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Expert: - 8/13/2009


Question
Hello Wayne.  I have a very old reel to reel recorder and a few old tapes that I want to copy to CD.  The recorder has no output sockets at all.  I could take a feed from the internal speaker terminals but is it safe to connect this directly to the input terminals of my CD recorder?  I vaguely remember stuff from college about matching impedances etc but that was long ago.  I could put a potentiometer in series to reduce risk of overload.  Any advice would be very welcome.  Thank you.

Answer
While I wouldn't really recommend it, you certainly could try that. A speaker level output going into a line level input can cause some overloading issues.

Does the R2R have a headphone output? You could possibly use that if there is one, as that isn't as "hot" of a signal.

Just be very careful of your levels going into the recorder. Distortions may be unavoidable, however.

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Wayne Tapia

Expertise

Home Theater Audio Cabling (from HDMI to speaker cable). I WILL REJECT ALL CAR AUDIO QUESTIONS - I am not a car audio guy.

Experience

I am a Certified Audio Engineer that also works in the A/V cabling industry. I would like to dispel the myths and outright lies about the cables that connect your home theater systems together. Here's a hint - many of you have been misled out of hundreds of dollars for cabling systems.

Organizations
ASCAP AES

Education/Credentials
Audio Recording Technology Institute Vancouver Film School

Past/Present Clients
Post Magic Studios Khaos Studios Glass Forest Entertainment Funkbuddha Productions The Capital Playhouse Art In Music Global Music Project University of Washington Belle and Wissel

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