Famous Swiss Tape Recorder Brand To Re-introduce Reel-to-Reel Analog Recorder!

if it is true that will be great. How do we know is true ? how trustable is the source ? - for sure this will be great. Maybe there is enough stock of heads for older studers/revox. With today's technology it should be cheaper to produce, even in smaller quantities than the golden years.
 
I guess some feel that there will be a market for digital recordings getting converted to tape for playback. :facepalm: :D

Like someone said on that webpage....unless there is going to be a complete analog<--->analog resurgence of recordings that then become available on tape for stereo playback....it's kinda going to be like just slapping a "tape plug-in" on the end of some digital recording to make it more "analog like".

I think they probably feel the esoteric (read that as $$$$$) Hi-Fi crowd will go for them...otherwise I don't know why any manufacturer would bother retooling just to make an inexpensive pro-sumer deck....but we'll see when it becomes a reality.

You can still buy a brand new 5050 BIII (the last version) from Otari, since they made a bunch of them before shutting down their plant.....if you want to pony up about $5k-$6k for one.
I was lucky to get mine for 1/10 of that, from a radio station that closed down, and this was their spare machine that came out of their store room and saw probably ZERO use...and the guy who was selling all the equipment off, really had no idea what he had. When I saw his low price, I hit the BIN right away. :cool:
He probably got it for even less, so he still made some money. Of course, the fact that one channel had a loose cap solder joint, and was having intermittent playback, probably spooked him....when I told him what it was, and that it took me about 10min to solder up once I found it.....I could hear him groan over the Internet. :)
 
miroslav, I see your point but, at the same time, have you ever looked at the plethora of expensive turntables and accessories for vinyl playback, all brand new, still being manufactured? I'm talking about many manufacturers and some of these turntables cost 10,000 bucks (yeah, that's ten thousand). It's mind boggling since vinyl, while growing in popularity, makes for but a tiny market share. It doesn't make sense but it's happening and has been happening for a number of years. Who buys these things? Who knows but apparently someone does. If you take that logic then reel to reel is the next step and, apparently, there's great interest... If this happens then I hope (as you pointed out) that it's not going to be digital files (albeit hi-res) of popular recordings converted to analog tape but rather proper analog to analog transfers. I feel that if this whole thing is marketed toward the audiophile crowd then I doubt they'll accept anything other than real A - A transfers. Still, does it matter to us? Not really. I think it's just good news for analog in general.
 
One problem is that if manufacturing were to begin next year it would already be very late in the game in marketing terms to make the official public announcement. This sort of activity by a big player like Revox or Nagra would be nearly impossible to keep secret. For now this seems to be a rumor based on itself.

Also the author of the article seems to have scant grasp of the analog tape world. He’s a vinyl dude, but reading carefully he speaks like an outsider looking in when it comes to tape. It’s likely the author got everything he knows about this from the salesperson taking orders for the tapes. Salespeople will say all kinds of things to generate excitement. Salespeople will believe all kinds of things.

The author doesn’t seem to know that the BASF reel-to-reel tape manufacturing equipment was acquired by EMTEC and later by RMGI. So there is no secret tape equipment stash in an undisclosed location waiting for things to happen. ;)

Anyway, considering the saturation of the market with perfectly good pre-owned machines it would be a trick. An old manufacturer beginning again would find itself competing against its own vintage products in a greatly shrunken market. If it is a niche thing like $10,000 turntables it would not impact most of us. We'll stick to the pre-owned market just like we did when tape machines were still being made, but too expensive.
 
As a person who was in the retail consumer electronics market for over 25 years, I'd have to agree with what Beck and with what cjacek said. It is good news but it produces a very small footprint in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, there is in fact a market for this kind of stuff but is is a small one that has already accepted the used marketplace as a viable source to satisfy those available dollars. The state of the global economy is also not helping niche markets like this other then to create an even larger supply of choice used gear as those who might have lost their jobs and used up their savings are now turning to their quality gear to put some food on their tables who would have otherwise never considered selling their prized gear. I'm in that troubled demographic and I'm not alone.

Studer/Revox now being owned by Harman International gives then a bit of financial leeway to play with other people's money and I'm pretty sure had they not sold themselves to them, they wouldn't even dream of jumping back into this market space.

Cheers! :)
 
I'll go with optimism myself. Have you ever read The Postman by David Brin? Even if it's not true, if enough people believe it, they'll make it come about. Who knows, maybe something will come around! Jaguar might not make the E-type anymore, but you can buy a kit...
 
... those who might have lost their jobs and used up their savings are now turning to their quality gear to put some food on their tables who would have otherwise never considered selling their prized gear. I'm in that troubled demographic and...
Me too!

Anyway, hifi R/R was never a truly ubiquitous mainstream format. It was always an audiophile niche market.
:spank::eek:;)
 
Most people on this board don't realize the amount of money spent on audiophile components. Turntables that fetch $100,000 and up are common in the Uber-Vinyl market.Reel to Reel Tape playback preamps range from $2500 to $50,000 and a tape deck mfg by United Home Audio's Greg Beron fetch's up to $24,000 with a power supply.The deck is a Tascam BR-20 recapped and modified.My point is don't underestimate people with more money than good sense.The Ampex AG440 is plentiful and with a cleanup and little work can blow the UHA into the weeds for less than $1500.

United Home Audio - High End Audio, Washington DC , Virginia, Maryland


UHA Reel to Reel Tape Deck Option List

Everyone is entitled to make a living.
 
Most people on this board don't realize the amount of money spent on audiophile components.

More money than sense quite often. Like the $500 wooden knobs that improve the sound of your amp or the $10,000 speaker cables, best of all is the $3000 power cable that connects the power from the power plug to the amp and improves the sound.

Alan.
 
An interesting thought guys,

As a 50 year-old clarinettist (which I studied at university) I now find that I have hearing loss in the 2Khz region.....it's down by about 4dB the last time I checked. Why I mention this is because it's all subjective. My son is different than most people I know. He has a diagnosis of autism. He has learned his mother tongue in a completely different way than you or I. We went to a school production of 'Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' about two years ago (he's now sixteen). When asked what he like about the show the most he answered 'the coloured lights'. My wife and I looked at each other puzzled. There were a few spotlights in the school hall, but as the hall main-lights were on for all of the production, they didn't have any impact....or so I thought. He obviously registered things much differently to us.

Al
 
Not that I was going to buy one either way, on what information are you basing your statement?

Cheers! :)

An Ampex Digest list member asked someone @ Studer. The answer was "no." IMHO, the handwriting was on the wall when 3M shut down their magnetic media division.
 
An interesting thought guys,

As a 50 year-old clarinettist (which I studied at university) I now find that I have hearing loss in the 2Khz region.....it's down by about 4dB the last time I checked. Why I mention this is because it's all subjective. My son is different than most people I know. He has a diagnosis of autism. He has learned his mother tongue in a completely different way than you or I. We went to a school production of 'Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' about two years ago (he's now sixteen). When asked what he like about the show the most he answered 'the coloured lights'. My wife and I looked at each other puzzled. There were a few spotlights in the school hall, but as the hall main-lights were on for all of the production, they didn't have any impact....or so I thought. He obviously registered things much differently to us.

Al

Chromesthesia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Just think what could happen if all the guys spending thousands of dollars on Micro Seiki turntables, etc. banded together and bought Quantegy, and put them back into business...
 
IMHO, the handwriting was on the wall when 3M shut down their magnetic media division.

Not that it matters at this point, but 3M's magnetic division was acquired by Quantegy shortly after Quantegy acquired Ampex magnetic division (1996) and they had a good run for another ten years perfecting 3M and Ampex formulations. In addition we had BASF resurrected as EMTEC and finally RMGI. And now ATR Magnetic.

Tape just doesn't want to die and I'm sure it's not going away quietly anytime soon. That being said, as far as hardware is concerned we're looking at refurbs like from ATR and smaller shops restoring machines on a smaller scale, or just people like you and me doing it ourselves for the foreseeable future. And that's just peachy because the parts are out there and we can keep them running. My machines are good as new... maybe even better.
 
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