Tandberg TD-25A

[Kenneth Swauger]

Hello,
Here's a shot of a CL find that was in beautiful shape. I've thoroughly cleaned it inside and out, replaced all essential caps and resistors for both record and playback. I had a local company powder coat the upper faceplate and a generous Club Polk member did a fantastic job on the black cabinet. It ended up becoming a great sounding deck.
Cheers, Ken

[MillerLiteScott]

Very nice Ken.

[madmax]

That is awesome! Tell us about it.
madmax

[polkatese]

wow, looks brand new Ken! Very nice job.

[George Grand]

Sharp. I love Tandberg anything.

[TECHNOKID]

Beautifull piece Ken Yes, give us a blurb on it...

Cheers!
TK

[mhardy6647]

hubba-freaking-hubba! I am jealous.

A couple of Tandbergs here, but nothing close to that calibre. The audio quality of the Tandberg R2R decks (especially the later ones) was superb.



Ken, FYI, in case you didn't know, there is a fair resource of Tandberg docs (mostly catalogs and the like) at: http://sportsbil.com/tandberg/



Tandberg also made some bodacious radios, tuners, and receivers as well...




(and their cassette decks were no slouches, either)

[Polkersince85]

Knobs and meters, Yea baby, that's Hi-Fi.

.

[AudioGenics]

OOOOH..... I spy some goodies on the cabinet shelves in the background of the pic.

what are they ??

and also behind theTandberg what is the little box with the toggle switch ?

[Kenneth Swauger]

Hello,
On the second self down is the preamp I built a few years ago and on the shelf below is the separate power supply for it. The toggle switch, on the right, is the on/off switch for the air compressor that's below in the basement. This is connected to a 12 gallon air tank which provides air for the Maplenoll turntable on the top shelf. The 60lb lead platter and the straight line tone arm are driven by 40psi from below.
I can take some more shots of tape decks if anyone's interested.
Cheers, Ken

[F1nut]

That's beautiful Ken.

I can take some more shots of tape decks if anyone's interested.

You had to ask!?!

[headrott]

Great looking deck Ken! I've never heard a Tandberg Reel to reel deck. Can you describe the sound? What is it similar to as far as other R2R decks? Thanks for posting Ken.

Greg

[tonyb]

Reel to reel is probably my fav for playback. To my ears anyway,about as close or better in some ways than records. Those too young to have had one/heard one,need to get an ear on it in a good system.

Nice job Ken, looks awesome. Are there still places to buy tapes for those bad boys?

[cnh]

I agree and I'm old enough to remember buying tapes for a reel to reel. Awesome sound....incredible. Opened my ears up to an entirely new dimension during the golden era of vinyl. And if you ever get to listen to a MASTER tape. Forget about it! Nothing compares.

It is a thing of beauty Ken!

cnh

[Kenneth Swauger]

Thanks for the link, MRH, I didn't know about it. According to audio legend the TD-25A was the component that put Tandberg out of business. When they developed the transport mechanism for the deck, they wanted to have the mechanics controlled by a micro processor. So, they developed a logic IC that controlled all of the tape motion functions. Letting a person hit "play" in the fast forward mode and the tape would be gently handled with no excessive tape tension. As I understand it Tandberg put a great deal of money into making the chip and went into production. They got tremendous reviews and the deck sold well. After a while people began having problems, the decks started to fail. I don't know the exact symptoms, but dealers started getting lots of irate customer complaints. Tandberg had to redesign the IC and then pay all of the dealers and service centers to make modifications or replace the complete deck. The result was dealers stopped selling Tandberg and the company ceased operation. As I said this is just audio legend and no way takes away from the excellent products Tandberg made.
The TD-25A that I have seems to work fine (I'm knocking on wood as I type this) and seemed well cared for. It is a real bear to work on and modify. All of the audio circuitry is on a very large circuit board that runs along the lower section of the deck. The record, bias and playback electronics are all on the same board. This means that you have to work hard to locate a part, remove it and put in it's replacement. Unlike a Revox A77, for example, where there are individual circuit cards plugged into a master board you are always dealing with looking at one side of the board trying to trace down a resistor and then find the spot where the solder has to be removed.
But, at least Tandberg used individual transistors instead of the dreaded ICs that struck mid 70's audio. In fact both Tandberg and Revox used the nice sounding BC547C/BC548C/BC549C low noise transistors. I replaced all of the signal resistors with Roederstein Resista 1% metal film types. The coupling caps I used were the Black Gates with .01 film Panasonic by-passes.
No where near enough room to consider film types. That got rid of the grunge quality to the overall sound and gets rid of that "sandy" quality of upper frequencies.
The service manual is kinda cool, they use bearded cartoon Vikings holding various tools showing you how to remove the pinch roller and measure tape travel. You've got to love a company that does that.
The deck is unusual in that it has four motors, instead of the usual three. Tandberg has a small electrical motor that carefully moves the head assembly into the play position. Instead of the more usual "clunk" of a solenoid that everybody else uses.
As far as new blank tape for recording, yes there are two sources for that. The company in nearby York, PA. called ATR (who I would trade my soul to work there, refurbishing Ampex decks) has a fine sounding tape they produce. There's also a tape produced in Europe that's similar to Agfa tape, I'm going to try some soon. For pre-recorded tapes there's good old eBay, I just bought a Brahms 1st piano concerto with Clifford Curzon and George Szell. I thought it really sounded great.
One of the things I like about open reel sources is that it is a straight line from the original way the recording was made. At some point there was an RCA or London guy sitting there watching his VU meters move as the musicians played their instruments. Now, I can watch the tape move and the meters twitch fifty years later. Not a little silver disc that disapears into a slot, but real physical cause and effect. Everything about the process would be instantly recognized by that distant engineer.
I know, crazy, but it's a crazy hobby, right? You guys know what I mean.
Enjoy, Ken

[Lumpwithgoodear]

:(OMG! SIGH! I used to own one of those back in my Hippie years! lmao! Ken that is a beauty and alot of nice bonus features! LOVED that deck!


My system} (4) RTA12c's Carver C-1 Pre
(2) Carver 1.5T's
Carver TX-11 Tuner!
Carver CD player
Polk PSW1000 Dual 10 SUB ;)

[engtaz]

Gorgeous reel to reel Ken

[Kenneth Swauger]

While I had ones and zeros in the camera I thought I'd take some shots of the record playing part of the system.
Cheers, Ken

[Kenneth Swauger]

Forgot one,

[schwarcw]

Ken, your killing me with the quality of your system components. Very nice!

[TECHNOKID]

Beautiful gear Ken. Your pics are simply a tempting touch, you should provide some close pu of the pieces ;)

Cheers!
TK

[comfortablycurt]

Wow, Ken, that's some beautiful gear you've got!!

Very nice!!