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A Tape Deck for the Car ! (Read 1289 times)
Steve Deckert
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A Tape Deck for the Car !
08/03/17 at 04:09:22
 

I decided to wake up the old 72 Monte Carlo after making it sit in the corner for 4 years after it pissed me off one to many times... anyway it's slowly coming back from it's hibernation and I realized part of the experience of this time machine was the stereo I had in it back in the day, so I've decided to reproduce it as close as I can.

The heart of that stereo was a Pioneer Super Tuner / Cassette deck that interestingly the night I thought of it somehow magically appeared on eBay as new old stock, still in the box frozen in time brand new and waiting for me to buy and install it.  Be doing that this weekend.

Point is, if you're going to have reel to reel tape, why not transfer them to high quality cassettes for the car...  hey man, just keeping it reel!

-Steve
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Jeff of Arabica
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #1 - 08/03/17 at 07:16:43
 
Oh man, what a great idea!  Ive got a reel to reel AND a cassette deck in my car.  Excuse me now, off to eBay I go....
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stone_of_tone
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #2 - 08/03/17 at 16:10:09
 
Cool & cool!
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Steve Deckert
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #3 - 08/05/17 at 05:40:38
 
Today I completed the installation of the speakers.  A simple pair of 6x9's in the rear deck.  To ensure it would sound decent I made some modifications I thought some of you might find interesting.  Since the rear package tray is steel with places for 6 x 9 speakers, I removed the 6 x 9 mounts and surrounding steel.  Picture a pair of 10 inch holes in the rear steel deck.  Then I dampened it with felt and spray adhesive and cut a plastic deck plate the entire size of the rear deck from 1/4 inch material and floated it in there with no fasteners of any kind. It simply locks into place under the felt lined lips around it's circumference. This plastic is soft and transfers almost no vibration compared to wood or steel. And it's floating. And the 6x9's are glued to it via a bed of silicon and no screws were used. The 6 x 9's chosen were low mass, far less than the 1/4 inch thick new package tray.

The 6 x 9's were a fun find. I have two routes I can go... high power or lower power.  For high power, the ideal is a thick clear poly cone woofer and post mounted soft dome tweeter built like the one in a hifi speaker. For low power, a duo-cone with a cloth surround, pulp cone, light surround and petite voice coil in a small magnet. 92dB efficiency with 1 watt comes from the low mass and and 32Hz from the high compliance. The result is a crossover less full range speaker with low mass that has great detail and textures just like the stuff I listen to here at Decware.

Ironically, when you research 6x9's they range from $1200.00 on down. Once you get below 300.00 they are all junk until you get all the way down to the very bottom, a vintage 1972 pair of new old stock pioneer duo-cones for $25.00 The irony is that for sound quality at low to normal volumes these will remain untouched by even the 1200.00 models... I was damn lucky to find a pair. Back when I was younger and working as a hi-fi salesman, it never failed that the best sounding speaker in the entire wall of 6X9 car speakers was always the duo-cone 6x9's. They also were the loudest and had the best dynamic attack and the most midrange presence.  No one ever bought them. Why... ...psyched out by the marketing and the placebo effect of pricing. A 4-way 6x9 with a midrange and two tweeters for $250 has to be superior to a $49 pair of cheap speakers with whizzer cones... right?  

Funny, about 10.00 each... I would have given up to $400 for a pair... or more because you gotta have what you gotta have which is what works. Not to mention it's N.O.S. from 1972 just like the radio and the car.  

I'll take some pictures tomorrow.

Steve
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Steve Deckert
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #4 - 08/06/17 at 02:26:23
 
Success... Got the super tuner installed today and the sound came out exactly as I had hoped.  It's that vintage sound I grew up with.  Nice poppy mid bass with a deep rich low end and warm smooth mids.  Since the radio has no loudness control, or bass/treble controls the low volume frequency balance had to be right and it is.  It sounds exactly like a ZROCK... quite literally the same curve.  The beauty of this setup is it draws less than 2 amps and puts out about 4 watts.

It was fun to dial in my favorite 70's rock station and hear all of the songs I grew up with sound exactly like I remember them!  Now that I'm wrapping my head around the sound quality of this particular radio, and how much natural bass there is with no tone controls or amplifiers in this car... it's no wonder I got so confused years later when suddenly solid state sounded bad.  It was the transition from old school 12VDC car stereo in the monte to 120VAC mid-fi home stereo that must have did it.







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Steve Deckert
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #5 - 08/06/17 at 02:28:54
 
So, now it's time to make some tapes!
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Steve Deckert
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #6 - 08/09/17 at 05:29:59
 
I think I'll do the Hendrix Voodoo Child session master first... just listened to that tape tonight with a couple very kind gentleman who came by for an evening listening session. It's so much fun to get into the time machine with a couple other people and magically appear in Hendrix' own basement studio on the night he was working on Voodoo Child with all this friends...  

It was the end of a great evening composed of the TORII MK4 and the HDT speakers. The only way I could think to top the incredible results we got from that would be to put a Hendrix master tape on the Corner Horns with the TORII so we finished a great evening with that combo and it was to say the least memorable.

I love my job : )

Steve
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Jeff of Arabica
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #7 - 08/09/17 at 05:56:14
 
would sure like to see what's under that hood  :o
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Steve Deckert
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #8 - 08/10/17 at 02:27:37
 
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stone_of_tone
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #9 - 08/10/17 at 03:57:24
 
I  knew it ran on TUBES!  8-)
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Jeff of Arabica
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #10 - 08/10/17 at 03:58:34
 
HAHAHA!!! Grin Grin
That is damn funny!
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stone_of_tone
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #11 - 08/10/17 at 04:15:18
 
....and he went with KT66 GEC's. Only the best.   Cool
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Jeff of Arabica
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #12 - 08/10/17 at 05:19:53
 
And of course, not stock.  Those babies are probably at least bored 0.090-over.
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Steve Deckert
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #13 - 08/16/17 at 04:34:11
 
While we're on the topic of TAPE, MONTE and MOTOR, I should tell you that I plan to create a live 2 track recording of the Monte at 30 IPS / 320 NWM at the maximum dynamic range of my tape machine before I change my exhaust. Presently it couldn't sound better, it's just too loud out on the road when you put your foot it in it. I thought that was what I wanted and be careful what you wish for.  Being heard a mile away can only raise suspicion.

Nevertheless, I'm just going to place the car about 12 feet from the microphones and start it.  I'm relatively certain it will be a woofer destroyer of a test track useful for testing your stereo up to one time... OR if you don't turn it up to the point of destruction, a nice demonstration of what I would call incredible tone density.  I tuned the exhaust and motor like it was a musical instrument and it would be a shame not to capture it on tape.

Should be fun.

-Steve
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Matthew
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #14 - 02/07/18 at 06:58:52
 
That's a pretty Monte!  Are those swivel buckets?  My Paps always told me about the swivel buckets in his Monte of yester-year.

I'd like to continue to hear how you make out with those 6x9's.  I've been curious about those PRV 6x9's at PartsExpress because they are listed as professional loudspeakers, and not teamed up with the typical car-audio 6x9's.  Do you have an opinion of something like those?  They have higher power-handling then I care to deal with--I'd rather deal with low-power stuff--but for better or for worse, the idea of professional drivers in a car excites me.

Anyway, here's a picture of a '68 Fastback I did a quickie job on, a matter of months ago.

Matthew
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Steve Deckert
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Re: A Tape Deck for the Car !
Reply #15 - 02/08/18 at 03:24:16
 
My wife would steel that car from you if she saw it.

The PRV 6X9 I found was a midrange driver from 500Hz ~12KHz but otherwise looked good.  

The pioneers are breaking in nicely and this summer when I fix the intermittent antenna I'll actually get to hear what the speakers can do plus I am making tapes for it now, so I expect those to sound very good.  Looking forward to it and will let you know.

Steve
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