Teac X-7 Mk2

The sensible daily driver of the X series.

Take the X-10R’s auto-reverse engineering and put it in a smaller, seven-inch-reel body, and you get this — the second-generation auto-reverse X-7, and the machine I actually reach for most often. It has almost everything its bigger sibling has, in a footprint that doesn’t take over a shelf.

Introduced

c. 1979 · Japan

Heads

6 – 2 erase, 2 record, 2 play

Speeds

7½ / 3¾ ips

Reels

Up to 7″

Motors

3 – FG servo DC capstan

Wow & Flutter

0.03% @ 7½ / 0.04% @ 3¾ ips WRMS

Frequency Response

30 Hz – 28 kHz @ 7½ ips

Weight

18 kg

SECTION 01

The Merits

Everything that makes the X-10R impressive is present here in a more compact package: six heads for a true mirror-image reverse transport, a dual-capstan drive with a magne-float flywheel, and an FG servo DC motor on the capstan rather than a simple synchronous design, which is a big part of why the wow-and-flutter figure matches its bigger sibling almost exactly.

Independent bias and EQ switching, pitch control, and a motion-sensing electromagnetic brake round it out — this is a deck that inherited the flagship’s engineering, not a cut-down imitation of it.

Almost everything the X-10R offers, in a reel size that actually fits most shelves.

SECTION 02

The Quirks

Capped at 7″ reels, so if the plan is long unattended recording sessions at 7½ ips, tape changes come around more often than they would on the X-10R’s 10½″ capacity. That’s the one real trade-off for the smaller footprint.

Like the X-10R, the reversing mechanism is the one system that’s genuinely unique to this deck versus a straight-ahead transport, and it’s worth exercising regularly rather than letting it sit unused for years at a time.

SECTION 03

The Sound

Every bit as clean and controlled as the X-10R, in practice — the servo capstan and dual-capstan drive do the same work regardless of reel size. If anything this is the machine I’d point a first-time listener to for a fair demonstration of what this whole collection is about.

SECTION 04

Buying One

Same advice as the X-10R: get the reverse-sensing mechanism checked specifically. Everything else on this transport is fairly conventional and straightforward to service.

How mine runs in the Philippines

Same story as the X-10R: the FG servo DC capstan doesn’t care about mains frequency, so 60 Hz Philippine power is a non-issue. It’s a 100 V Japanese-market unit, so it still needs the step-down transformer for voltage.

That’s the whole collection.

All twenty machines in the collection now have their own write-up. Thanks for reading this far — explore the rest of the collection, or start again from the top.