The Studer A-810 is a GREAT machine...
The transport is killer, the audio electronics well designed
and overall it's perhaps the best small portable 2 track machine Studer ever built.
It is NOT the best 2 track Studer ever built, but it's a good solid
machine, and is selling for reasonable prices on the used market
BUT...
Almost all of the Studer A-810 machines need work
Here are some helpful tips I've found over the past years working on Studer A-810 machines...
First off, there are a number of EPROMs inside the machine, and these
can and will go bad - causing a complete machine failure.
Personally, if I owned a A-810, I'd have a copy of the EPROMs in my machine made
as a back-up in case I need to replace them in the future.
The latest EPROM version is Studer Part Number (1.810.999.24)
== there were 2 kinds of EPROMs used in versions of the A-810 ==
You MUST have the correct EPROM set for your own version machine!!
Once an EPROM goes bad your machine will not function correctly
Make a back-up SET OF SPARE EPROMS
We can make a copy of your EPROMs for you
( if you can't find anyone local who can do it for you...)
Cost is $ 85.00 which includes 3 new EPROMs
Note: you MUST send in your EPROMs for me to copy !!!
Most A-810 machines MUST have their internal Battery changed ASAP !!!
Change your back-up batteries every 5 years.
We sell these for $ 25.00
Once your battery goes bad you cannot store any audio alignment parameters
so your alignments can go crazy or revert to the original very old Factory alignment data
Almost ALL Studer A-810 early version machines MUST have their Motherboard
power supply caps replaced ASAP.... the Franko brand caps are now failing and
will often explode inside your machine - not a nice sound to hear - or will
open up or short out one of the power supply rails.... thus rendering your
machine unuseable.
The Philips caps are lasting much longer than the Franko brand ones, and
there is no need to rush out and have them replaced - wait until your machine
needs service and have your tech replace them when you need other work done.
Next you want to make sure that you do NOT set the wind or play tensions too high...
use the basic specs for tension given in the manual and have the tensions checked
once in a while. Tensions set too high will cause your heads to wear out fast.
Next you need to learn the 'feel' of the transport control buttons -
they have a tendency to go bad now and then, and you need to know when one is about to fail...
there should be a good solid 'click' to the button, and it should bounce back after being pressed.
Note that the A-810 is a micro-processor controlled machine....
it's basically a computer, but it's getting OLD... it's a 10 year old computer now,
and chips do fail, EPROMs loose their memory, and strange things can start to happen.
Make a list of the various chips in the control system, and make sure that
you have a couple chips of each kind sitting around... some you may find hard to find,
but it's better to try and find them now, then when the machine's not working...
some chips will take hours of searching to find, but do it now!!
Studer A-810 used Reel Tables for sale !
with GOOD reel spindles !
Cost: $ 75.00 per unit 1 available
AudioHouse - the present supplier of Studer parts - still has SOME the parts for the A-810
Note that the cost of Studer heads is high -
too high for most studios to afford to replace heads once they're gone....
so make sure that the tape lifters are pushing the tape away from the heads in wind modes!!
Finally make sure that when you set the audio parameters, the setting Hex Codes between the
Right and Left channels are somewhat close together... if you find one channel
requires a significant increase in level or high-frequency EQ or bias,
swap the audio cards and see if the needed increase (or decrease) follows the card
or stays with the channel. You will need to swap cards one-at-a-time.
NEVER take out or put in a card with the machine turned 'On' !!!
Finally, almost ALL Studer A-810's need to have their Audio and Power Supply
caps replaced.... and there are a bunch of caps that are hard to get to !!!
See my 'What Bad Caps Look Like" page :
| Bad Caps !! |