) Russco, QRK, BE...

They all looked the same but did they behaved accordingly? Did they stop as fast as they start? Did you use to start playing back using the gear shift instead of the switch?
 
The QRK turntables and Russco always had broken arms . (Cheap wood junk)

The old gates turntables with solid metal construction were my fav. you could use a hammer to hit the platter and it rang like the bells of notre dame.

ever see a broken tone arm on one ? Nope.


I haven't thought about cart machines much except when someone asks about them on here. I liked the newer model cart machines with plastic solenoid capstan actuator. Don't recall the name.

Tomcat PRE were good but few stations had them. Delta II were fairly reliable. WAY BACK the old spotmaster units were everywhere but the rack mount 100lb versions were way too much fun to put in and out of racks when the caps dried out or the heads became out of phase (every day).
 
I got to maintain ALOT of Harris 90 decks. Pain with cue tones but a workhorse.

Audi-cord was my worst nightmare. Total pain in the butt.
 
I liked the Audi Cord for price. I didn't use any until the years when ITC decided to stop support on their cart machines or scale it way back.

ITC was cool because they had lights and color buttons. Most units had sec and ter tones. Remember when heads were out of phase and you'd hear tones on the air?

Remember Spotmaster units?
 
I actually still have 2 working Spotmaster units..

1 is the 5-spot 5 decker unit, which is missing the bottom deck. The other is the old type with the solenoid
lever on top.

These are used on air only occasionally..
 
I always liked the QRK turntables, a good, fast start, but on occasion had a slight bit of rumble. Sparta also had a good turntable.

One of the best cart machines I ever used is a Dynamax. Very dependable, nice quiet start. I once used a couple of older Spotmasters where you had to lock in the cart manually and you had to pot down the mike before starting it because it made a loud "WHAM" when you pushed the start button. I had occasion to use an Audicord but it had a mind of it's own...it would usually delay three to six seconds when you tried to start it. :-\
 
As a jock, I liked the ITC Triple Deck machines (but I never had to maintain one). I worked at one station which had two triple-decks, but only 5 pots for them, so the 6th one went straight out on the air (one was supposed to reserve that for jingles). For Turntables, the SP10 MK II (was that TEAC?) was my favorite.
 
Gear Shifts

The QRK turntables were beasts, and rumbled like an 18-wheeler, but there was a satisfying "chunk" when you dropped one of those babies into gear. They got up to speed in a hurry, and you could slip-cue without worrying about a lack of torque. As far as the "wooden tone arms" were concerned, the Gray Micro-Trak tone arms were FAR superior in sound to the old steel ones that were like an I-beam with a nail in the end.

The Technics turntables came to be the high-torque, low-noise replacement, especially for FM stations. They didn't get to speed as fast as the QRKs, but you could time it pretty easily, or slap a circle of felt on the table and slip-cue with precision. The SL-1200 series allowed you to "tweak" the speed, and I remember the "speed-up" wars between stations trying to make their music sound "brighter" than the competition. On stations that went too far, "brighter" sounded more like "chipmunk".

The ITC triple-deckers were THE decks. Yeah, you had to be careful about the bearings on the top deck because of that long shaft. You also needed to be careful to keep them clean, and the pinch rollers needed attention from time-to-time, but they were a workhorse, relatively easy to service (if you didn't have to pick it up), and could be chained together to allow sequencing from slot-to-slot and deck-to-deck.

With all that, I have no desire to return to the days of yesteryear. As the guy who installed our automation system said, "This system will make good jocks better, and bad jocks unemployed."
 
Depends what you were trying to do. For onair myusic playback, the Tomcat was the platinum standard. Depending the format, might run it in matrix or in discrete. At 15 ips, you had to use AA-5 carts or something like, Scotchcarts <tm> wouldn't survive at 15.

For out and out tank reliability, the original RCA rackmount units Leonard Shilbod made at JetTronics. The first ones had non-standard cue tones. They just didn't break.

For the 'chevrolet' of cart machines - reasonably priced, reliable, no magic at all, ITC Premium Line, either singles or the triple decker. If you play music in a triple decker, put it in the top or bottom slots.... the middle one wobbled in azimuth fiercely as the capstan turned.

For today's world, your fave digital storage/playboack system, and urinate upon moving tape anyhow.
 
littlejohn said:
Depends what you were trying to do. For onair myusic playback, the Tomcat was the platinum standard. Depending the format, might run it in matrix or in discrete. At 15 ips, you had to use AA-5 carts or something like, Scotchcarts <tm> wouldn't survive at 15.
Click to expand...

Funny... Scotchcarts survive very nicely at almost 30 i.p.s. in a bulk eraser / splice finder. If you've got one that won't stand up to 15 i.p.s., chances are it's worn out and needs to be reloaded.


R
R
 
Both 3M and PR&E told us they didn't think the things would survive at 15. And, in trials, they didn't. With normal tape (not a hi output formulation) they might have done better.
 
littlejohn said:
Both 3M and PR&E told us they didn't think the things would survive at 15. And, in trials, they didn't. With normal tape (not a hi output formulation) they might have done better.
Click to expand...

Interesting... I didn't know 3M had SC's loaded with normal tape. I thought they were all the low noise, high output stuff. I know audiomax/audiopak and fidelipak did have several tape types, which were usually distinguishable by the color of the actual cartridge plastic. Did 3M have a similar color coding system?

R
 
Best for me? ITC Delta series players and recorders running Scotchcarts II. The recorder would automatically do the erasing and re-winding/splice find for you. Ran this on air and they sounded great. Many stations back then would dub songs onto carts to play on the air. Guess they did not trust this "new" CD format yet.

The secondary and tercerary tones were very handy for controlling other events making for a good poorman's automation system.
 
But how many of you had to wind your own carts for use? I got pretty good at the Fidelipac carts.

Any of you ever use a "net delay" Audicord? What a piece of junk.
 
I have reloaded a few carts in my life, by means of manual labor (without a mechanical tape winder). I've done this for Audiomax carts, and some Scotchcarts. Scotchcarts are more difficult though. :(

R
 
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