For REPAIR Ampex ATR-700 2 or 4 Track Reel to Reel Tape Deck in Road Case Vtg

Description: For REPAIR Ampex ATR-700 2 or 4 Track Reel to Reel Tape Deck in Road Case Vtg --- Listing has 55 PHOTOS of the deck --- Despite the video showing the deck playing tape, it is NOT easy to get that to happen and you will find it very frustrating getting it to work as shown (I have used the deck for several hours and have always eventually got it to play). There are many details about condition and functionality that I need to point out so do not skip over anything in this written description. NOTE that the two tape reels you see in the photos and video are NOT included (the hub adapters are included). --- The only other transport functionality that I was able to get to work was rewind. I have never been able to get the deck to stop with the STOP button (except when a tape has been rewound the motor/spindle brakes do work and stop the deck). Pause, Rec and FF have never worked no matter what I tried (I should actually point out that during the photo session for this listing I actually got both FF and Pause to work once only, but I wasn't able to repeat that and through alll the past hours of use neither ever functioned). --- Deck behavior: Getting the deck to actually play has never been understood on my part, when I first got the deck I worked both tension arms, engaged and disengaged the edit function (which engages the pinch roller, you can see that in the video, I did also at another time engage the edit and the tape does feed out as expected on the right). I turned the deck off and on, tried pressing the play button in different ways. Over and over again trying various things, mainly I would try manually rotating the reels to change the tension arm positions, then trying play, that didn't seem to ever work consistently. I did find that after trying various things (sometimes for several minutes) I was able to get it to play, a lot of the time it was after doing all those things then turning it off and on again and pressing play, and I noticed many times you had to press and hold the play button for a moment rather than just a brief button press. Conventional thinking would point to intermittent contacts, probably both with the buttons and as likely in combination with the tensioners, in any case I've never opened this up (in the past I've taken decks apart to reseat connectors and clean control contacts, sometimes that's all it took to restore functionality, sometimes not, and many times after I put a deck back together something new stopped working, I'm not a tech and am older than I used to be so I'm going to go through that again myself). --- More on Deck Behavior: Assume you are not going to be able to get the deck to play without repair (in some cases I was convinced I wasn't going to be able to get it to play, many times it was pretty easy, and many other times it seemed like it would never play again). I did use this deck for several hours over a period of days listening to some old two track tapes I made when I had a home studio set up, so my experience with the deck isn't just a brief testing. As noted, the Rewind always seemed to work after the deck was playing. When the deck was playing, the only way to stop it is to turn off the power. The rewind can be used when the deck is in play mode (at which point it stops/brakes and starts rewinding, and the only way to stop rewind is to let it fully rewind the tape, or turn off the deck, or press play again which put it back into play mode). --- NOTE the balance ring on the three function output control is BROKEN (the ring turns loosely and has no resistance and is presumed physically broken inside). --- NOTE the tape counter is not working. --- NOTE that one of the two bottom deck feet are missing (the foot on the left), there are two mismatched screws on that side and you have to put something under it to keep it from scratching up the surface it rests on. --- NOTE one of the two meters is intermittent (I think it was the left meter, the needle would either not move unless lightly tapped or sometimes get stuck somewhere along it's range). In the video you may notice how one channel meter is active and not the other, that is because at the area playing on that tape I had used for testing in the past, where I was changing between channels while I had recorded that tape on a different deck). --- The playback output is functional however one channel is at a noticeably lower volume, to the point really where it is hardly audible (it just occurred to me that might be because the balance control on the output pot is broken). --- As I remember I wasn't able to increase or decrease the output volume with the deck controls, I was able to make the db gain on the meters themselves change but not the output going to my amplifier. --- You can see the close-up photos of the head stack, there is also a lot of tape oxide on the take-up guide roller. I glanced at the pinch roller and it looks ok (it's housed in an outer shell and only exposed on the top where it makes contact). --- In the video I didn't have this connected to an amplifier because I couldn't find the necessary adapters to go from XLR to RCA. --- I've NEVER taken the deck out of the road case. NOTE that there is one screw missing on each side (there should be 4 on each side, two on the top and two on the bottom), one is missing from the two top screws. NOTE also on the left side of the case how that one upper screw is driven into the the wood of the case past the outer covering. Also notice how the screws present don't all match. --- NOTE that the left handle on the road case has a grip that should rotate a little on the handle, it is stuck in the outward position (compare the close-up photos showing each handle and how the handle on the right sits flush while n the left it sticks out a little because the grip is not rotated to be flush). --- The road case covering is torn in places, some detaching, some signs of residue on the black covering. On the inside of the front cover you can see the covering is detached quite a bit on the sides. ---- The top grille on the deck has some denting. ---- Looking down into the grille things look as expected, a coating of dust. --- I had tried to get the deck to record, and was sure the safe/ready switches were on ready, but never was able to get any activity out of the record button, not in combination with play or with pause etc. --- I did note that the playback eq did change how the output sounded. The tape speed switch is working as is the variable speed control. The 2 track/4 track switch sound right, I've only played 2 track tapes but when switched to 4 track the output level decreased or the freq response of the two tracks changed. --- There may be other functionality that is not working properly, anything related to recording could not be tested. I didn't explore or test anything besides what would affect playback through the two xlr outputs. ---- I used to own many 2 track decks and have packed and shipped them over the years, it's normally quite a job because of the exposed spindles and the weight of decks, but in this case having that road case makes protecting the front face and spindles easy. This deck is extremely heavy, likely the road case has added more than a few pounds, I weighed the deck at very close to 80 lbs (which surprised me and made me re-weigh it a few times). I've always shipped decks with a minimum of 2" of sheet foam on all sides, basically the packed deck must be able to sustain a drop onto concrete, otherwise it's not properly packed. --- See photos for condition details. --- Will be well packed --- See shipping options above --- Payment expected within 3 days of purchase (contact me if you need more time). --- The item description is guaranteed to be accurate but all items are sold as-is unless otherwise stated. --- I don't have a way to arrange for a local pick-up of this item, I'm sorry for the inconvenience

Price: 699.99 USD

Location: Everett, Washington

End Time: 2024-07-12T18:28:00.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD