Reel Life - Why Akai's 4000DS Was the Most Popular Hi-Fi Tape Recorder of the 1970s!

[@paulwhite1109]

Don't apologise for going off subject and talking rubbish, that all adds to the entertainment and is what makes you you. Its a good mix of review, banter and general entertainment 👌.

[@peterlynn3190]

Yup the item is the springboard ti a good old thigh slap, a measure of waffle a little ribbing each other and general pub talk with a laugh on the way. (Sounds very Van Morrison) We find out lots of interesting nuggets. Turn the camera on after a glass. woo hoo. Come to think of it how about an episode at the pub.

[@chrisblock6697]

Love the open reel! I inherited my Dad's Ampex (it weighs a ton and has tubes). I bought a Nak 500 in high school from lawn cutting money, but understand why you got the open reel. I just found cassettes much easier to change than open reels while driving.

[@timbre7999]

no need to hasten to your point, love watching you guys meander all over hifi-memory lane!

[@domo3552]

I love your digressions chaps! OK, reel to reel was my first introduction to 'proper' hifi. Well, if you call a mono Tandberg machine with a built-in amp & speaker proper hifi. But it had a mono loudspeaker output so I could plug in my pair of Yamaha NSG15 speakers by making a double socket for them. The only problem was that I could only record vinyl from my brothers B&O music centre from one channel, so for years all my music was missing 50% of the mix. This didn't stop me from listening to and enjoying hour upon hour upon hour of all sorts of music from Van Halen to The Mahavishnu Orchestra. I did go on to become a professional musician believe it or not, and it was that Tandberg reel-to-real that sowed the seeds. That machine also broke the ice with the cutest girl in our class - Caroline - when we were 10, and she came around for tea, as we were in stitches recording ourselves with my Boots own brand microphone and playing it back at different speeds. I was quite the guy after that 😊. Ahh reel-to-reels. Dig out those old spools Mike for some true nostalgia! Make sure there isn't anything too embarrassing on them though. I wish I'd kept mine, those first attempts at miking my drum kit etc. I could only have dreamt of owning a stereo machine like the Akai, which was stratospherically beyond my wildest dreams. Looking forward to part 2 & more digressions!

[@KevinWickerProductions]

I once owned the 4000DS in the late '70s, exactly like this one. Its feature allows you to record 'sound on sound', namely the SOS switch on the front panel. I am a retired professional songwriter and producer. I used to record my song demos on this machine when I first started out. This machine allowed me to play all the instruments and do the lead and backing vocals -- resulting in a full band recording. This was a bit before 4-track machines became available for the consumer market. Not long ago, I played those old tracks I recorded on my 4000-DS over a professional system in a Nashville studio. I was amazed at how it sounded. I was impressed that there was little signal-to-noise ratio. It sounded as fresh as it did some 40-plus years ago. I'd love to own another one. It could make good-quality analog backup copy for posterity.

[@MrVinylista]

Fantastic story. This little Akai sounded surprisingly good running decent tape at 7.5 ips!

[@gaetancharbonneau3902]

Victorialand is one of these precious records that gets better every time it gets played, in the core section of my collection. Thanks for the Riff 💫

[@MrVinylista]

Isn't it just? Sits perfectly next to Harold Budd's 'The Moon and the Melodies', which was of course a Cocteau's record by any other name!

[@gaetancharbonneau3902]

Absolutely! That was the start of the epic collaboration between Budd & Guthrie. I presume you heard the mind blowing music they did on the record "Bordeaux," post Cocteau? The track "L'aventure" sums it up... @@MrVinylista

[@MrVinylista]

@@gaetancharbonneau3902 Yes, it's beautiful isn't it? I think of it as a kind of 21st century Debussy!

[@jeffstockton534]

I find the hifi talk incidental. In fact, I rewatch the Moon integrated episode on a regular basis for Mike's relationship advice.

[@WaveyDaveyful]

It's your banter that makes your channel and reviews so interesting. I look forward to each new release. Also, I've always loved Reel to Reel and the performance, as you said, being way above cassette.

[@brianforcelle7954]

You guys are brilliant presenters--what a nice combination of content and fun banter! Great Channel.

[@Hi-FiRiff]

Our heads won't get out of the HI-Fi hut! Mike

[@pedge66]

Laughing out loud early on....thanks. Fear not the neg comments, some people just don’t get it 😁

[@RonStephens-h7h]

Your digression and banter is all part of the show. Ignore the boring farts who don’t get it and just want a straight review. I coveted the 4000DS for many years but never owned one. A friend had the Sony equivalent and we used it a lot for recording live sessions and gigs when we were in a band. I was never under any illusion that even an entry level machine like this offered way superior sound quality to anything in the cassette medium.

[@alanjacobs9216]

Ah, pure nostalgia for me. I had the original 4000DS as an 18th birthday present in 1973 from my parents. It was the best present I had ever received in my short life. At that age, I couldn't afford much and, certainly, couldn't afford to buy all the music I loved at that time. This was my saviour. I recorded radio broadcasts directly from my Dad's valve Roberts amp and stereo tuner. BBC Radio 2 broadcast Sounds Of The 70s in FM stereo from 10pm to midnight Mon-Fri. These were my very first mix-tapes. We all have to start somewhere.

[@Hi-FiRiff]

Brilliant - thank you for sharing :-) Mike

[@oliverbeard7912]

I enjoyed Mike mocking David for his DAC chip knowledge. I used to own an Akai GX52 tape deck back in the 90's. Although not reel to reel,it was a goodun. Thanks again.Reely good.😊

[@Hi-FiRiff]

Almost as much as I did :-) Mike

[@analoglooney]

The joys of the 4000d and tape. These performed really well. The snag for the secondhand buyer is the two cams behind the function levers. They are made of pot metal and are known to disintegrate. Beware if you spend money on these and check the cams first or you'll have an expensive ornament. I still run two Revox A77 1/2 track machines. One normal speed and the other a factory 15ips. I can never understand why recording an MP3 onto open reel makes it sound better than vinyl. What is that all about? LOL.

[@Terry.W]

Yes got one of these ...difficult to refurb parts are hard to find ..thanks good ness for 3D printing ...and careful where you put it as it's really heavy...

[@harveysvintageaudio]

I had the very same machine as a teenager but sold it damn ! now I now have the earlier 4000D unit that performs perfectly. ps. My Akai 4000DS MkII was NON Dolby, who needs Dolby for a reel to reel especially when you run it at 71/2 inches per second.

[@robertgough5804]

Dont mind newbies stay as you are

[@CB-fn3me]

The reason that Akai 400DS was popular wasn't that it was particularly good. It was popular because it was one of the cheapest reel-to-reel tape decks on the market and very good value for money.

[@doctorbritain9632]

Ignore the comments, a bit of banter is always welcome. I also had the Aiwa ADR-550 and have no idea what happened to it.

[@michaelbuchan451]

Got one of these! Still hidden away, hardly used.

[@TheDjcarlos67]

Goddamn! I had one of these. I loved it🎵🎶❤️ I still have the tape reels from my show on Sunset FM Manchester, but I can’t play them as I swapped it for a VCR!!! I’ve been looking to buy another one but prices are going through the roof ☹️🥹🥲

[@nickevans3190]

Keep the hi-fi rift the same we love the none hi-fi banter

[@Kwazart]

I've had one from new about 50 years. The looks, the tank like build quality and the enormous weight are worth mentioning. I've just fired it up for the first time in about 40 years in readiness to let it go, as much as I hate to. The sound quality is fine and I'm astounded at the lack of background hiss. I've had every format of recording since, but have always hung onto my old friend, but have to declutter...

[@mccrispy]

The channel is HiFi Riff. I'm here for the Riff 'cos it does what it says on the tin. Keep it up, it's properly entertaining stuff. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, informative too, but there's plenty of informative stuff, just not much of it is also *entertaining*)

[@victormarshall832]

Thoroughly enjoyed the riff guys - good to see an early non-GX head version of the 4000 series too. Look forward to the next one.

[@steven2809]

Don't change...the first 2 minutes were hilarious! 😂

[@Dave-er2pn]

I love these machines. I have two, one an immaculate 4000DS mk II, that had been serviced, which I paid £125.00 for, about 5 years ago, it came with two 7 inch aluminium take up reels. The other is a GX 4000D with glass heads, which looks brand new and works perfectly that cost me £75.00 and came with a box of 20 x 7 inch tape reels. There are still bargains to be had if you look around.

[@jimfarrell4635]

I never had a reel to reel back in the day, but picked up a reconditioned Sony TC 377 a few years ago because, let's face it, they are cool It's a very budget deck, but the sound quality, as you say, is great and way better than cassette. I've been taping high res streamed tracks from my Denafrips Terminator Plus DAC and the results are warm and lovely . If new prerecorded tapes didn't cost £250 a pop, I would seriously consider paying the £1000-2000 to get a decent machine.

[@andrewlittleboy8532]

The Akai video is back. Is this a 2nd rehearsal or the original? We love the waffle, don't change the format.😊

[@davidp3096]

Mike, can’t believe you didn’t show the viewers the rear sockets. David. Please drink more of his beer, don’t stop until we see them in the part 2 video.

[@robertleitch2016]

If David drinks much more of that Madri beer he'll turn up on the next Riff wearing a loud houndstooth flat cap and waistcoat.

[@Hi-FiRiff]

I won't notice the difference! :-) Mike

[@Hi-FiRiff]

Horrendous oversight! So sorry. Mike

[@christopherrigby2798]

I run until I developed major issues with my paws a Tandberg series 6 twin track machine in the 80's to the mid nineties which sounded great in "Tube-O-Sonic" tm with its tubes and crossfield bais. Just needed a little tlc and back then Maxell UD tapes were only around £5.99 for 1,800 ft which made running quite economical compared to using type IV cassetes if you had even a machine that could take full advantage of them. Thus I had a lot reels from record, stereocasts from Radio One and even the odd borrowed cd where titles weren't on vinyl or like some discs cutting over 60 minutes on one slab of vinyl didn't sound that good. Today the metrics are different around £25 per reel, machines tend to dear and overtime need more work doing on them to bring to full spec so it's a more well healed thing although I totally get the joy from using them.

[@kjbunnyboiler]

Evening gentlemen👍👍

[@Hi-FiRiff]

Evening KJBB

[@pew32]

This is like the old top gear with clarkson and may but for audiophiles 😂

[@jdekong3945]

Evening folks

[@Hi-FiRiff]

Evening!

[@dean6816]

Spools always remind me of ☢️

[@rayfordham9230]

Hi chaps I'm 77 and I quite like these rambling chats about Hi-Fi of yesteryear, yours took me right back to when having bought myself a pair of JR 149s and looking for a suitable amp to really do them justice I came across Jim Rodgers at one of the Heathrow Hi-Fi exhibitions, he was a very engaging man willing to chat endlessly about all things Hi-Fi. When I did manage to ask him what amp he would recommend I try he said you need about 35 watts no more than 50 watts but they had to be ''field plowing'' watts, among others he suggested a good match would be a Nytech 252 XDII which could drive a tractor across a plowed field, which after trying half a dozen or so is what I finished up with, I also had a Thorens 160, Hadcock arm and Grado F1 cartridge. That little combination to me made it sound like the Martians on Holst's Planet Suite were really out for business . Anyway thanks for the visit down memory lane, always enjoy your posts keep it up. Think I'll go and put the Planet Suite on again.

[@MrVinylista]

Thank you for your fascinating reminiscences, Ray. I love Jim Rogers' phrase "field ploughing watts" and am going to 'borrow' that for my reviews! The JR 149s are basically rehoused LS3/5as, and do indeed need lots of grunt to drive. I have a Nytech CTA252 XDII and shall dig it out for a Riff, playing some Holst along the way!

[@rayfordham9230]

Thanks for your reply, after I wrote it I thought it might have been a bit self indulgent but hey ho I was back in the day again and I've always remembered Mr Rodger's description of the type of watts needed in fact I don't think I've heard a better one since. Thanks again.@@MrVinylista

[@MrVinylista]

@@rayfordham9230 You're welcome. 1976 was the 'year zero' for my hi-fi hobby. I got into it as a 10-year old in that year and never looked back. I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything around from then on. But I am largely in the dark for pre-1976 (aside from all the obvious classics) as I was still reading 'Whoopee' comic and not Popular Hi-Fi! So I'm fascinated in any of your hi-fi memories. Please do comment if you feel the need.

[@analoglooney]

Jim Rogers was a true gentleman. He lived locally to me and used to come into the HiFi shop where I worked. He was always inventing something, and his own speakers used Radar magnets for the ribbon tweeters! I picked up a Rogers Master valve amplifier that was in sad condition. He spotted it under my bench and said " That's a proper amplifier that" Two days later he came back with all the schematics and some parts!

[@rayfordham9230]

I was at that exhibition with a mate and he was just getting into hi-fi and being a bit of a whizz with wood and a soldering iron wanted to build some 3 ways so he asked Mr Rogers basically where to start, I remember the suggestion was a relatively simple EMI kit but with the addition of a Coles super tweeter to add some sparkle, this is the bit that left me agog, Mr Rogers said forget the crossover that came with the kit and promptly drew a diagram of a different crossover on a hotel cotton napkin and named all the various bits needed to build it and the best place to get them my mate successfully built the 'speakers after a couple of failures, they sounded fine to me. I think the different crossover was done to take into account the super tweeter, but that didn't stop my mate from framing the napkin and hanging it on the living room wall. Thanks for the reply it's always good to get information about someone you admire.@@analoglooney

[@turokforever007]

I have the 4000DB got it off my brother who got it new back in the day

[@sunilm3181]

Hi David, this is a follow-up questions regarding streamer to go with Chord TT2 that I asked in a previous riff. Budget below $10000. Do Chord TT2 need a separate power supply - MRCU as mentioned by you or Sean Jacob ? Have a Leben CS600X as well - a bit thick sounding compared to Sonneteer Alabaster. I think Chord might match Leben well. Speakers are Falcon gold badge.

[@MrVinylista]

The Chord Hugo TT2 is a cracking DAC that sounds great with its own PSU, so I would never say it "needs" an aftermarket one. But in the past I have got superb results with MCRU PSUs with cheaper Chord DACs - although have never tried one with the TT2. And don't forget Chord explicitly advises against aftermarket PSUs. The TT2 is a great match for the lovely but slightly soupy sounding Leben, indeed I know this combination well. The best upgrade for the TT2 is the Hugo M Scaler, of course - it brings extra clarity, definition and an even more organic sound.

[@sunilm3181]

Thanks for the reply. And suggestion for a streamer?

[@MrVinylista]

@@sunilm3181 The cheapest absolutely top-grade streamer is the dCS Network Bridge. Sadly no longer sold new, but there's an immaculate used one on eBay UK now for £2,475.

[@sunilm3181]

Thank you David for the advice.

[@RUfromthe40s]

yes i´m tired of looking at it but i purchased the X-165D crossfield from the 1970 catalog as this also came there but i think both models i refer had previous releases, it still works and never broke the cover, i didn´t liked this one as it as speakers with amplifier as my first a Grundig giant size with 7 speeds from late 50´s or very early 60´s but it was good the bigger reels fit inside the deck box

[@RUfromthe40s]

forget to say ,maybe the most reliable ever made, they refuse to stop working and people just love non issues open reel decks ,i have more like 4 of them but only a pioneer needed to be fixed and the studer from also 1970 or 69 ,the revox Bseries from 77 and the last i bought in 82 from the Akai´s 79 catalog are working also with regular maintenance

[@myk602010]

I bought an Akai x1810 d when I was in Germany in '72 If you know which one I'm talking about you'll know what it had in the side.

[@martinrose2833]

Joe 90's Big Rat

[@jdekong3945]

Sounds like a dodgy porno only available on VHS 😹

[@martinrose2833]

Science Fiction mind control for Puppets . Funny how the puppets spent most of their time sitting down 😄

[@MrVinylista]

@@jdekong3945 Comment of the week.

[@stephenhall3515]

Tiresome format and boring people. If they occasionally demonstrated more this channel might have some justification. I can hardly believe that these codgers are 15 years my junior -- but some people rush to middle age then forget that brain cells still generally work into serious old age, if one is lucky. The Akai 40000DS I had was a chug-chug machine when new but, with grown up help, could be made to be less crude. Tape heads were better than those of Toshiba (which also had the sin of pre-echo) and although proto-musicians tended to go for the stupidly heavy TEAC, I was only a listener to, and recorder of, 'classical' ensembles I found the Akai to be quite useful with good quality tapes. The Dolby on similar Philips and Sony machines did not have the high filter Akai used when Dolby was switched on and on mine it was parcel taped off. Eventually I tired of the Akai's return of the chug-chug and went back to my flat surface only Ferrograph, which only traveled well by car. The Ferrograph was challenging to use but users developed various techniques and maintenance was part of the ritual, including de-magging, and keeping them clean was essential. Access to innards was outstanding and bias adjustment remarkably easy. Eventually I acquired a Revox A77 needing a rebuild but it was worth it because some of the early ones from Austria had stronger motors than later ones. I still own my original 2 from my 20s and a later B77. I had Studer versions too on and off but sold them gradually to professionals. Of Japanese open reel machines of a bit later I was quite impressed with the Pioneer compact body but full reel size range without ever feeling the need to acquire one as Revox/Studer were superior in every way. The comment about the sheer reality of open reel was good to hear and I understand that some people in the USA and somewhere are trying to build a business on it. Close examination of business models reveals many things which make me uneasy as to veracity of products and motives. My own vast analogue archive (about 60% tape) was built up when I worked with the BBC, EBU, composers and musicians and will probably find its way to the Orient in due course, where analogue is highly regarded and researched upon at this stage of the 21st century. My personal view is that historically important music and direct technology belongs to cultures and people who have serious intent in a world which is in danger of losing much of its genuine culture.

[@Hi-FiRiff]

When we started Riff we didn't think, or expect, one person would watch it, but we enjoyed doing it (and still do). If people like it, we are delighted but we completely understand if it's not for you.... life is too short to watch things you don't like. Mike