Talk:Revox B215/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: JPxG (talk · contribs) 08:40, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll do my best!

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Well-written article that explains detailed technical information in an understandable way.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Well-composed article. The sections are appropriate and focused.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	All statements are properly referenced.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	There seem to only be a handful of sources listed in the Sources section (aside from the manufacturer's own publications). Feldman, Len (1986). "The Revox B215 — An Elegant Cassette Deck From Swiss Craftsmen". Modern Electronics (June): 15–20, 100. Was able to find a pdf version of this volume on some relatively shady-seeming website, verified. Hirsch, Julian (1984). "Revox B710 MkII Cassette Deck". Stereo Review (Tape Recording and Buying Guide): 44–46. Was able to find this one as well, from worldradiohistory.com, verified. Riggs, Michael (1983). "Revox's Pro-Am Cassette Deck". High Fidelity (February): 20–24. Was also able to find this one on worldradiohistory. Verified. Roberson, Howard (1985). "Revox B215 Cassette Deck". Audio (USA) (July): 44–52. Found this one on worldradiohistory as well, verified. Stark, Craig (1986). "Revox B215 Cassette Deck". Stereo Review (August): 40–44. Found on worldradiohistory. Verified! These sources seem good and solid to me. There are a bunch of references as well, which seem to supplement them well. I will AGF on the German sources because I don't feel like waking up my European buddies right now to have them read tape deck manuals from 1981.
	2c. it contains no original research.	Everything's backed up by sources.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	Earwig's checker says it is fine, but there is a webpage with 90% text similarity; its page preview is entirely spam and tried to hijack my computer when I went to it. Taking the similar snippets and Googling them gave me a number of similar pages with malevolent auras that also tried to get me to download random executables: "Willi Studer was reluctant to diversify" was present on a page that scraped content from Wikipedia (including the "from Wikipedia" header). However, there is one passage that gives me pause: "Two other motors of the B, buried deep inside the mechanism, directly drive the cassette's reels. Motors, capstans and reel spindles are mounted on two diecast chassis plates, tightly bolted together; heads and pinch rollers are mounted on a moving diecast subchassis." This one appears on one of the spam sites, but seems to have been taken from a review somewhere (maybe a scan of an old magazine or a defunct forum)? I have no way to tell what's up here, and am going to look into it more closely. Update, after some extensive investigation: there was one content scraping site that had a large amount of content duplicated from this article, claiming a publication date of 2012. However, combing all of the site's posts revealed one titled "can-t-upload-files-to-discord.html", purporting to be a guide to uploading files to Discord, that also claimed to be from 2012. But that app didn't exist until 2015! So I have concluded that this website is bullshit.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Comprehensive overview of the stereo's design, construction, performance, and the environment in which it lived (i.e. contrasted with the Nakamichi Dragon and other competitors). There's nothing I have further questions about, that relate to the B215.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Focuses very well on the B215.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	There are some parts where it seems quite fond of the deck, but its shortcomings are mentioned as well.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Article is quite stable. No content disputes.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	Images are all free and self-made.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	The images are good, well-taken, clearly illustrate what they are of, and have good captions.
	7. Overall assessment.

I have done some minor copyediting on the article. There are a couple things that I did not want to mess with myself, though:

• so each of six adjustments takes up only eight elementary measurements: This kind of confuses me, and I'm not sure what it says. Could it be explained more?

Additionally, I found another possible source for the B710:

"On the other hand, single-case, separate-gap heads can achieve state-of-the-art performance, as witness the excellent Revox B710 MkII and Teac Z-6000, both of which are certainly among today's top performers." - TAPE EQUIPMENT: STATE OF THE ART, Craig Stark, page 44, Stereo Review (March 1984).

(I see you listed this as a reference, but put in the Tape Recording and Buying Guide; either this was a typo or it was in the Guide as well as the March 84 issue).

The main thing that grabs me here is the weird websites that seem to have very similar text to some parts of this article, specifically paragraphs like "The B signal path was designed, from the ground up, for operation with Dolby C noise reduction". I will have to get a more astute person than me to help figure out what is going on with this.

jp×g 01:05, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Update: confirmed that there are no copyright violations. Passing. jp×g 07:11, 8 March 2021 (UTC)