I had a Tascam 38 in the 70's/80's which I eventually sold as time progressed, along with the banks of Dbx units I had for it. Because I mixed down tracks to everyone's satisfaction, the tapes subsequently went into storage. But now I want to remix a few of them. And here's my question. Tascam 38 I am familiar with. Not so the TSR-8. I have the opportunity of acquiring a working TSR-8 and want to know if my recorded tapes from the 38 will relate okay, given that they are both 1/2", and the TSR has, supposedly, built-in dbx. Appreciate any assistance.

I've owned many Tsr-8s and was a dealer for Tascam in the previous century so was around 38s too. The dbx will translate fine... that is if all is well with the dbx calibration on either a 38 or tsr8 (ie.. how many times has the machine fallen off a truck before you ended up buying it). General alignment would be diff, causing some differences in the playback signal, regardless of the dbx situation. You may or may not want to get into aligning the new machine you buy. Two head machines were already a hassle to align anyway back in the old days.

The tsr8 improvements over the 38 were many, particular in the area of sync. But for the purposes of this thread, another consideration that is pretty COOL here at the dawn of 2015 is ....

Once you have your tsr8, you can (if you want or if the dbx on the machine isn't working), turn the dbx completely off and then run the undecoded tracks into your daw onto separate tracks... and then..... buy uhe Satin.... insert that on each of your daw 8 tracks of transferred tape stuff.... and then ONLY activate Satin's separate dbx decoder.......... it works GREAT!!!

Satin is the perfect solution for long-gone dbx units of any type.

Should he bake the tapes if they're from the 70s & 80s?

Thanks for that thenoodle, never used the Satin, but will investigate if the machinery doesn't come up to scratch.