Ampex 456

UPDATE - question answered -
after 35 min of a CD into the deck one of the record channels had dropped out - clogged and the freq response of the other was way down - reminded me of U-matic tapes.

does anyone need 6 unused boxes of 456 for SSS tesing ?

Original text

While I was trying to dig up another tape to record a nagra test to ...................

Well - the guy with the 3M 908 would not mail the tapes to me and insisted I drive to the kitty corner end of Toronto to pick them up .
I though I could stay home and pull out a toenail and it would be more fun than Toronto traffic.

Then a fuzzy image came to me. Six years (say 2010) ago when I bought a steenbeck editing machine from a University I had passed on a nagra, not knowing what the hell use it would be to me (and I have gotten by 7 years without one) but the nice guy through in a tub of odds and ends. And I remember that included in the tub was sub full coat 16mm mag tape and I did not dig too deep but threw it on a shelf in the garage.

It occurred to me last evening, that if the had a 1/4" nagra ...... then maybe. So I went out and moved some lumber out of the way, found the tub and dug deeper and I found 7 reels of Ampex 456, seven of the boxes still sealed. Plus a couple of odd tapes which I haven't listened to..

But of course the question is "is this the good stuff or bad stuff".

The box appears to be the later one from CA but unfortunately the date code area on all of the boxes is blank.

Other than the tape running cleanly on a machine which I will try, are there any other easy checks to see if this tape will be crap.

from my previous life
0 Black
1 Brown
2 Red
3 Orange
4 Yellow
5 Green
6 Blue
7 Violet
8 Grey
9 White