What is a Magnecorder?

Magnecord M90:

Magnecord PT6-R Magnecorder:

 Magnecord M30 Magnecordette:

Magnecord, Manecorder, Magnecordette? There were many tape decks made by the company Magnecord following WWII. The most common models being the PT6-J Magnecorder and the M33 Magnecordette. I've had many of these units as well as different models that were related to these in addition to other one-offs and factory mods. Every time I think I've seen every tube design Magnecord made, two more pop up! In their day Magnecord competed with the best in the world.

They have fantastic build quality, are all point to point construction, easy to mod, and best of all: sound amazing once modified. I have used them stock as tape machines and they are solid and reliable with a great tone ONCE restored. Many have a lot of miles on the transports or rotting rubber parts that take their toll on proper function. Frankly all the units I have bought that did come with transports weren't worth the trouble to restore. Most are mono so to me they have little usefulness in a modern studio. Using them stock as straight up preamps or amplifiers works OK, but they are really not designed for this type of use. Much like using a stock Ampex 351 as a mic preamp: sure it will work and sounds cool, but it is really a one-trick pony. I don't like one-tricks. I prefer versatility. My hot rod amps can always do lots of stuff while keeping it simple and these Magncords take to my design philosophy SO well. 

So, for most of these units I like to reinvent them as completely different devices using only the original iron as inspiration for the replacement circuit. I have built PT6-J units into multi-functional boxes. One as a Pre+Amp unit has a one-bottle 12AV7 preamp using the original BEEFY stock input transformer sitting next to a guitar amp circuit using the rest of the chassis space. Of these units I have had several different amp permutations. One way to go is with a 6SJ7 pentode as the preamp stage for the guitar amp, but I have also used a 6SL7 dual triode cascaded to make similar amounts of gain with a totally different tone. The power section usually has a 6SL7 or 6SN7 LTP phase inverter feeding a PP pair of 6V6 or 5881 power tubes. This circuit uses the stock output transformer of course. The output transformer is great for recording purposes because it has two secondaries: one for speaker level with 4 and 16 ohm taps and the other can be used floating as a balanced 600 ohm output. It was originally for distribution over phone lines, but once heavily padded works great for the modern recording studio. I usually put a balanced u-pad of at least -20dB so that I don't blow up recorder inputs. 

Another mod I have done to the PT6-J is what I call my Pre+Limiter. It has the same one-bottle 12AV7 preamp circuit AND right next to it has a Federal AM-864/U Limiter circuit. These circuits can be used separately like on the Pre+Amp, but unlike that unit can also be wired directly together. I have coupled them in a few different ways. Originally I used a 10k:600 ohm output transformer for the preamp circuit output and wired it to a tap strip that was jumpered to a 600:10kCT input transformer on the Federal input. Later, while trying to simplify a later Pre+Limiter I decided to leave off the output transformer for the preamp circuit entirely and install a 10k:10kCT input transformer on the Federal. This made both circuits more compatible with my DAW environment because I could get more gain out of the preamp and LESS out of the Federal when using them separately AND they were mostly unaffected when used together because instead of a stepdown and stepup back to back it was just a 1:1 relationship. One less bit of iron is fine with me, there is PLENTY of color in the circuits already. All in all, Magnecords are some of my favorite mods, and despite their notoriety as of late are still fairly plentiful and the common models can be had cheap.  Of all the Maggie mods I have done to a dozen models or so none of them have been lacking: ALL of them have turned out fantastic. That said, don't spend too much on these things because you'll start driving the price up for me!