Can Elmo ST-800 playback stereo sound?

[Maurice Leakey]

Scott

The Elmo ST-600 only takes up to 600ft spools.
Elmo Sound ST-600 D M 2-track – Spare Part Finder – Van Eck Video Services (van-eck.net)

The Elmo GS-800 will take up to 800ft spools.
Elmo Sound GS-800 MO Stereo – Spare Part Finder – Van Eck Video Services (van-eck.net)

[Steve Klare]

Yes,

Basically you get away with stereo tracks on a monaural machine until you don't. There are many films that will be fine: for example Derann's Toy Story is stereo and goes off without anything funky coming out of the speakers. It's just you will also run into films that have issues.

On a monaural machine, you only hear the main track because that's where the sound goes on a monaural print. On a stereo print the main track is Left and the balance track is Right, so a stereo film in this situation is All Left (-even though most of the time that's alright!)

ST-600 is 600 Feet maximum.

[Scott Walker]

Ok thanks everyone. So let me know if i got this right. The ST-800 can;t do stereo but it should be able to playbale sound from a stereo sound reel as long as one channel isn;t hogging all the audio (you basically kind of get the sound from one channel)?

For the ST600 or the Elmo GS-800 they both do 800ft reels or is that not possible with the ST600? I have a reels on 800ft that I want to be able to play.

Thanks for your help everyone

[Winbert Hutahaean]

The worst one I know of is the 'scope cartoon "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom": there is a character entirely in the right track who is never heard at all on a single track projector! (I keep that one for ST-1200HD...)

That is known as ping-pong stereo. It was used in several the Beatles' songs when they first time introduced stereo recordings

[Steve Klare]

For the most part the ST-800 (or any single track machine) does fine with stereo prints, with a couple of exceptions. For example, in Fantasia 2000 there is one scene where Bette Middler introduces "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". She is mostly in the right track (the one the ST-800 is missing the head to play) and she sounds muffled. The rest of the film sounds fine. Maybe the fact that the audio power in the missing track never gets to the speakers just means I twist the volume knob a little further without even realizing it.

The worst one I know of is the 'scope cartoon "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom": there is a character entirely in the right track who is never heard at all on a single track projector! (I keep that one for ST-1200HD...)

[Mark Todd]

Hi Scott the Silver model ST600DM is the best already set up to go and closer to RE putting Stereo out if you can get one.

You can pick them up from $50-$250-ish depending on luck etc.

Best Mark.

[Winbert Hutahaean]

Elmo ST-800 is a single track projector so obviously it only has one magnetic head, i.e for the main strip. So to answer your question, it cannot.

The most common one in the market is Elmo GS-800 which is a stereo machine. The price is higher than ST-800 due to complexity of the machine/features.

If you are limited on the budget, you can get Elmo ST-600 (aka Elmo ST-180) which has similar feature as ST-800. This model has 2 version, i.e single track and dual track. The later one can do what you are asking.

[Scott Walker]

Hi there

Looking at getting an elmo ST-800 can just wanted to check that the projector can playback stereo sound. It doesn't have to playback in stereo but like to be able to hear the sound, is this possible with it? Any help much appreciated