cjacek
Analogue Enthusiast
OK, now that I have your attention 
, here's a MOST informative and fascinating response from MAXELL, to a recent petition to restart production of their reel tape, as taken directly from The Word From Maxell - Tapeheads.Net
Putting aside the fact that "it's over", it's pretty eye opening about tape supply in general. I've never read something like this before. A must read. Anyway, here's a copy & paste from the link above:
, here's a MOST informative and fascinating response from MAXELL, to a recent petition to restart production of their reel tape, as taken directly from The Word From Maxell - Tapeheads.Net Putting aside the fact that "it's over", it's pretty eye opening about tape supply in general. I've never read something like this before. A must read. Anyway, here's a copy & paste from the link above:
The Word From Maxell
Our efforts didn't go unnoticed. We did get the attention of the director of research for Maxell North America, who contacted me via telephone re: our petition to restart production of their reel tape. We had a lengthy discussion and here's what I got out of it. All of this is what he told me, based on his knowledge, inside connections, and personal beliefs.
First of all, he wanted to extend a sincere thank you for our efforts and my eloquent message. He seemed impressed at the length I went through to try and compile a detailed pitch, supporting feedback, and just the overall amount of thought and effort that went into the initial presentation. He told me that Maxell has evidently been getting bombarded with numerous "bring them back" requests for the last several years now. So while ours was hardly the first, apparently none of them came even close in terms of effort, detail, and sincerity. He claimed that he did take our request to Japan and discussed it with the head honchos over there before getting back to me, hence the two week delay.
The bad news is: it's over. The tapes are not coming back. Many of our concerns were indeed valid. But some of what else he told me was a bit of an eye opener.
I asked the obvious question "why not"?
The answer was twofold. First, the materials needed to make them are no longer available. He gave me a rather long explanation with regards to how the supply chain worked and told me that the companies that produced the base materials including the oxide base chemicals, the polymers needed for the binders, and the base polyester are all either out of business or have moved into new business models and are not backwards compatible.
He informed me that Maxell never really "made" the tapes per se; much of it was outsourced and Maxell was merely a "final assembly point" for products that they designed to their specifications (as an aside, he confirmed that the current UR cassettes are 100% outsourced and Maxell has nothing to do with it whatsoever except for having its brand applied to the final product.) In other words, Maxell was like so many other companies. An example would be Boeing Aircraft. They don't "make" 737 jetliners per se. They'll take wings that are made (for example) by Northrop and avionics made by Honeywell and engines made by Pratt & Whitney, etc etc etc and put it all together for final assembly (based on their design) and that's it.
Maxell tapes were done the same way.
Now here is where the conversation got interesting. When I pointed out that there are still two companies (ATR and RMGI) making tape, so someone must be producing those materials, he said that he doesn't understand how that's possible. He theorized (emphasis: an opinion and not a statement of fact) that most likely, those companies are getting by with either A) NOS/gray market materials or B) using substandard ones on a special order basis. He went on to say that he personally believes those tapes will in time ultimately succumb to SSS or overall integral failure as a result. He was adamant in his belief that there is no reputable company left on the planet that still makes the long lasting materials needed for long term integrity that Maxell and Quantegy tapes enjoy. Hence why so little is known about the manufacturing background of these tapes and why they were so quick to A) dismiss our findings that suspected initial sticky shed and B) quickly sweep it under the rug with replacements.
He wrapped this up by saying that there is no way he would put the Maxell name on any of these current makes, given the absence of any known reputable material providers.
Then, he said the other half of the equation is the machinery needed for the final assembly process noted above, namely the slitters. He confirmed that the ones Maxell used were scrapped/dismantled many years ago (another aside that I didn't know: Maxell merely stopped selling reel tapes in 2003 when supplies finally dwindled down. Actual production of them had apparently ceased many years before that, it just took the better part of a decade to slowly bleed out the stockpiled supplies. So most of our blue box UD's and gray box XLI's are apparently a lot older than we think they really are.) He said he's pretty sure that RMGI is using old/former BASF equipment and ATR is *likely* using former Quantegy equipment. Again, just a theory and an opinion, but would make sense given ATR's excessive startup production delays and how they started right around the time Quantegy shut down; ATR and Quantegy were never known to be in production at the same time.
I asked him if it would be possible to use their one existing facility-namely the answering machine and data tape slitters that he tells me are currently still in production. And he told me that it's posssible, but would be disruptive to the existing product runs and cost prohibitive to retrofit for reel. He told me that the upfront costs on the slitting/packaging end to bring it to reel tape standars was estimated to be around $25-30 million dollars for enhanced/revised/new machinery. And that's even before the raw materials side of the equation is addressed. So in short, he feels that given these uncertain economic times along with the *overall* limited market potential, the ratio of risk to potential reward is far above Maxells comfort zone. Too much upfront capital would be needed. Otherwise he said, they'd love to do it.
So. There you have it. I suppose there's always the outside chance that this was merely an elaborate hand crafted "blow off" conversation a-la form letter rejections. But I personally doubt it. After all, he gave me his direct phone number, responded to my voice mail within 24 hours, and extended me an invitation to save his number and that if I ever just want to even chit-chat about tape, to call him anytime. So yeah, I believe the guy was legitimate and sincere. He gave me quite an earful about how much he himself prefers the sound of analog versus compressed bitstream. He also told me a little about his tenure at Maxell, which has spanned more than 20 years and how the managment all used to have open reel decks in their offices and such. But technology changed. The markets and consumer preferences changed. And even with analog enjoying a limited revival, the "damage" has been done and is probably irreversable.
If this sounds like "sour grapes", consider that the advice and warning is not coming from someone whose real goal is to dissuade you from using a competitors product. Sounds like this guy's hands are tied and he can't offer up an alternative even if he wanted to.
I guess the naysayers to this effort can say they were right. The effort didn't succeed. But before they get too far on their high horse, they should know that the reasons don't appear to be demand related. Maxell WOULD apparently do this if they could.
And unlike 99% of others who never get anything beyond a form letter, we were able to get the attention of someone pretty high up in the company. And some one on one time. In that context, our efforts were not a total loss, because we've shown how getting a large corporations attention can be done.
Thank you for all the support in this.
