The enigma of the balance stripe ...

[Osi Osgood]

Nothing causes more annoyance than that dreaded balance stripe! On every recent release, whether on acetate or polyester, when Andec or otherwise, that balance stripe just garbles up the mix. Even with Adam Dierlings great job of recording, it's still the weak end of things. The process, way back in the 70's/80's gave us really good balance stripes. Is there anything that we can do today, to potentially improve the audio quality of these notorious balance stripes?

[Mike Newell]

Sound in other words stripe has always been the Achilles heel of Super 8. There were always problems with quality if it wasn’t falling off in the days of Derann and others. Now in the days of cottage industry striping I suspect it is still hit and miss.

A grasping at straws improvement or solution would be to demagnetise your soundheads. The great Man Derek pushed this option when prints were being returned for sound issues. They were about £7 then I think they are about £25 now. Alternatively, it could be the projector the Sankyos always picked up every little blip but the Bell & Howells and Elmo generally performed better.

I did use the demagnetisers and they helped a bit.

[Steve Klare]

Unfortunately the balance stripe wasn’t meant to be the other audio channel from the very beginning: just to make the film pile up evenly on the reel and maintain even focus. It’s just not as wide as the main stripe, which is fine if there isn't anything recorded on it.

I had striping done about 20 years ago by EVT Magnetics and he offered the option of dual full-width stripes, so apparently there is more room available.

The shame of it is when Super-8 stereo sound became a thing, the standard didn’t adjust for a wider balance stripe.

[Ruben Torrejon]

Hello to all forum members,

I don't intend to create any kind of controversy but I feel I must intervene in response to the claim that all new Super 8 releases have the compensation track "garbled". In the case of Ultra 8 I can affirm that this is not the case. We all have projectors manufactured between 30 and 50 years ago in different states of preservation, so it is difficult to ensure that a print will be seen or heard perfectly on all projectors but in our case, using a projector in good condition, the main track and the compensation track sound perfectly. Members of this forum know that we do not track or do the sound recording on our prints directly, but that we carry out this work professionally in Italy (in the same way that all negatives and positive prints are made in Germany). We personally review the prints in Spain using Bauer T610 and Beaulieu 708 EL Stereo projectors, and the quality is optimal. I don't want to create any controversy, but I just tried a copy of THE DROP OF WATER a few minutes ago (it's a dual mono title) and by changing the playback between tracks 1 and 2 during projection, the difference between the two is almost imperceptible.

Nothing more, I just wanted to add this information that I think is relevant to this thread.

Regards

Ruben
ultra8.es

[Mike Newell]

Good News Ruben to hear about Ultra 8 releases. Great for buyers and potentials to have confidence going forward with purchases. Maintaining projector maintenance is crucial.

[Paul Adsett]

If Osi is playing his stereo prints on his Eumig 926GL I would bet that his track 2 head is wearing out. This is a common situation on all the Eumig 900 series stereo projectors namely 926, 938,940. Track 2 will wear out way before track 1 on these machines. Unfortunately there are no replacement heads available for these projectors so you are stuck with a mono projector for the remainder of its life. One of the great virtues of Elmo projectors is that their heads are made from Sendust Alloy, which seems to last forever.

[Osi Osgood]

I've tried the recent releases on both the Eumig 926 stereo, as well as my nearly new out of box Eumig 940 stereo, and the results are the same. I am intrigued about any possibility of widening the balance stripe! I do not personally own any Ultra 8 prints, for clarification.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Of the new releases that I've purchased, I haven't yet run into any issues with the balance stripe. I'm often surprised how good the audio is from that mere 0.45mm of mag stripe.

[Osi Osgood]

I should add that I have done the tests with a high quality set of headphones on. While some things, audio wise, might be lost listening to it from a speaker or speakers on a projector, you catch more with headphones.

[Paul Adsett]

While some things, audio wise, might be lost listening to it from a speaker or speakers on a projector, you catch more with headphones.

I totally agree with that statement Osi. You can hear any dropout very clearly with headphones. I do most of my super 8 viewing with headphones because the stereo is much more impressive than with speakers. It has always amazed me that a cheap headphone set can produce much better sound than a surround system costing a couple of thousand dollars!
To extend the life of the track 2 head on your Eumig Stereo projectors, try to find a spare pressure pad and clip off the little plastic fingers used on the track 2 side, and use this pressure pad for all your mono films, just using the unmodified sound pressure pad for stereo films. Do this and your track 2 head will probably last as long as your wider track 1 head.

[Osi Osgood]

THAT is incredibly good advice, Paul!