Crown Reel to Reel tape machine

[celticrogues]

Hello all!

I have been offered the chance to pick up a Crown Pro-700 series 4-track 1/4" reel to reel tape machine at a relatively inexpensive price. Does anyone here have experience with these machines and is willing to tell me if they are any good? I am wondering how they sound, how reliable and easy to use they are, stuff like that. It is an old machine, but in great condition, pretty immaculate actually.
I would mostly be using it as a learning tool (I am at college in an audio engineering program) but it would also be cool if I could use it to print stems onto from my DAW and then mix the stems for a final product (i.e. mix in the box in Pro Tools the print stems to tape, those stems become the master).
Also, if anyone could give me a guesstimate of how much something like this would be worth so I know if I am getting a good deal after all, that would be appreciated. Thanks very much in advance for your help!
Cheers,
-Mike

[dbbubba]

Offer as little s possible (well under $200!!!)

Those are fairly robust decks.
Most were bought buy non-professionals (hifi guys) so they usually are not run to death like a pro deck (Ampex, MCI, Studer, Otari, Scully.)
Since analog tape decks are fairly mechanical devices they just don't break unless abused.
Other than bad switches or sticking solenoids it should function fine.

I'm not sure about Crown tape deck parts though.
All of the machine brands are hard to get parts for!

They sound OK, but were not really used in the pro world too much.
I'd bet that it uses discreet electronics which is good.

Buy it... it'll be decent enough.

Danny Brown

[dbbubba]

I did just notice that it is a 1/4 track deck which most all consumer decks were.
It has a narrower track width than a pro deck that is a 2 track, so the signal to noise ratio will be a bit higher than a pro deck.
It might also have tape speeds at 7 1/2 ips and 3 3/4 ips.
7 1/2 ips is not really professional and that coupled with it being a 1/4 track deck means that it wil be somewhat noisy.
This is all because the area of tape being magnetized is much smaller than a 15 ips, 2 track deck since the width is narrower and the tape isn't moving part the head as fast.
In otherwords, you can only saturate the tape with so much signal before it sounds bad and slower speeds and narrow track width concentrates the area of tape being recorded on.

wide track width and faster speeds equals better SNL

Offer $100
There aren't that many people who'll want it anyways!

I'd try to buy a used pro deck.
They are cheap enough and you can cut real masters on them.

You'll be kinda' playing around with that deck.

Danny Brown

[Sounds Great]

Don't do it. I had a half track Crown deck, about 25 years ago. It was a great deck, but getting old even back then. I replaced it with an Otari mx5050.

And mine was a 1/2 track deck. Don't even think about 1/4 track deck for pro use.

[celticrogues]

Thanks guys, that was exactly what I wanted to know. I think I will pass on the offer.
Cheers,
Mike