Turtlerock Forum

ok. so after swearing i'd never touch ebay again, i just picked up a 2m high server rack (mmmm rack space), and . . .

two mono 1/4" CEI tape decks with mic preamps.

obviously i want to grab, refresh and use the preamps.

anyone got ANY clue about CEI and their products? how about schlematics?

cop ya later.

chris.

an aside - $100 each for rack ears for my 1/4" and 1/2" tape decks? bugger that - $30 for 2M of 3mm 50x50 angle steel, and a couple of quality hours with my drill and hacksaw, and there's a set of ghetto rack ears that'd hold a Hummer in place!!!

Hi Chris. Those CEI tape decks look to me like the solid state version of the Byer/Rola tape recorders. The Transport , tape head, motor section looks identical to the Rola's and i have seen the solid state Rola's before and if my memory is correct they looked identical to those CEI units you have just purchased.

ok. thanks for that, chris h.

what is your memory of the sound of the solidstate rola's?

well, i missed out on the recent rola, but got two of these CEI units.

i don't care about the tape mechanism.

soon as i get these units i'll open them up and see what i've got to work with. you say solid state - i'm just looking forward to seeing how they sound.

i guess the first thing to do will be to replace the power caps in the pre's.

anything else i should check out? do you have any info/schemo's on the solid state Rola preamp units?


chris
(mfdu)

Can't help you on both counts. I have never heard them and don't have schematics. My guess is they will be well built transformer ballanced discreeetc. As to how they sound, plug them in and run a mix through them. A lot of gear built for the ABC had a hot output of +8. I use 10 dB or 20dB in line atenuators on the outputs of my Byers so i can drive them hard enough.

thanks for the tip on the output levels.

i pick them up early sat'day morning. i guess i'll be firing one up straight away - i hope the power caps don't explode, but at least i've got two to work with.

mmm transformer balanced descrete. mmmm.

will report on them as soon as i can.

chris
(mfdu)