I recall DBX also offering a option at the same time.
I also recall seeing a option for synchronising two 3440 decks so both would play in sync at the same time. Cheap 8 channel deck.
i had an outboard DBX portable that i used w/ a Sony Pro Walkman for while. sounded great, if a little cumbersome to travel with.
I have a Revox A-77 that I bought in 1976 in order to make bootleg copies of records. Back before BitTorrent, Napster or moderately priced cassette decks, this was how one pirated music. It didn’t same any money, as the decks were very expensive and blank tapes cost more than 4x the price of an LP. I worked at a radio station and attended a university with a massive music library, so I used the deck to record copies of major classical and jazz recordings that were long out of print. I had a friend who owned two A-77s which he used to record and duplicate the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. He exchanged these with fellow collectors for broadcasts from La Scala, Covent Garden, etc.
I haven’t used the deck in about 40 years, but I recently hooked it up in my system (partly because it looks cool). I have been thinking of buying some pre-recorded tapes from eBay, but I am not sure what the likelihood is of getting a well-cared-for recording.
Tapes were also handy for parties. Although all my pirated music was recorded at 7.5ips, a 10.5” reel at 3.75ips hold well over two hours of music per side, compared to 20 minutes for an LP. This made it much easier to relax and enjoy a party, rather than having to get up all the time to change records or risk some over-inebriated guest ruining the needle on the one’s turntable.
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Most likely a deck that old will need a full refurb. At a minimum the capacitors will need to be replaced. But it’s a nice deck in demand, so it’s worth taking it to a shop with Revox expertise to give it a thorough inspection and that can repair any other issues that have come up over 40 years of disuse.
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I have few r2r decks. My daily runners are RT-707, RS-1500 and PR-99. The latter is very similar to your B77. None of the decks i have received are working within spec and i rebuilt them, motors, all moving parts, all caps, etc etc. I bought my own set of MRL calibration tapes to do the calibration myself.
It is a labor or love
A word of caution, in years of interest in r2r i can count on 1 hand the number of genuine master tapes I’ve seen for sale. All those ‘masters’’ and ‘safety copies’, and ‘ex-radio-exec estate’ tapes on ebay are fakes.
While some R2R owners use them, there is a “place” for audiophile art, and a deck is certainly a compelling machine in a system also from a visual standpoint. When they showed (Techmoan) a photo of the intended 2017 release of expensive decks, they were quite impressive. I would imagine the market is not sufficient for their release.
Way back in 1977, I added an Akai GX-630DSS four channel r2r deck to my system. Loved it so much that it wore out about 10-15 years ago. It was great dubbing my CD-4 albums at 7 1/2 ips onto those big 10 1/2 inch reels. Too bad r2r has grown out of my price range.
Now that bring back other memories…CD-4 and Sony SQ. I may have a few of those LPs remaining. r2r is notably expensive, but if you review something like Music Direct’s annual catalogue, there are (far too) many components that are difficult to conceptualize in terms of price and technology. In that regard, perhaps r2r has merely kept pace with an arguably expensive hobby.
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To me it makes way much more sense to spend the same amount of money on a decent r2r (consumer grade, nothing fancy) than on so called high-end-audiophile bunch of integrated circuits thrown in some of the ugliest cases ever made…