Some Interesting BASF 7" Reels

[laatsch55]

A guy brought 15 of these by the house the other day.
7", all plastic reels, all recorded at 3-3/4 IPS
Very exotic packaging. Hand written j-cards, factory ones new and blank. The outside case is hard plastic as is the slide out front loader. The inner case is a thinner, trasparent, very close fit plastic. Better than the ziplocs like most. Nowhere can i find what model tape it is. One would think with the elaborate storage that it would be a better grade tape. Any ideas on how to find out what model tape ?

 

[62vauxhall]

A guy brought 15 of these by the house the other day.
7", all plastic reels, all recorded at 3-3/4 IPS
Very exotic packaging. Hand written j-cards, factory ones new and blank. The outside case is hard plastic as is the slide out front loader. The inner case is a thinner, trasparent, very close fit plastic. Better than the ziplocs like most. Nowhere can i find what model tape it is. One would think with the elaborate storage that it would be a better grade tape. Any ideas on how to find out what model tape ?

I have a few BASF 7" reels with packaging like that. Mine have cardboard slip cases with particulars of the tape itself.

If your reels still have their factory leaders, there should be some info printed on that. Like "DP26" as would be so with the tape I posted a photo of.

 

[20tajk7]

Yes it's DP26 I have some of these with this cool plastic case.

 

[laatsch55]

Thanks guys, is it any good?

 

[20tajk7]

Tried once on an Akai GX-4000, that worked right, there might be higher end BASF tapes of the same era.

 

[laatsch55]

17.00 a reel ? Certainly wasn't cheap tape..

 

[62vauxhall]

Currently I have 5 reels of it and have recorded compilations on two of them. Absolutely no complaints even though DP means it's thin tape - 2400' on a 7" reel. Because of that, I tried to ensure that record levels did not excede 0dB on the VU's. Or more accurately, did not exceede 0dB by very much and not very often.

Originally I had about a dozen reels of it. They were included with a non-working Teac deck I bought for $50 that had original box, packing and tags. All of the tapes had been recorded with classical music at 3.75. I played all of them and several, I thought, emitted a perceptible squeal so I put those aside so as to assess later. I never got around to doing that.

In 2021, I abruptly got kicked out of the place I moved into the year before and took steps to dispose of stuff I considered superfluous including those questionable BASF open reel tapes. There is a good possibility that the noise I thought I detected was not tape squeal but was caused by an improperly set reel table on the machine. I shall never know and could have very well tossed 6 or 8 reels of perfectly good tape.

 

[laatsch55]

I can mail some of these with the Akai, or some of those Scotch tapes if you were needing some tapes...

 

[62vauxhall]

17.00 a reel ? Certainly wasn't cheap tape..

No, not in those days. As per the price sticker it was sold by Your Humble Servant Record Shoppe which was not a discount mega store. It was a small one with two locations. I bought the deck and tapes in North Vancouver and in the 1970's Your Humble Servant was tucked into a small, new at the time, mall located in Lynn Valley which is in North Vancouver. Those tapes were probably a couple of bucks cheaper across the inlet in bigger Vancouver stores but one would have to drive or take a bus to get there.

 

[62vauxhall]

I can mail some of these with the Akai, or some of those Scotch tapes if you were needing some tapes...

If you want to, sure. Either would be welcome.

I'm getting closer and closer to relinquishing my record collection and do plan on putting what I can on open reel tape, in mixed tape format.

 

[laatsch55]

I can send some Scotch tapes too..

 

[laatsch55]

Ok....LP 35. R632A

 

[J!m]

Run the speed at max when recording. That can hide a poor tape pretty well (and never a bad idea on any tape really).

 

[62vauxhall]

LP35 is good stuff.

 

[8991XJ]

Those old BASF tapes should be just fine. The tape might be identified on the leader. The two letter prefix on the old tapes are for play length and it seems the two numbers are the thickness. The last tape shown on this site links some more info. https://reeltoreelwarehouse.com/brand_info/basf-emtec/

It is good tape. My brother picked up a nice used Tandberg 64x and used BASF tapes with good results in the early 70s. That tape is probably still good.

I don’t know the formulations they made or what would have been available in the US in that packaging, normal BASF fare but it had to be a much shorter list than Scotch. I expect it to be fine for music recording.

The LP35 is the 1 mil tape and the formula is similar to Maxell UD35 tape. Been made for decades, still being made, different formula, I sure but good for most machines.