Does anybody know where any of these are?
 

I read in an old thread here that the Ampex museum had one but that place has closed.
I could be imagining this but I think I saw a bit of one in a photo of the inside of the Chicago Playboy mansion.

I'll bet they sold at least 6 of those!

THAT is a cool piece of equipment! Color TV, tuner, amp, turntable, open reel audio and video recorders. A technician could have had a full-time job just maintaining a couple of those in the 1960's.

Here's the only link I could find on this thing:

http://www.cedmagic.com/history/ampex-signature-v.html

With a 30k pricetag, I never thought there were any around today. Since it is made up of off-the shelf electronics, I guess you could build your own for under 30K-and what a deal it would be!

The inflation calculator says that 30,000 in 1963 is 213,736.27 today.:yikes:

Damn, that thing's bigger than that Fisher console I spied on the estate sales list a little bit ago: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=313562

It appears that the VTR sits down inside the cabinet, which constrains it to only using the 8" reels, and not the 11.5" reels that overhang the sides of the machine considerably. pix 1
jr

I think I read somewhere on the net in the past 4 of them were made and only one was sold.

What a goof ball that designed that cabinet to not allow the optional 11.5 reels! I guess he was not shown the reels but he was still an idiot to not figure that out.

Where did you get your Ampex? Do you know who used it when it was new? Do you have old programs on it's tapes?
Thanks,
John

I got it in trade with another TV collector many years ago. I was told that it was used by a PBS station to air old B/W Zen Buddhism programs (Alan Watts?) long after most programming was in color. Later that story was de-bunked by a TV Broadcast Engineer, who told me that the 660s were not considered to be stable enough (FCC specs?) to be used "On Air"... so I am not sure how the machine was used. One of the tape labels does say "PBS 07/82/05... Rec 19 2 82...NTSC" so at least the reel had some PBS history.:yes:
The few tapes that I got with the machine had been erased.
I recorded "The Day the Earth Stood Still" on one tape... Before DVDs, it was a great way to demo vintage TVs without the normal VCR "flagging".
jr

I don't think there is sufficient evidence from the photo to conclude that full sized reels would be obstructed ?

I just picked up a couple of similar mid sixties Ampex's. Large 5-in helical scan headwheel & offset reel heights. They have a solid Made-in-USA quality.

Back around 1980, my father acquired a machine that looked a lot like this. Think it was black and white video only. We changed out the rubber belts (old ones went all gooey) but it never did really work. Then we got a VCR and we abandoned effort on this old machine. It got scrapped a couple years later.
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1283057357

Quite possible they are not... the picture provides little in the way of visual clues as to the depth of mounting...Wish we had a better pix of the installed components!
However, if the right reel did clear the side panel, the overhang could make it difficult to operate some of the controls.:scratch2:
The good news is that the small 8" reels provide 90 minutes of play time, so perhaps that was deemed "long enough".

NICE!!:banana::banana::banana:
Solid is an understatement... My 660 weighs in at an arm-stretching 95 lbs!

jr

the model shown in Figure is a helical scan 2" model VR 660. Recorder very rare to find now

Having the PBS/date/rec with NTSC label makes me think it more likely was used by a TV station as stated by your collector friend simply because I think most other users would not know of or have a reason to label with "NTSC". The broadcast engineer may very well have stated such from that way of thinking even lessor minds like mine have in which we sometimes think too much and and too little at the same time resulting in a conclusion that is less likely to be true based on basic logic without adequate consideration to the human factor that can exist even with in a TV station. So... in conclusion... I surmise that your 660 was in fact used to air the very tape that it still posseses.
I wish you could operate the machine and show the "Zen" tape or maybe you meant that tape was erased too :)

Pictures, specs, Reel sizes, play times for the VTR in 1963 Ampex Home Entertainment Center:

http://www.labguysworld.com/Ampex_VR-1500.htm

Perhaps the 1500 was factory modified to do color like the Pro version model 660 ?
It would make sense given the color receiver - and big price tag.

One of the most lavish consumer products of all time.

From LabGuys article:
" RECORDING TIME
a. 40 minutes for a 6-1/2 inch reel (750 feet)
b. 90 minutes for an 8 inch reel (1650 feet)
c. 195 minutes (3 hrs 15 min.) for a 6-1/2 inch reel (3600 feet)
d. 300 minutes (5 hrs) for a 12-1/2 inch reel (5540 feet, 1 mile+)"

Item c is incorrect, according to my manual the 3600 ft spool is 10-1/2 inches not 6-1/2inches.

Item d is correct... the reels are indeed 12-1/2 inches not 11-1/2 as I have stated in the above posts.:o

jr

Ha, ha. I would like to haves one of these.
B.t.w., how much means 90 pounds in kilograms?

90 pounds = 40.9 kg. 1 kg=2.2 lbs. An old doctor's joke in this country is that the female patients always want to be weighed in kg.