Akai GX-630D-SS

Rare version of Akai's second other most successful series - in QUAD style : the "SS" in 630D-SS is here for Surround Sound.
This also was Akai's last Quad recorder.

Quad had a nice side feature : one could use the four separate head gaps to record separately and sequentially any of the tracks - in sync. Akai called this Quadra-Sync.

Doing the recording itself are two heads, each with four gaps for recording in four channels (or two) and playing back in four channel - or two, too.
The wiring is doubled so that gap 1 (track 1) can be switched to become track 1 playback - same for the other three gap/heads.

These decks are basically what Fostex and Tascam introduced a few short years later with Compact Cassettes as medium. They were lightler and really portable - but didn't sound nearly as good :)

The rec/play head naturally is the nearly-indestructible GX : glass and ferrite crystal. Ferrite being non-porous, the risk of chipping and gap widening is limited while its the core is mounted and set in pure glass to keep dust and magnetic particles away.

The main motor for capstan drive is an AC Servo of the "CPG" kind : center pole frequency generated. The reels' are Eddy Current outer-rotor motors.

Feather-touch transport pads, quick-pause switch (the tape stays in contact with the heads), four independent line/mic mixing pots, front/rear output pots, auto-stop at tape's end (tension arm detection), RC-17 or RC-18 remote controls (wired) and easy lift-up head cover just in case you're using the unbeatable and almost unsaturable Ampex 499 Grand Master thanks to a fifteen year forward time warp.

The GX-630DSS even sports a pitch control of ±5%, or half a tone - just in case one of your choir singers repeatedly sings too sauer or too sweet.

Four tracks, mixing board, 499 Grand Master... the rest is up to you.



All about Akai's Quad recorders at Steven L. Bender's and all about Akai's Quad recorders at Frank Oomen's.