Wollensaks put to the test
DeserTBoB
Wollensak/Sanyos to be about the best in terms of component
record/playback decks. Wellll...if these were "the best," the format
was obviously born with a stub toe!
I found the earlier "greenback" meters on the 3055 to be virtually
useless, as they're extremely non-linear. The later, truer-to-spec VU
maters on the 3056 and 3075 were far better. The previous meters
suffered from a lousy movement; a 10 dB change in signal could result
in the needle going from -10 to pegged hard. Obviously, there is a
flaw in the tension spring setting. I found the "true VU" meters on
the 3075 to track within about 2 dB through the entire range, a plus.
Another issue: WHERE they get the metering signal FROM. It seems
that the design of this deck has the metering after the pre-emphasis
filter section, so that if you set a 0 VU at 1 KHz, it'll certainly
peg the meter as you move up through the treble pre-emphasis curve.
This isn't such a bad thing, really, as it definately shows what's
really hitting the tape rather than the "flat" input signal. This was
actually a handy feature, as I used it with a step attentuator to
verify that the "special" EQ switch on the 3075 does indeed provide
the 70 盜 curve the same as the ubiquitous cassette "Type II" setting,
while the "normal" position gives the 120 盜 curve, equivalent
actually to the time honored NAB curve. Another annoyance: the
headphone monitoring while recording seems to be pre-emphasized and
thus, useless. Another major screw-up is the cheesy 15K record level
slider pots, all too common in consumer gear of that era. These
things are fragile and always noisy. Squirting them with the usual
"tuner spray" flushes out all the pot grease, and they become prone to
instant breakage.
How does it "sound?" I did some dubbing and found that the 3056 was
prone to overloading if you peak much above 0 VU, common in consumer
tape deck of any format in that era. For some reason, the 3075 seemed
better in this regard, with more headroom, although I can't see by the
schemos that the head amp is that much different. Freq runs at -20 VU
showed the bass was down about -4 dB at 30 Hz, a somewhat "peaky"
midrange, and a -3 dB down point just shy of 10 Khz using Scotch
Dynarange. Using BASF, I was lucky to get 7 KHz, as BASF seems to
require a bit less bias. I think I'll figure out a way to adjust that
bias oscillator, as oxide formulations seem to vary as much as
cassettes did.
Is a cart recorded on the Wollensak as good as a commercially duped
one? HELL no. I'd rate it probably on a par with cassette decks of
the same era...generally "mid-fi" at best. I later ironed out some of
the freq response bumps with a parametric, and the problem of the
3056's stunted headroom became way too obvious. Music dubbed from
open reel, CD or LP uniformly sounded "mid-rangey", and peaks weren't
in the picture at all. Actually, "peak shaving" in a car format
(which 8 track and the copied-from Muntz original 4 track were from
Day 1) is desireable, anyway, since it gets the program material above
the noise floor of the car. The 3075 was better all around; why, I
don't know (possibly a different head?), but I didn't get nearly as
much third harmonic distortion out of the 3075 as I did the others.
Wow and flutter performance on all of them, using new belts and clean
bearings, seemed good, but I don't have a reliable alignment tape with
which to measure with a bridge. Record/playback at 3150 Hz measured
at .08% weighted, not bad at all. Piano music sounded better than
most of the '70s cassette decks, and worse than something as toney as
a Nakamichi or any good open reel. I'd "ear judge" it to be a little
better than the old Onkyo TD-630D, one of the best of the 2 head
cassetters from the '70s. Bass response was noticeably better, both
on dubbed and commercially duped material.
Overall, I'd have hoped there was something better in this format. I
remember Superscope was selling 8 track decks under the Marantz brand,
and people have told me that they're quite good. The Radio Trash and
Panasonic decks I've seen seem to be definitely "low fi" examples,
probably good enough for making dubs for a Welltron "spcaeball" or a
Panasonic "detonator" portable and not much else.
Anyone else with some ideas or experience?
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Yodedude2
>
>dB
Some people like the Akai decks.
Don't the xx75 Wollies have the special eq switch for the use of "ferri-chrome"
tapes (Type III) tapes? later, ron
DeserTBoB
>tapes (Type III) tapes? later, ron <snip>
Ron:
Yes indeed, they do, as does the 3056. Ferrichrome didn't last long,
due to problems with MOL (headroom) curve, iffy freq response and
other problems. Overall, I remember Type IIIs to be not as good a
performers as, say, Maxell UDXL-II back in those days, one of the
better Type II cassettes.
As noted, the EQ appears to be 70 盜 and another switch bank bumps the
bias current up quite a bit. EQ was identical between Type II and III
tapes, while the bias requiements for FeCr were less than for real
CrO2. I seem to remember that Type III wound up being used almost
exclusively for "dupe tape," since its characteristics lent themselves
better to high speed duplication than did the more expensive Type IIs.
Again, I've never SEEN an FeCr cartridge, only the cassettes.
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trippin28track
I have gone through THREE Wollensak decks- they SUCK.
The problem with them is, they have wimpy little DC motors with tons
of wow/flutter, making proper speed adjustment impossible.
The 8050 model has an AC motor, but to get fast forward it actually
STRETCHES the belt by design to a larger pulley. The belt constantly
rides between 2 wire belt guides which creates drag and more
wow/flutter- so even though it's an AC motored deck, it plays like
shit.
Basically, Wollys can't hold a candle to an Akai or Telex. I'd even
take a Pioneer or Sony, heck even a Radio Shack TR-802 or Gibby TR-803
would be better than a Wollensak.
We call those "Ballinsack"
trippin28track
about WOLLENSAK decks
----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Nechanicky
Sent: Sunday, June 09, 2002 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: 8 track players
Wollensaks were known for quality, I have owned several, but the only
one that's any good is the original one, the 8050, it has a good AC
motor, and is stable. The later ones used a DC motor and the speed
regulator does not do the job, lots of wow and flultter.. The
electronic speed regulator used is not of the type that maintains
constant torque, it was a over site in manufacturing. The only way out
of the problem is a motor swap from something else, but its like
putting a chevy V8 into a Ford. Unless you are into that sort of thing
I wont stay away from the Wollensaks except the 8050. AKAI is built
extremely well, the best of the decks are CR80D, CR81D and the Glass
head model the GXR82 D. These decks will not give you a problem with
any wow or flutter. Expect to be your own technician on these decks.
If you can find one new in box, your far ahead of the game, but even
that may not mean perfect as some of that stuff may have been returns
and just sat around till now.
Joe
DeserTBoB
(trippin28track) wrote:
>You really have no clue, do you. <snip>
As a matter of fact, I do. Read on:
>Wollensaks were known for quality, I have owned several, but the only
>one that's any good is the original one, the 8050, it has a good AC
>motor, and is stable. The later ones used a DC motor and the speed
>regulator does not do the job, lots of wow and flultter.. The
>electronic speed regulator used is not of the type that maintains
>constant torque, it was a over site in manufacturing. <snip>
OVERSIGHT...the word is OVERSIGHT.
He is correct, and this was a problem with many Japanese designs in
the '70s. However, the problem at this time, owing to the age of the
units, isn't completely design, but lack of proper lubrication.
The Wollensaks after the 3050 used a tachoservo on the rear end of a
DC "can" motor to drive a current regulator circuit. All well and
good, if your goal is just to keep the motor at any given speed, but
the problem is that the tachometer reads the motor's shaft, not the
capstan shaft, which is where things matter. Also, such a servo
system is, of course, a reactive system; it only responds to speed
errors AFTER they happen. By that time, the wow or flutter incident
has already happened, and after the system corrects, say, a speed
drop, then there's an inevitable overshoot on the other end. something
called "regulation hysteresis." The regulator circuit of such systems
is usually designed with a gain and frequency response that will tend
to dampen out such hysteresis events, and they usually regain set
speed fairly quickly. Add to this the elasticity of the belt, and you
can easily see that this isn't the ultimate in speed accuracy. Torque
servo sensing isn't either, since the nature of the 8 track cartridge
is to not present a constant load to its drive system due to the
constant "peeling" of tape from the hub. Some carts are better than
others, of course. I've found BASFs to be pretty good, and the
Columbia "orange" TC8 (don't know who manufactured these) to be by far
the worst. GRT tried to use a multiple guide system in their carts
that was supposed to even out torque loading (the GRT "K" wrap), but
they presented much higher torque loads to the capstan overall, and
make it hard for a speed regulated system like in the Wollensak to
keep up.
So far, one thing I've found is that ALL these Wollensaks, being
almost 30 years old, are in crtical need of judicious cleaning and
lubrication. The DC "can" motor is easily disassembled for this, as
is the capstan shaft. Upon arrival, my 3056 and 3075 were "balls to
the wall" on motor current just to keep a cartridge at speed. Once I
did a proper cleaning and lubrication, current demand went WAY down,
as did the annoying "motor buzz" obvious in the audio output, another
flaw in the Sanyo design that's easily rectified with a couple filter
capacitors.
Overall, I haven't found the audio performance of the Wollensaks to
justify their reputation. Even with a freshly lapped head on the
3055, I has hard pressed to get 10 KHz @ 3 dB down, even using the
prescribed Scotch Dynarange. BASFs require less bias, and so the top
end was done even further, but so was the third harmonic distortion.
3M evidently had Sanyo build these machines with a fixed bias circuit,
thus making routine bias chnages to go from one formulation to another
an impossiblity. I've added a rheostat to the bias circuit on the
3075, and will start doing some tape biasing when I get time. I'm
pretty sure that even the Scotch carts are being overbiased somewhat,
since measured third harmonic at 0 VU was quite low...too low, in the
normal scheme of things regarding analog recording, given the type of
oxide formulations in use at that time.
>AKAI is built
>extremely well, the best of the decks are CR80D, CR81D and the Glass
>head model the GXR82 D. These decks will not give you a problem with
>any wow or flutter. <snip>
True. Akais were ahead of the curve on home RTR for years, until
Matsushita played "catch up" with their Technics line in the late
'70s. Teac...well...they sold a lot of them, but high sales doesn't
necessarily indicate quality design. Teacs were more reliable than
were Akais, however.
>Expect to be your own technician on these decks.
>If you can find one new in box, your far ahead of the game, but even
>that may not mean perfect as some of that stuff may have been returns
>and just sat around till now. <snip>
True again. I remember the early '70s Akais being "shop queens", as
were most single motor decks of the era. Sonys were notoriously bad,
and suffered from soft heads, something Akais never had a problem
with, especially after the introduction of the glass heads around 1978
or so.
What is shown here is that this tech knows his stuff pretty well, and
Nudo knows NOTHING...ZIP....ZERO....NADA...BUPKIS. He just parrots
someone else, picking their brain, thinking he's using them as some
sort of "ammo." Sick, stupid fool, that Nudo.
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DeserTBoB
(trippin28track) wrote:
>"somewhere on the web", gee that's really accurate info then, right ??
>
>I have gone through THREE Wollensak decks- they SUCK.
>
>The problem with them is, they have wimpy little DC motors with tons
>of wow/flutter, making proper speed adjustment impossible. <snip>
Read my previous post, moron...even YOU might learn something!
Wait...I take that back. I forget sometimes that Nudo is a short bus
denizen.
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trippin28track
You will soon become exhausted and give up !!
HA !
DeserTBoB
(trippin28track) wrote:
>It takes a lot of energy on your part to keep fighting me, Spongy...
>
>You will soon become exhausted and give up !! <snip>
Don't bet on it. You pissed me off with your illegal activities, and
like "Mad Dog" McCoy on Law & Order, I don't give up.
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