Tate II - recommendations when acquiring working unrestored one?

[ArmyOfQuad]

After many years of being the owner of a broken Tate due to the burn out of unobtanium chips, which has been lost to repair purgatory forever, I am once again the owner of a working Tate.

I awoke Monday morning with an email alert in my inbox from eBay that there was a new match to my saved search for fosgate tate. I wonder how many others here have that same search saved and awoke to a similar email.

It's a silver face model, listed as for parts or repair, but then further described as coming from an estate sale, tested as powering on, but being unable to do further testing due to not knowing anything about it.

Basically - a game of chance on the eBay casino. Which I usually come out the loser. But....sometimes I just can't help myself.

Threw a $400 offer at it, figuring that would be a bargain if it turns out to work.

Well - it just arrived, and after fighting with the mess of wires behind my receiver for a bit, I've confirmed it is indeed decoding SQ.

The levels are a bit funky when adjusting the output balance knob, so it will need some cleaning.

But - given the risk of the burn out of irreplaceable chips, I'm wondering what the current recommended practice is for restoring one of these to have the best chance of preventing a chip burn out issue. My thought is perhaps recapping the power supply portion, and leaving the audio path alone for now. Although I'll need to dig up a schematic or service manual for the unit - does anyone have digitized documents of this?

 

[par4ken]

Four hundred dollars is a great price! The unit that I have has finicky pots as well. I sprayed them with contact cleaner and they are better now but not perfect. I need to get some more DeOxit to try on them. The ultimate solution would be replacement.

The Tate II has film capacitors in the signal path. You could replace the power supply and the other electrolytic capacitors but they are hard to remove as the leads are bent over on the bottom of the board so care has to be taken. Personally I would leave them alone, unless they look swollen or discolored. The ones in mine look factory fresh!

Thanks to furui_suterioo for finding the schematic.

 

[Q-Eight]

I've had mine for at least ten years now. Mine is also a silver face. It works as best it can (I guess) but it still doesn't sell me on SQ. The manual suggests leaving it plugged in which blows my mind since it's solid state. The manual even says allow for "warm-up" time.... that's why it comes with no power switch. Leave it plugged in all the time. That makes no sense to me. I will probably devalue mine if I turn the front remote port into a power switch but.... what's the lesser of two evils? Leave it plugged in all the time and have a rogue power surge wipe it out?

I also don't like that it doesn't have a 4-channel pass through; I don't like the fact it has no phono pre-amp....

What was the question again?

Oh yeah. My take on the subject is just to use them for their intended purpose. If it releases the mysterious blue smoke.... there probably wasn't anything anybody could have done about it. It's kind of been rendered obsolete anyway what with better Script decoding or that Surround Master from down under.

 

[sjcorne]

The Surround Master won't give you as much seperation as the old Tate units do.

 

[par4ken]

Remember that Jim Fosgate was a hifi nut or "audiophile", I agree with him that equipment sounds better after it has had a chance to warm up. That is especially true of tube type equipment, not as much with solid state. However I think that his real motivation was simply to keep cost down and so used "warm up time" as an excuse for not including a power switch. Why did he use TL084 op amps instead of the lower noise TL074, to save a few pennies?

I do agree that it is a pain not having a power switch but most people would be running thier decoder with a preamp or receiver most of which include a switched accessory outlet on the back so the lack of a power switch would be no big deal. The S&IC has a power switch but in my setup I rarely turn it off. It might be better for equipment reliability to remain powered all the time, in this green age even "phantom power" is frowned upon. Simply use a power bar with an on/off switch to kill everything.

 

[jaybird100]

The Surround Master won't give you as much seperation as the old Tate units do.

I get excellent separation from SQ with the Surround Master. I had an Audionics S&IC, which was also a Tate decoder, and the SM is at least its equal when playing SQ records.

 

[barfle]

I have a Tate // with a dead right front channel that is waiting for me to take the cover off, probably replace a 4066 switch (which I have abailable - wonderful little circuit) and offer for sale here. Still a ton of other projects ahead of it, though. And if I can’t fix it, maybe it’ll be “for parts” as well. I have the schematic shown above, but as noted, I haven’t even taken the cover off, so I can’t verify that it matches the unit on my “one of these days” shelf.

I have absolutely no problem with leaving solid state electronics powered up 24/7.

 

[fredblue]

I get excellent separation from SQ with the Surround Master. I had an Audionics S&IC, which was also a Tate decoder, and the SM is at least its equal when playing SQ records.

it is a great decoder, although one aspect where it has less separation than the Tates is that, unlike the S&IC & Tate II, in SQ mode the SM doesn't remove elements phantom imaged in the Centre Front that bleed to the Rears, primarily lead vocals that should not be mixed in the Rears as they are not in the discrete 4-channel presentation.

other than that, fab!

 

[par4ken]

I get excellent separation from SQ with the Surround Master. I had an Audionics S&IC, which was also a Tate decoder, and the SM is at least its equal when playing SQ records.

While the SM is very good and wipes the floor with most vintage decoders it is not equal to the S&IC or the Tate. You are comparing based on your sonic memory from years ago. I'm sure that your other equipment has evolved/improved over the years.

I have the Composer, Tate II and Involve mounted in the same rack instantly selectable via a Zektor switch. I prefer the sound of the Composer, the unit in question has the older National chips.

With the Composer using the original (National) chips you can hear the "logic" action at times on some material. Off the top of my head the SQ releases "Supersession" and "Beck, Bogert & Appice" misbehave; that is why they included a "Separation" control. Turning it down a bit removes the anormal behavior. My original Composer with the (Tate II) Exar chips only rarely "misbehaved". I seldom used the separation control on that unit, anormal behavior was only audible sometimes when listening to the back channels in isolation. The Fosgate Tate II is tweaked greater separation than both the S&IC and Involve. Greater separation comes at the cost of less smooth decoding.

The Involve shows lower centre front to back separation than all the Tate decoders. That result surprised me as in QS mode it has higher separation. I assume that was a choice based on smooth decoding vs separation, a real balancing act.

My Composers all have the original electrolytic coupling capacitors replaced with film capacitors bypassed with either the wonderful "Wonder Caps" or regular polystyrene capacitors. The rather large 10 μfd value allows all the bass through, other decoders sound bass shy at times.

 

[63909]

Hi All,
with ref to the Tate 101A, has anyone any experience changing the voltage on these units - specifically 115 to 240 - I can see the legend on the PCB but do you have to remove the two 115 links then add just the 240 link?
Many Thanks
Joe

 

[par4ken]

That should be correct, this according to the manual. The schematic that I posted does not show the dual primary transformer.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

it is a great decoder, although one aspect where it has less separation than the Tates is that, unlike the S&IC & Tate II, in SQ mode the SM doesn't remove elements phantom imaged in the Centre Front that bleed to the Rears, primarily lead vocals that should not be mixed in the Rears as they are not in the discrete 4-channel presentation.

other than that, fab!

That front center bleed through to the rear center is the Achilles heel of the SM. It was well documented early on, I recall seeing youtube posts about it. I remember discussion about the performance concerns of the SM SQ mode had the response that it was due to it being configured and fine tuned with CD / digital sources of SQ material, which resulted in a vinyl edition that was more tuned for vinyl playback. I had thought that would address the well documented front/back bleed through issues. But it didn't.

To be fair to the SM, I believe the device was designed for the best overall compromises between separation and pumping/artifacts, with the separation being adequate for the sound field - it seems to be suggested that amount of bleed through shouldn't be as noticeable or impact listening within the field. The difference in separation is probably more noticeable when you isolate channels, which isn't necessarily the best way to determine what is going to make for a good overall sound field. However, as good as the SM's reputation is, it has never resulted in an overall opinion that it renders the Tate decoders obsolete. And as a result, the value of the Tate remains high.

One thing I've noticed, the back bleed through is out of phase in the 2 rear channels. As an experiment, I did an SQ SM conversion relatively recently with use of the SM, and ran the back channels through a process to remove the out of phase center audio - I forget exactly how I did this though, I'm going off of memory. I didn't notice any negative consequence of the process, after scrutinizing I determined it seemed to only remove the bleed through, and no other audio, and didn't leave any artifacting or effects associated with script decoding. I never shared this information when sharing - wanted to see if anyone noticed anything and spoke up. But no one seemed to notice. This makes me wonder if it would be rather easy to further improve on the SM with a step to remove out of phase center rear material. However - an amateur playing around with further tweaks without any knowledge of the maths that go into SQ is hardly the same as the amount of research and testing that went into the SM, so I would suspect people that know more than me should be able to point out why that is a bad idea or why that hasn't been done.

Anyways - if there's any interest in further comparison between the 2 decoders, I still have all my shoot-out files of various tracks run through the SM and Tate, and now that I have a Tate I can rather easily make up further comparison files.

 

[fredblue]

That front center bleed through to the rear center is the Achilles heel of the SM. It was well documented early on, I recall seeing youtube posts about it. I remember discussion about the performance concerns of the SM SQ mode had the response that it was due to it being configured and fine tuned with CD / digital sources of SQ material, which resulted in a vinyl edition that was more tuned for vinyl playback. I had thought that would address the well documented front/back bleed through issues. But it didn't.

To be fair to the SM, I believe the device was designed for the best overall compromises between separation and pumping/artifacts, with the separation being adequate for the sound field - it seems to be suggested that amount of bleed through shouldn't be as noticeable or impact listening within the field. The difference in separation is probably more noticeable when you isolate channels, which isn't necessarily the best way to determine what is going to make for a good overall sound field. However, as good as the SM's reputation is, it has never resulted in an overall opinion that it renders the Tate decoders obsolete. And as a result, the value of the Tate remains high.

One thing I've noticed, the back bleed through is out of phase in the 2 rear channels. As an experiment, I did an SQ SM conversion relatively recently with use of the SM, and ran the back channels through a process to remove the out of phase center audio - I forget exactly how I did this though, I'm going off of memory. I didn't notice any negative consequence of the process, after scrutinizing I determined it seemed to only remove the bleed through, and no other audio, and didn't leave any artifacting or effects associated with script decoding. I never shared this information when sharing - wanted to see if anyone noticed anything and spoke up. But no one seemed to notice. This makes me wonder if it would be rather easy to further improve on the SM with a step to remove out of phase center rear material. However - an amateur playing around with further tweaks without any knowledge of the maths that go into SQ is hardly the same as the amount of research and testing that went into the SM, so I would suspect people that know more than me should be able to point out why that is a bad idea or why that hasn't been done.

Anyways - if there's any interest in further comparison between the 2 decoders, I still have all my shoot-out files of various tracks run through the SM and Tate, and now that I have a Tate I can rather easily make up further comparison files.

with an SM SQ decode, if you sum the Rears to Mono the CF bled elements disappear iirc.

 

[63909]

Thanks Par4ken,
that clears that up. While I'm at it I can replace the PS Caps too.
Thanks again
Joe

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

What audio cables are you all using on the audio output of the Tate?

That part of this device was just so poorly designed, anything of quality seems to be right out, no room for any extra width on the connector whatsoever. Every modern cable I have won't fit, even the cheapo ones. It's baffling that something as well designed as the Tate would be so unforgivably poorly designed in the layout of the output connections. Even many garbage vintage cables I have are problematic. I'm pretty much down to one Radio Shack quad cable that survived over the years that is in rough condition, and I've always hated the death grip tightness of them that has me fearing damage when needing to remove them.

What solutions have others found?

 

[par4ken]

I was able to replace the input jacks on mine with high quality gold plated ones, so fat cables fit there. The output jacks are another story, they are placed closer together so that there is not enough room for replacement without drilling new holes. I've left them as is for now.

I use Monster Cables 101XLN designed for car audio. They are decent quality and the plugs are not overly large. Still they fit very tightly together. These cable were once available cheaply on the surplus market in various lengths. Now they are becoming hard to find and becoming rather expensive.