BASF SM-468

[teac3440]

I had 6 reels of Ampex 373 given to me. the tape was all shed so i threw away the tape and i spooled BASF SM468 onto each reel. can anyone tell me what they tyhink about BASF SM-468. it seems to sound pretty good.

[Lance Lawson]

According to RMGI BASF 468 is the same as RMGI's current 468. I've a bit of experience with RMGI 468 and it is capable of excellent performance. However I also had tracking issues with it on my Teac that made using it hit or miss. Nevertheless on a machine that it runs well on its very very nice. My Teac ran BASF perfectly so you'll likely do well with the BASF 468.

[teac3440]

i have not tried the RMGI 468 but the BASF 468 sounds amazing on my Revox B77.

[macman007]

Basf Pem 468 is a shedding mother if it is Pem. I had two old reels of it from the eightys and both damn near shed in halfs while recording. Again if it is PEM 468 avoid like the plague. Mine may have been Agfa though....

[Lance Lawson]

Basf Pem 468 is a shedding mother if it is Pem. I had two old reels of it from the eightys and both damn near shed in halfs while recording. Again if it is PEM 468 avoid like the plague. Mine may have been Agfa though....

Now that you mention it I seem to remember when the horror of SSS struck my collection that at least one of my BASF's had gone south. But only one the rest have been fine. Now if 468 is shed tape are we certain that RMGI is no shed 468?

[Wilhelm]

The PEM designation means Agfa-Gevaert production. PEM 468 had some oxide rub-off problems; PEM 469 suffers from the binder breakdown problem. When BASF bought Agfa's tape division in the early 1990s, we eliminated 469 in favour of SM 911. I don't know how similar RMGI's production is to what BASF and the Agfa/BASF Muenchen factories produced, but I do know that the RMGI personnel come from BASF and Philips/DuPont plants, and some of them were computer data people, not audio/video people. (That may not make a difference. I was always shocked that so few of the marketing and production people had any high fidelity interests at all. Only the application engineers had reel equipment and decent sound systems at home.)

[Lance Lawson]

I was always shocked that so few of the marketing and production people had any high fidelity interests at all. Only the application engineers had reel equipment and decent sound systems at home.)

Well sure who actually needs to know what they're doing anymore? Best yet is to not know what you're doing and not have a stake in what you don't know what you're doing in.