2 inch or not 2 inch - the sequel...

[Dr Funk]

I had a thread going recently about whether or not to buy a Studer A80 MkI 2" 16 track with Dolby A, a bunch of tapes and a gooey pinch roller.

Well, I bought it, and in the end got it for just under €1000! I enlisted the help of some friends and we moved it here last week. I have joined the Two Inch Club.... thumbsup

The story so far - it's not running yet but should be any day now. I'm waiting on a new pinch roller to come in from JRF. However I eventually managed to take off the old squishy, dripping roller and survey the damage.

(Hint: the pinch roller cover unscrews CLOCKWISE. That caused me untold grief - I assumed it had seized and tried turning it anticlockwise and pulling it straight up until I was blue in the face until Mark in Funky Junk London very kindly passed on the necessary info. Thanks Mark!)

With the pinch roller now off, I could see that the rubber had dripped down into the pinch roller mechanism and capstan motor chassis, and there was a small amount at the edge of the head block. So, off with the heads! And then I realised why someone had said Studers are half art, half science - what a wonderful machine to work on! The head block came off by loosening just 3 screws, capstan motor was 4 screws and a multipoint connector, and the whole pinch roller mechanism was 3 screws and a multipoint connector. Under 10 minutes and all the affected parts were out and ready for cleaning.

So after a lot of scraping and scrubbing, it's all back together waiting for its new pinch roller. It powers up ok, we have 16 green lights in ready mode, 16 red ones in record (after a few taps with a screwdriver ) and all the transport functions seem to be ok, apart from a few blown bulbs in the transport buttons.

The adventure has begun!

BTW, if anyone wants to sell a 15ips 2" MRL tape suitable for an A80, I'm gonna need one asap, as my tech will be coming soon to check it out properly and set it up.

Cheers

Frank

[w2w]

Welcome to the club!!thumbsup

[GYMusic]

What a great machine (and they smell so good). Keep us posted as to your progress.

[Dr Funk]

Thanks guys! I'll post updates as they happen... I still have to arrange to pick up the Dolby and the tapes, but when it's all running I'm hoping the A80 will set my little place apart from the other DAW studios. Fingers crossed...

Speaking of Dolby, does anyone know which Dolby A unit is small enough to sit on top of the A80 overbridge and house 16 cards? It looked sort of like an API lunchbox when I saw it, but I don't have any photos. Ideally I'd like to find a manual, or any info at all, but I haven't found anything useful on the Dolby site or by Googling.

Cheers

Frank