Mine came from Willy Hermann who is now discontinuing them. I was lucky enough to still be able to get one. The Abex should be fine if it's legit.

The tape recorded on the Technics measured 14Hz slow when checked on the Denon DR-M3, which is known to be running at 2999Hz, so that's what I was trying to calibrate it to with that specific tape. A bit confused myself, because the Technics runs fast in play mode. Of course, it doesn't help unconfuse me when the 480s capstan motor can't hold the correct speed at all. That thing was all over the place. I should do another video on that motor to see what's wrong with it - I suspect it's beyond a simple motor service, and the controller itself is having problems.

​@@Oklawolf Ah, I see. The quartz locked Technics if running correctly, will be close to 3014-3015Hz normally, that's about where the crystals oscillate. The 480 motor didn't appear stable at all from my view. It further convolutes things when using homemade tapes without a calibrated reference. It's kind of like making a yardstick without knowing how long a foot is.

Indeed - I'm starting a video next week comparing each direct drive deck against the Denon to see which decks are running at what speed, and where I need to set the generator to record 3kHz tapes with each one (and which gives the best wow and flutter result). I've already done a 3kHz tape with the Denon - as expected, feeding it 3001Hz ended up being on target. It tested at 2999 playing back with the Denon, 3014 with the Technics, the same as the Fix Your Audio tape.

@@Oklawolf That might be asking a bit much of this medium, even factory tapes have speed/w&f tolerance and it might shock you away from tape to know how much it actually is. I'm probably wrong about this as well, but at one point I thought I saw the deck making the speed tape, monitoring its own frequency during the recording? Of course, this will always show as correct no matter the frequency. I have two or three factory tapes including a brand new Sony, maybe the thing to do would be to record a 3000Hz signal on your quartz deck, then send me the tape to compare against my factory tapes. That would give you a standard reference, and we could both do a video about it. Lord knows I won't have time to do any other videos next week!

Yes, I did it that way for both the Technics and A&D units, which is the main reason I'm planning to do that video. Otherwise I'd honestly be tempted to just let the Denon make these tapes. It's not the lowest W&F machine I have, but it's plenty good enough to make tapes that can calibrate future machines. As previously mentioned it seems to have a 1% max variation on speed stability. A collaboration sounds interesting... I'll give that some thought. It would be interesting to know how one of mine compares against other good tapes, rather than just the FYA tape. I do have the HPR tape as well, but I haven't been too happy with that one.

Great job on that quartz lock video - I'm thinking of getting a GX-Z7000 and doing that to it if I can't get a 9000 first.