Hooking up a tape deck to the SP 14

I have a VTA ST 70 with an SP 14 and a PH 14. I currently have an equalizer in the tape loop of the SP 14 (I need a little treble boost for old age hearing loss...yeah, that sucks).

Next week I'm getting a reel to reel deck for some reason and I was wondering if I can just hook it up using the second set of outputs on the SP 14 and then run tape decks output into the Aux 2 input of the SP 14?

The first set of outputs currently goes to the ST 70, of course.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT
Never mind. I realized this won't work as the vol. on the SP 14 will affect the tape recorder's input. I'm not sure how to go about this now as I think I have a tube buffer coming out of the tape out of the equalizer.
Hmmmnnnn....

I am assuming you do not have a Tape/Source switch and the corresponding Tape in and output RCA's?

Yes, the SP 14 has a Tape/Source switch but my equalizer is in the tape loop.
Thanks.

Edit: The reel to reel just has input and output.

Edit again: The equalizer has an unused "rec" output which I suppose could go into the deck and then I could go out of the deck into the second "accessory in" on the SP 14. I'm thinking that would work but what I really need is a second tape on the SP 14, I guess.

you can always hook the EQ between the SP14 and amp, then you have the tape RCA's free

Thanks. That's an option. I had originally had the eq between the SP 14 and the ST 70 but the general consensus here was that it belonged in the loop.

Any downside to hooking it up as you suggested? That would definitely clear the tape loop for the reel to reel and I'd still get my (slightly) jacked up high end.
(I blame my slight hearing loss on on Neil Young's Everybody Knows This is Nowhere LP and a pair of Koss Pro 4A's waaaaay back in the day.)

not that I know of......I have always connected am EQ that way, between the source/preamp and amp. But that's because I always have a tape deck :-)
Even now I have a reel to reel, but right now, I do not have an EQ in the system.

try again...last image was way too big

here is my system at the moment, the deck is a Studer B67 MKII

Man, that rack looks too cool!
That'll solve my hook up problem neatly and with minimal hassle. My system is really hard to change hook ups on as I bought the shortest cables that would work.

I'm pretty psyched about getting this deck. I had some kind of reel to reel about 30 years ago (Akai??) and I remember playing a pre-recorded 7 & 1/2 ips copy of the first Doors LP and just being stunned at the sound quality.

I just ordered a 7 & 1/2 ips copy of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. Can't wait.

thats a nice deck, should do you good for a while!
Yeah I love my reel to reel, been recording a lot of tapes, building up a library :-) The Studer is a 3 speed deck, 3¾, 7.5 and 15, but all my tapes at the moment are at 7.5.
I completely overhauled the deck, all new caps, mechanically overhauled and full re calibration using MRL calibration tapes, it records and plays back beautifully.

Very cool.
Thanks again for the help.

I apologize but I got this wrong. I think I have more problems. I just found a "map" of my hook ups from a few years back. I had misremembered.
My system is sitting on a zillion LPs and is immovable so it's very hard to get to the interconnects, etc.
Here's a pic...



The tape out goes to a tube buffer which goes into the EQ. I'm now wondering about the impedance match between the VTA gear and the Pioneer deck.
This is getting complicated and probably isn't of much interest to anyone.
I'll send a message tor Erhard-Audio.

EA are those VAN speakers? I can not see what the rest of the system is complilled of/ maybe I need to blow up the pic a few times if I can. Also nice rack where did you pick that up at?

WPFW893FM wrote:EA are those VAN speakers? I can not see what the rest of the system is complilled of/  maybe I need to blow up the pic a few times if I can. Also nice rack where did you pick that up at?

Yes, Vandees 2Ci's, REALLY nice speakers. The rest of the system is composed of the gear I custom build and some other gear.
If you are referring to the r2r, I picked up that up from Europe and had it shipped over to the US. It was in pretty good shape, but needed tlc. It came with butterfly heads which was an option from Studer.

Dave_in_Va wrote:I apologize but I got this wrong. I think I have more problems. I just found a "map" of my hook ups from a few years back. I had misremembered.
My system is sitting on a zillion LPs and is immovable so it's very hard to get to the interconnects, etc.
Here's a pic...



The tape out goes to a tube buffer which goes into the EQ. I'm now wondering about the impedance match between the VTA gear and the Pioneer deck.
This is getting complicated and probably isn't of much interest to anyone.
I'll send a message tor Erhard-Audio.

ah yes I see the wee problem you are facing.......

Dave_in_Va wrote:Thanks. That's an option. I had originally had the eq between the SP 14 and the ST 70 but the general consensus here was that it belonged in the loop.

Any downside to hooking it up as you suggested? That would definitely clear the tape loop for the reel to reel and I'd still get my (slightly) jacked up high end.
(I blame my slight hearing loss on on Neil Young's Everybody Knows This is Nowhere LP and a pair of Koss Pro 4A's waaaaay back in the day.)

I am pretty sure the "tape loop" is really just an option to insert a component in series after the selector switch but before the SP14 amp. It is electrically the same as putting the EQ in series with the input jack for any of the sources on the back. So it would be a fine solution to put the EQ there, but the problem is it would only EQ the one source it was attached to. Not good.

The best solution would be if the tape deck has a bypass option that just feed its input directly to its output. Does it have a switch for that? If so you could just put the tape followed by the EQ in the loop, and keep the tape bypassed except when using it.

Make sure the tape deck can drive the input impedance of the EQ though.

It appears (as far as I can figure) that I will have to lose the Tascam CD recorder and use the reel to reel in it's place because of the impedance mismatch.

The buffer is in the loop along with the EQ and I'll need the buffer to get the Pioneer r to r to function.

The impedance mismatch between the VTA gear and most everything else is kind of a pain. Not a huge pain, but still..

Erhard Audio is helping me via email. Maybe he'll come up with a solution.

For the record, here're the hook ups:

The line pre-amp SP 14 Tape Out goes to the input of the Yaqin buffer.
The out of the Yaqin buffer goes to the line input of the Teac EQ.
The line out of the Teac EQ goes to the Tape in of the SP 14.

The tape out of the Teac EQ goes to the input of the Tascam CD recorder.
The tape in of the Tascam is currently capped off.

Hi Dave,
I'm not sure why you would need a buffer connected between the output of the SP14 and your tape deck,
because the output impedance of the SP14 is around 500 ohms and should drive almost any input no problem.
But I can definitely see needing a buffer connected between the output of the TAPE OUT connection because
that is connected directly to the source selector with no buffer at all.
Roy

Thanks Roy.
Bear with me, I'm not a tech and impedance is an especially tricky thing for me to understand.
In an older thread when I was trying to hook up the CD recorder I was told (I think) that the SP 14 needed to see something with an impedance of 100k at the min. The impedance of the Pioneer (arrives probably Friday) is 50k.
Unless I'm reading something wrong.

(Edit: Stuff deleted as once again, I forgot that the buffer has to be in the loop for the EQ to work.)

Hi Dave, no problem.
Most audio components don't have a problem with impedance mismatch, but sometimes they do.
In general, an output impedance should be 10-20X less than the input impedance of what it's connected to.
For example, the SP14 has an output impedance of 500 ohms, and thus can easy drive any component that has an input impedance of greater than 5K-10K.
But take something like a PAS3 preamp for example, especially the phono stage. The phono stage has an output impedance of around 20K,
and thus would not work well connected to anything with an input impedance of less than 200K.
No problem driving the next stage, the line stage in the PAS3, because it has an input impedance of around 250K, like most tube equipment.
Many pieces of solid state audio gear have an input impedance of less than 20K, and some have an output impedance or 1K or 2K.
So the possibilities of impedance mismatch are for example, usually with a higher output impedance like 2K connected to something with a 10K input impedance.

As far as I can tell, the Tascam CD recorder has an input impedance of 22k +/- 10%
The Teac EQ input imp. is 47k
and the incoming Pioneer reel to reel manual says Line x 2; 50mV/25v/50k ohms

So all of this stuff should work with the SP 14/PH 14 without having to use the buffer (using the tape look in the SP 14)?
I'm pretty sure I had to add the buffer to be able to record LPs to CD on the Tascam.
Thanks for the help.

Dave_in_Va wrote:

For the record, here're the hook ups:

The line pre-amp SP 14 Tape Out goes to the input of the Yaqin buffer.
The out of the Yaqin buffer goes to the line input of the Teac EQ.
The line out of the Teac EQ goes to the Tape in of the SP 14.

The tape out of the Teac EQ goes to the input of the Tascam CD recorder.
The tape in of the Tascam is currently capped off.

tubes4hifi wrote:Hi Dave,
I'm not sure why you would need a buffer connected between the output of the SP14 and your tape deck,
because the output impedance of the SP14 is around 500 ohms and should drive almost any input no problem.
But I can definitely see needing a buffer connected between the output of the TAPE OUT connection because
that is connected directly to the source selector with no buffer at all.
Roy

If I am following correctly I think you guys are talking about slightly different things. According to the description above Dave is using the Yaqin buffer in the SP14 tape loop, not the SP14 output. It is true the SP14 output can easily drive all of the equipment he lists, but it doesn't sound like he is trying to use it that way if I understand correctly.

I cannot think of any reason to have the Yaqin buffer in the SP14 tape out unless there are non-buffered sources plugged into the SP14 input jacks (for example, an unbuffered phono stage such as the PH12). But Dave is using a PH14, which I believe has an output buffer built in. Is this correct Roy?

Dave, do you have any sources that would not work properly if connected directly to your Teac EQ? If the answer is no, then you do not need that Yaqin buffer in the tape loop.

Thanks rjpjnk.
Long before I bought the Teac equalizer I had installed the buffer so I could record LPs on the Tascam CD recorder (CD-RW900 Mk II). Without the buffer I couldn't make a decent recording.
It is indeed in the tape loop of the SP 14.

TAPE OUT SP 14 >>>INPUT YAQIN BUFFER
YAQIN BUFFER OUT >>>TEAC EQ IN
TEAC EQ OUT >>>TAPE IN SP 14
TEAC EQ TAPE OUT >>> TASCAM CD RECORDER INPUT
(Teac EQ TAPE IN is just capped off)

I'm going to go back and re-read my original post on this subject (about 3-4 years ago).
Thanks for the help.

I'll add.....
Currently, it all works perfectly. So if I take the Tascam CD recorder completely out of the system and substitute the Pioneer reel to reel (adding: reel to reel output >>> Teac EQ tape input) it should work fine.

It would be nice though, to be able to continue using the Tascam if I want to make a CD for the car.
Now I'm thinking maybe some sort of switch box.

Like
TEAC EQ >>> SWITCH BOX WITH TWO PAIRS OF INPUTS/OUTPUTS (one set going in and out to the CD recorder and one set going in/out to the reel to reel). I have no idea if this is feasible.

I suppose this is for Roy.

Something else (I obviously have too much time on my hands); when I was originally needing to hook up the buffer I had an SP 10/PH 10. I sold that when I found a killer deal on the SP 14/PH 14.

Does this make a difference?

Dave_in_Va wrote:Thanks rjpjnk.
Long before I bought the Teac equalizer I had installed the buffer so I could record LPs on the Tascam CD recorder (CD-RW900 Mk II). Without the buffer I couldn't make a decent recording.
It is indeed in the tape loop of the SP 14.

TAPE OUT SP 14 >>>INPUT YAQIN BUFFER
YAQIN BUFFER OUT >>>TEAC EQ IN
TEAC EQ OUT >>>TAPE IN SP 14
TEAC EQ TAPE OUT >>> TASCAM CD RECORDER INPUT
(Teac EQ TAPE IN is just capped off)

I'm going to go back and re-read my original post on this subject (about 3-4 years ago).
Thanks for the help.

Dave_in_Va wrote:I suppose this is for Roy.

Something else (I obviously have too much time on my hands); when I was originally needing to hook up the buffer I had an SP 10/PH 10. I sold that when I found a killer deal on the SP 14/PH 14.

Does this make a difference?

Yes! There it is. Combining these two posts together the solution is clear. There is no reason you would have needed the Yaqin buffer unless you were using a phono preamp that had no output buffer. Your old PH10 probably had no output buffer (I know the PH12 does not). The PH14 has an output buffer (just checked) so it should be able to drive the EQ or the tape deck or the CD burner with ease. This means the Yaqin is no longer needed.

None of this has anything to do with the preamp (be it the SP10 or the SP14) Everything you are attaching is before the preamp in your lineup.

Clear?