Exotica time machine

Thought I'd post this here as it pertains to Tiki music. After a long wait for the perfect way to play my exotica collection I came upon this. A vintage mint Panasonic stereo console plus reel to reel. Every thing works and it sounds fantastic. Goes perfect with Martin Denny and a cocktail. Best of all 35.00 $ out the door. Thanks

WOW!!! :o

Nice find!!

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

That is a beautiful piece of art! my grandparents had an old Westinghouse stereo console that looked great. The gave it away to the Salvation Army--arghhh!!!

Coo-elle! Now you can go for all those nobody-wants-them reel to reel releases on e-bay, Martin Denny did some...or do you already have a collection? Is there perhaps a collectors market already out there for those?

Yes, there is a collectors' market for the Exotica reel to reels. At least I know that Quad Master and I collect them. The Baxter, Denny, and Esquivel reel to reels, among others of that ilk, tend to attract significant bids. Space Escapades in stereo, for example, goes for real money. Jazz tapes are sought after as well.

And of course there are the quad tapes. They often go for even more...

Beautiful! So often when I see those consoles, they've been roughed a bit, or some part of the electronics needs to be fixed, but this one is just wow! And a working reel-to-reel is amazing. Please tell about how good that first Martin Denny spin sounded on the turntable. Curious, are styluses for it easy to come by?

Thanks for all the feedback. I found the console at a local church thrift store. I always get the blank look when I pull into the place because of my license plate on my jeep reads "TIKIGOD". I don't think they like my plate. The first album sounded great. I put it on as I was putting a coat of polish on the console. The look of my whole house is circa 1959 so the stereo fits perfect. Styluses can be found on the net pretty easy but I have a place in town that carries them as well. Thanks again

I LOVE the open reel format! I still have a nice Tascam 32-2B open reel machine in the "dead format" rack in my studio (along with a turntable, a cassette deck, and a DAT machine). A recording at 7-1/2 IPS sounds MUCH better than vinyl, with better dynamic range as well. My wife brought home a nice 7" reel (with box) called "Hawaiian Luau" that was in TOP shape, and very dry. I slapped it on the deck and ran a copy to CD right away.

WARNING! AUDIO GEEK INFO FOR COLLECTORS AHEAD***

Magnetic tape is just metallic oxide (powdered rust) glued to a strip of Mylar tape. The oxide will suck up moisture, just like a rusty old muffler on your car, if not stored properly (cool and dry). When you try to play "wet" tapes, the oxide layer gets striped off in the transport and heads of the tape deck, ruining the tape and gumming up the deck. If the tape is stored too warm, the glue holding the oxide layer on can dry out and flake off, leaving chunks of "missing" information. "Wet" tapes can be fixed by putting them in a dehydrator, like a big "Ronco jerkey maker", for a couple of hours, then "loose pack" the tape onto another reel by running it straight from one reel to another WITHOUT going through the transport of the deck, the back into the dehydrator for a couple more hours.

Just some advice to collectors from an old timer engineer who used tape for a long time in the studio many moons ago, and still dose audio restoration work from time to time. Keep you tapes in a cool dry place!

Tiki Bill.

Cool! I love Tiki Central. No matter how esoteric a field, someone here is in the know!

Good info there, Tiki Bill.

In the pro audio industry we use the same techniques to rescue pro-format tapes too.
The Ronco beef jerky machines work, but any convection oven will also do the trick.
I don't have the formula handy, but you bake tapes for something like 8 hours at 130 degrees (has to be DRY heat, hence the convection oven) and they're as good as new - for a day or so, just long enough to make backups (these days that means digitizing them at 24-bit).

Anyone remember the new-wave act Skafish?
He lives in northwest Indiana.
About three years ago, I helped him digitize his archives.
He had everything from mono reels from the early 1950s of his mother singing opera (she was apparently somewhat renowned), to the 1970s lil' Skafish formative years demos, to the IRS records era 24-track 2" tapes, to his more recent work. We had several ovens going at once in the basement of the recording studio!

He has a complete LP that was recorded in about 1982 and was never released, and it is amazing: like Devo or Oingo Boingo but better than anything that either of those bands ever did (I am a huge Devo fan, BTW). It is a crime that he has been sitting on this record for 25 years...

Anyway, nice find, Trav, and a bargain to boot.
If anyone in the Chicago area is looking for a reel-to-reel machine, I have an extra one for sale:
http://www.tikiroadtrip.net/stuff.html

Nice find there Uncle Trav, looking forward to hearing it this summer along with a great night at the Hukilau.

Thanks Bood. The Hukilau Lounge has a permanent spot for you and Savage Sissy reserved.

Here is our 1950s Blaupunkt in the tikified office

Here is our solid state 1960s console in living room....it's a bowling shrine

Some awesome sets you got there Sutnikmoss, swanky digs to. I love these older consoles. Still can't believe my luck at finding this one. It even came with the original owners manual, two microphones, Blank tapes, record cleaning cloths, reel to reel cleaning kit, and a Steve Wonder tape. It would be cool to see what some other folks have out there. Thanks

These are just beautiful. Sure beats an iPod.

More like an iMod.

Thanks! The Blaupunkt was the first piece of "furniture" my husband and I bought together. We used it basically for show for a long time until I moved out all my husband's vintage radios and telephones (sorry honey!) and moved in all my mugs and exotica records. The phonograph box was really dirty and full of cigarette ashes so it had obviously been used at many a rager back in the day. I cleaned everything out and it sounds great! I just have to remember to wait for the tubes to warm up before I crank the volume...I scare myself everytime thinking it's not on then CA-KAW!..damn that Martin Denny! We have been able to get Russia on the shortwave at night too!

I collect reel to reel tapes, both stereo and quad, as I mentioned before. I play them on a TEAC A 3440 that I bought new in the early 80s, so I am the original owner. For a while it was the best audio source I had. Then I upgraded my turntable to a VPI and my CD player to a Cary. Now the tapes are in third place.

So where do I go from here? What deck should I be using? I remember Revox being sought after back in the day. I can keep the Teac for the quad stuff and get a second stereo deck.

Recommendations?

-Jack