The Mark II sheet arrived

The Mark II wanted card was waiting for Otari's own sales paper. The eBay copy has arrived: MARK II TWO AND FOUR CHANNEL PROFESSIONAL RECORDERS, a two-page Preliminary Specification Sheet. The imprint on page two settles its identity: S-114-11-76, effective November 1976. That puts it before the January 1978 db line-up ad we used while the factory sheet was missing.

The paper went through the scanner twice. The 600 dpi PDF is a smaller two-page download; the 1200 dpi PDF keeps the print and the photograph at full scan resolution. Both are unsearchable page images, so there is now a checked digital edition with the introduction, feature list and entire specification table in text.

What the paper adds

The cover photograph is a useful look at the separate electronics unit raised behind the transport. A faithful crop now replaces the tiny Mark II thumbnail on Identify; the source link leads back to the sheet, rather than to the later B brochure.

The back page gives the figures the site could not previously put on a Mark II specs page: 15 and 7½ ips with maximum ±0.15% speed deviation; under 0.05% and 0.06% NAB-weighted flutter and wow respectively; 68 dB weighted or 65 dB unweighted overall record/playback signal-to-noise, measured against 520 nWb/m; and 64 lb for the two-channel console against 84 lb for the four-channel one. It also states the four-head two-channel and three-head four-channel configurations. The sheet calls itself preliminary, and the new specs page keeps that qualification attached to the numbers.

The sheet still does not say whether the DC-servo capstan drives its shaft through a belt. That question remains open until a Mark II service drawing or a machine on the bench answers it.