Karaoke Forums

Recently I came by some Reel to Reel tapes of my deceased Dad and his band playing live at our house. ( He's been gone about 8 years ) I borrowed an OLD Reel to Reel machine from my brother. After wiping off the cobwebs , the darn thing worked ! Volume controls were scratchy so I worked them back and forth for a while and it helped a lot. I played a couple of the tapes (Wich are starting to disintegrate btw) I listened for about 6 hours. How great to hear his voice again after all these years ! , Now for the BAD part , I decided to copy some of the sounds to my Hard Drive , using the line out from the Reel to Reel , to the line in of my sound card (Audigy 2 ZS ) Everything was going fine for about 4 minutes when all of a sudden I hear a LOUD squeeeeaaaaaal, It pegged the volume meters in Cool edit Pro. As quickly as I could I hit the off switch on the player. and unhoked the patch cord. then I decided to listen to the first couple of minutes that I had gotten recorded , I found I had no sound on my computer , tried playing another mp-3...nothing , No sound from Cd or DVD , no Windows boot sound either,so I figure maybe I blew the speakers so I tried another set , still nothing. so I move the sound card to another open PCI slot and I get sound back ! My Questions for ya all are 1 can you blow a pci slot...2 What do you think caused this sudden blast of sound ? 3 did I go about hooking the player to my sound board Correctly ? Now I'm thinking about using a VHS machine to record the tapes THEN transfer from vhs to my computer , The Reel to Reel does have its own speaker , so it does have it's own amp , but I record from my 300 watt per channel sound system amp all the time without any problems.
I sure do wish I knew what , if anything I did wrong ! Thanks in advance for your comments or suggestions.

_________________
Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

For the cause I can't answer that.

While it is possible to blow a single pci slot, it's highly unlikely. Chances are shutting down and restarting the computer resolved the problem w/ the sound card. I'd consider recording the songs again passing the inputs through a mixer or other device to isolate the reel2reel from the puter.

Of course, using a VHS cassette to record them will work fine as well. I've done this before since VHS tapes have a great SNR and hold up pretty well to repeated playback.

Thanks K-Man , I tried rebooting and even reseting that didn't work.Then I changed to the pci slot, and all was well

_________________
Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

Hmmm... do you know if the outputs from the reel to reel are balanced or unbalanced? And are they marked as to the level of the output? 4V, etc.

Just curious.... depending on how old the player is some of the standards could be out the window...

Nah , K Meister , I've looked all over this thang no indicators as for watts , or anything like that. I did a search for the player and actually found 1 for sale on E-bay. It's a Concord stereophonic 444. , tubes even ! thanks tho' It's got a line out (Mini Jack) for the right and another for the left channel.

_________________
Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

If you really want info on that you can check with stereomanuals.com - they reprint old stereo/audio equipment manuals.

Just stumbled on the site when I was looking to see if I could find anything about that player.

BTW, those outputs are likely speaker level outputs based on what I see pictured in the one for sale. You'd need a speaker->line level convertor (common in car audio) to hook up to the sound card effectively and safely. Even if you want to hook up to the VCR you'd need a similar convertor.

That would explain the loud noise as well. Speaker level outputs can vary widely in output voltage. You could have spiked during a louder part of the song, fried something which caused the noise to continue.

As for hooking up your 300 watt/channel amp I'm assuming you use connections to something other than the speaker outputs.

BTW, many auto parts stores carry those convertors as well as Circuit City, Best Buy, and other consumer electronics stores that carry car audio.

Thanks for the help K-Man , When I record from my amp I use a "Record Out" Right and Left RCA jacks to an adapter that takes it to a single mini jack wich goes into the line in of the sound card.

_________________
Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

Mannn , I got home from work today and found that once again...NO SOUND ! evn from the new PCI slot , so I tried removing the sound card software and reinstalling it. It worked , so I removed the software , moved the sound card back in the original slot , reinstalled the software again , and it works there as well as for the reel to reel's out jacks..it has a speaker mini out , but that's not the one I used . I used the one that's marked "Line Out" there's one for the right channel , and one for the Left. Thanks again bud !

_________________
Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

Try cleaning the PCI contact pins on the sound card with an eraser then reftting it. Make sure you ground yourself and the card to avoid static damage. It's possible that poor pin contact into the slot caused the whole problem.

_________________
Those who bring sunshine to others cannot keep it from themselves  
Snoopy

something as old as a reel to reel, you are probably talking tube type units, and the output from those have be a lot higher voltage than from a transistor unit. especially an older one that has leakey capacitors.
Use caution, or you will cost yourself a computer.

_________________
______________________________________
I'm Not Dead yet...... But every day Im getting Closer !

None of the reel to reels I had were tubes. All solid state.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

altho I've not yet opened this thing up , My brother said that it IS a tubed unit.
Update; I found a small print that says transistorized. does that mean no tubes ?

_________________
Gotta' Sing , Gotta' Sing !!!

Most likely. You'd know if used tubes. It would get nice & hot plus it would have some pretty good ventilation so you would be able to see the warm glow behind it. Plus can you "turn it on & listen" or do you need to wait a minute or 2 before you can listen? If the latter, it uses tube, if the former, it's solid state.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!