Surging Demand For Vinyl LPs Has Raised Hopes For Reel-to-Reel Tape Deck, Which is Returning To Sale For First Time in Decades (bloomberg.com)

It's no secret that sales of vinyl music are at the highest in decades. Even the lowly cassette tape is regaining popularity as some millennials embrace analog music over digital downloads and streaming services. But for the first time in more than two decades, a German company is reviving what may be the ultimate format: a new reel-to-reel tape machine. From a report: Dusseldorf-based Roland Schneider Precision Engineering this week will introduce four Ballfinger reel-to-reel machines, bringing back a technology that dominated professional music recording for most of the 20th century and is now making a comeback with audiophiles and artists including Lady Gaga. The sleek machines, some of them customizable, will retail from about 9,500 euros ($11,400) for the basic version to about 24,000 euros for the high-end model, which features three direct-drive motors, an editing system and walnut side panels. "Digital media is great, but experiencing music is more than just listening to a sound file -- it's sensual, it's reels that turn and can be touched," says Roland Schneider, the machine's designer. "When it comes to audio quality, nothing else in the analog world gets you closer to the experience of being right there in the recording studio than reel-to-reel tape."

Comments

Max Headroom?

[spiritplumber]

"The cyber" is a word again, tape decks are back... what's next, twiddler keyboards and phreaking?

Re:Max Headroom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also

Digital media is great, but experiencing music is more than just listening to a sound file -- it's sensual, it's reels that turn and can be touched

When I'm "experiencing" (what odd wording) music, I'm listening to the fucking music, not examining or touching spinning pieces of plastic.

And no, it's not sensual. That's the kind of tenuous and vague label/excuse someone comes up with to try to justify something stupid.

Re:Max Headroom?

[Plumpaquatsch]

"The cyber" is a word again, tape decks are back... what's next, twiddler keyboards and phreaking?

Teletypes for text entry. IBM Modell M is for pussies.

Re:Max Headroom?

[Anonymous Coward]

For many, it is an experience. That's why people go to see live music at clubs, and concerts, and raves, and EDM festivals and... It's why the larger vinyl album covers are more "art" than "container". It's why people buy old analog stereo's (they sound better, truly, compare for yourself, I did). You may be young(ish) so you might not appreciate "the experience", but trust me, the sum total of all elements add up to how much you benefit/enjoy things in music/life.

Think of it this way, you can eat a microwave dinner by yourself, or you can have a home cooked meal with all the aroma and camaraderie and memories to go with it. It is totally an experience. One that you probably won't appreciate until you are older. Until then, by all means, enjoy your degraded mp3 audio.

Re:Max Headroom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except listening to music at home isn't going to see live music. It's sitting at home listening to music. I love how you try to change the very point of the article.

Having a turntable or reel to reel isn't an experience, it's a nuisance. It gets in the way of what is important: the music. You seem like a retro, hipster child with ADD who is mesmerised by moving parts and flashing lights. Me, I'm a musician, I care about the actual music.

And analogue gear sounds like shit compared to modern, digital equipment. Placebo doesn't affect me like it does you.

Re:Max Headroom?

[Drishmung]

Hah! IBM 029 keypunch for ever. 026 if you are truly hard core ("we don't need the text printed on the cards. True Programmers read Hollerith").

Re: Max Headroom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your obsolete audio gear is complete and utter shit. Your obsolete media is complete and utter shit. Get over it kid, you're embarrassing yourself.

Re: Max Headroom?

[sound vision]

As someone who owns a tape reel machine, I have actually spent quite a lot of time looking at the reels spinning around, simultaneously listening to the music - imagine that.

Now, I got mine at a garage sale 20 years ago for $5, box of tapes included. I can't say I'd drop 11k, or 1.1k, for the experience. 0.1k, maybe. But a big part of my experience was the historicity, which won't be there with a replica.

Re: Max Headroom?

[Anonymous Coward]

What can I say? You're easily distracted and you don't care about the actual music as much as I do.

My CD, FLAC and MP3 archives destroy your obsolete junk.

Next up: return to horse and buggy and slavery

[Anonymous Coward]

Also holistic embrace of artisan communicable diseases that have been cured for decades in preparation for the return to rustic, wholesome, and natural levels of infant and maternal mortality.

Re:Next up: return to horse and buggy and slavery

[Austerity Empowers]

I am sorry someone modded you down for that, it summarizes the situation perfectly.

This is all nice and good

[Anonymous Coward]

...but what we really need is something that will mark these people when they're in public, something that tells you, this person has more money than sense.

Re:This is all nice and good

[geekmux]

...but what we really need is something that will mark these people when they're in public, something that tells you, this person has more money than sense.

You mean the unemployed Millennial who constantly blogs about being broke on a $3000 MacBook while sucking down a $17 latte isn't obvious enough?

Re:This is all nice and good

[MightyYar]

something that tells you, this person has more money than sense.

C'mon, make the marketing departments at least pretend to work.

Re:This is all nice and good

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't spot a hipster, you might be one.

Re:This is all nice and good

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care about hipsters. More money than sense is not the same as hipsterism. There are lots of poor hipsters and lots of otherwise normal people who need their money/sense quotient readjusted.

Re:This is all nice and good

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually their parents are the ones with more money than sense, otherwise they would have kicked their loser children out and those millennials would be begging for spare change by the dumpster behind McDonalds.

Re:This is all nice and good

[slipped_bit]

I've come around on hipsters. It takes a lot of courage for them to all dress and act alike.

Re:This is all nice and good

[Mashiki]

All I can see is the money from selling old reel to reel decks to hipsters with more money then what they can do with.

Re:This is all nice and good

[hambone142]

Magnetic tape media loses audio quality over time. Just like VHS gets bad and loses color saturation.

Old audio tape starts sounding "muddy" and typically loses highs and dynamic range.

The ferromagnetic media strives toward entropy on the acetate backing.

Re:This is all nice and good

[q_e_t]

For once, I agree with you!

Re:This is all nice and good

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Tape stopped using acetate in the 1950s. Modern tape materials have their problems too, but most are better structurally and for archive purposes than acetate. OTOH, acetate breaks much more cleanly so if you are into a little splicing...
2) Yes, tape loses quality over time. Much of that can be restored or even (to a small degree) improved with modern digital processing, but there comes a time where the original material is no longer usable (that happened to the early London stereo recordings of Wagner's Ring) and you're forced to work with the best of the available digital transfers.
3) You might recall that early digital recordings were also on tape; direct digital recording to memory or disk and archiving on disk (optical or magnetic) wasn't really part of standard practice until at least the late 1980s if not 1990s. DAT machines were never a consumer thing, but were big in the commercial realm. One problem with digital tapes is that the recorded signal degrades faster than analog. So you might still be able to play (carefully) and restore an analog tape master from the 1950s if it's in reasonable physical condition, but a digital tape from the 1980s is very likely to be unusable even if perfectly preserved physically.

For archiving analog sources, it's most important to preserve the physical condition, so it can be played and the signal then processed to remove any degradation; if properly recorded, the signal degrades quite slowly. Digital, on any media but especially magnetic, requires periodic re-writing to new media. Even well into the digital era, may studies would print analog tapes for archiving because they were more robust than digital.

Re: This is all nice and good

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash: reel to reels never went out of fashion in the recording industry.

Re:This is all nice and good

[k6mfw]

No, we really need someone to put up money to restore that Ampex sign on highway 101 in Redwood City.

Re:This is all nice and good

[martinX]

Analogue rolloff versus digital cliff.

Re: This is all nice and good

[Anonymous Coward]

Myth

https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml?yamumlovesit

Re:This is all nice and good

[RespekMyAthorati]

Digital, on any media but especially magnetic, requires periodic re-writing to new media.

So store it in the cloud where it will be copied and rewritten every few minutes.

Re:This is all nice and good

[Anonymous Coward]

I've come around on hipsters. It takes a lot of courage for them to all dress and act alike.

I don't think it has anything to do with courage, as I've never known a brave hipster. I think they just don't know any better.

Analog only

[Blackburd]

I only use analogue devices: rotary phone, carbureted car, and a manual typewriter. I'm hoping to start a movement.

Re:Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

To start a movement, you'd need to communicate what you are doing to other people by either writing letters to the papers or calling to people so much that your finger hurts. Only people who have used a rotary phone know the pain I'm talking about.

Re:Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

I only use analogue devices

I take it you are accessing Slashdot by imitating the sounds of a dial-up modem using your vocal cords, mouth and tongue..

Re:Analog only

[Brett Buck]

I think you should start wearing a one-size-too-small fedora, and claiming that you are doing it ironically, and I think you have achieved a very important goal. The hipster doofus serves a very critical role in society.

Re:Analog only

[nitehawk214]

He is part of the new political movement: "Hipsters for Trump"

Re:Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

"manual typewriter" - WARNING! - FSB agent on Sloshdat!

Re: Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

I only voted for him ironically.

Re:Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

No writing to the papers as they are going out of business. Calling people on the phone is monitored through the meta data. Maybe if cassettes came back there could be a subversive network of tape exchange through the postal system where its hard to know who merely listened and who added something. Of course there is always audio fingerprinting based on the electrical network.

Re:Analog only

[spiritplumber]

Heh. Old-fart story time. In Italy, hotels (and hostels) used to restrict calls by physically locking the rotary dial with a small lock, and charging for the key. So we got good at pulse-dialing by tapping the hangup key.

Re:Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

Got to set the bit rate really low.

Re: Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard the story of a broad who voted for the wrong candidate... because she thought it was like that reality show where viewers vote for who they want to leave the show?

Re:Analog only

[al0ha]

Any kid who didn't figure out pulse dialing by age 7 had no future as a hacker :P

Re:Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

You could also get a call for a nickel by dropping it in the slot and hitting the coin return with the palm of your hand. Still a nickel but, hey, half off.

Re: Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your didlo come with a crankshaft you fuckwit?

Re:Analog only

[Anonymous Coward]

We used to make free phone calls from the local bowling alley by manually hook flashing their service phones.

Never could get red box tones to work. Not even by inserting real coins first.

My favourite was my lineman's handset. Most apartment buildings had easy to access and secluded phone boxes. Convenient for pre-mobile phone times.

Are there many analog studios left?

[cayenne8]

Are there many(any) studios that record primarily, in analog?

Do many of them have analog components to them...ie tube amps, pre-amps, tape....etc?

Wouldn't it really only sound the best on analog home play, if the source was also at least mostly recorded using analog technology?

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[frank_adrian314159]

Wouldn't it really only sound the best on analog home play, if the source was also at least mostly recorded using analog technology?

No.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Dzimas]

Recording on 2-inch analog 24-track is different than digital. Tape exhibits saturation effects -- if I record a drum track onto tape, I can record it "hot" by turning up the gain so that the hardest hits saturate the tape. The result is a distinctive compression/limiting/harmonic effect. One of the reasons that people complained about sterile and thin digital sound when we shifted from analog to digital was that digital recorders don't behave the same way. That said, there are now some excellent digital plug-ins that emulate this effect.

That said, it makes sense to mix your 24-track analog recording to digital since the digital reproduction will be technically better than a dub of an analog 2-track tape.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[aitikin]

Are there many(any) studios that record primarily, in analog?

Yes, there are.

Do many of them have analog components to them...ie tube amps, pre-amps, tape....etc?

All preamps are analog preamps. Almost all microphones are analog microphones. Most major studios have some analog hardware and utilize it.

Wouldn't it really only sound the best on analog home play, if the source was also at least mostly recorded using analog technology?

Most new vinyl is recorded at least in some part on a digital medium. It does not mean that the vinyl is less "analog", but the days of AAA (Analog recording, Analog mixing, and Analog mastering) are long gone (even Jack White "cheats" now), but that doesn't make it bad. Most professionals in the audio industry use the right tool for the job, be it analog, digital, or a hybrid solution.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[0100010001010011]

Do many of them have analog components to them.

Unless you're clicking out bits pretty sure the audio is still analog.

Re: Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there many(any) studios that record primarily, in analog?

All recording studios do in fact record primarily. But what's the deal with you tacking on 'in analog' with a comma. Do you speak English?

Do many of them have analog components to them...ie tube amps, pre-amps, tape....etc?

Plenty of them have far superior transistors. Those are analog as well, you do realise?

Wouldn't it really only sound the best on analog home play, if the source was also at least mostly recorded using analog technology

Nope. And stop that with the comma. You look like an iliterate idiot. Any other questions?

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[oh_my_080980980]

There a couple...

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Powercntrl]

Do many of them have analog components to them...ie tube amps, pre-amps, tape....etc?

Vacuum tubes are still used quite extensively on the artistic side of audio production. It's not uncommon to see them in microphone/instrument amplifiers, and many electric guitar players prefer tube amps. In those cases though, they're used specifically because the inherent non-linearities and distortion characteristics of tube amplification sound good to most people.

Thing is though, once you've got the sound you want, it's like a perfectly cooked steak - adding anything else to it might ruin it. That's why most studios use high-end digital recording to capture all of that tube-y goodness in pristine clarity.

Re: Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Commas, will be misplaced.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Immerman]

Transistors are fully analog devices as well - they're used strictly in saturation (pseudo-relay) mode in most modern CPUs, etc, but that doesn't change their fundamental nature. Most modern audio and signal amplifier ICs use them in analog mode to great effect.

As for replay - you'd probably get the best results if the entire production chain was (high quality) analog, but professional digital equipment may very well use radically greater fidelity than any consumer hardware can use - typical consumer hardware is limited to somewhere around 16 bits per sample and 44,000 samples per second - both of which introduce significant quantization noise. Which means that a smooth input sine wave is approximated by a jagged "staircase" waveform, with all fine detail discarded, and then the result is (ideally) smoothed back into a continuous waveform via a high-frequency low-pass filter when used to drive a speaker. Unfortunately, while that quantization will typically capture (most) of the (average) human's hearing range, it completely discards higher-frequency tones whose harmonics may still be audible, as well as destroying many other subtleties of the signal shape which may have an audible effect.

Professional gear, especially if designed for recording raw signals that will undergo extreme editing, can potentially operate with much better fidelity - even going to 24 bit samples instead of 16 will increase the sample fidelity by a factor of 256 over the same range, and increasing the sample rate will better capture the temporal transitions - plenty of digital signal processing hardware is designed to operate in the MHz or even GHz range, and there's no real reason you couldn't use that for audio sampling as well - it's just normally considered gross overkill for the job. If you record that back to analog using similarly capable hardware you can get a recording whose quantization noise is much further outside the (average) human perceptual envelope, so that even many of the harmonics and other subtleties are substantially the same as the original, at least to a limited human ear.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is my Tube Amp for guitar geeks with a shocking sense of adventure:
https://www.aeronetworks.ca/2015/02/cool-amplifier.html

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Tapewolf]

Recording on 2-inch analog 24-track is different than digital. Tape exhibits saturation effects -- if I record a drum track onto tape, I can record it "hot" by turning up the gain so that the hardest hits saturate the tape. The result is a distinctive compression/limiting/harmonic effect. One of the reasons that people complained about sterile and thin digital sound when we shifted from analog to digital was that digital recorders don't behave the same way.

Another thing is that the frequency response is nonlinear. Jack Endino has some rather interesting graphs of this in different models of 2" deck: http://www.endino.com/graphs/

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Immerman]

Is there any reason you couldn't capture much of the same effect with an analog pre-filter that demonstrates the same saturation effects - i.e. boost the gain, pass it through your saturation filter, and then digitize the result? Even an all-digital saturation filter should be able to recreate the result, though obviously you'd need to record the sample at a higher bit-depth and range to accurately record the "will be saturated" signal peaks while maintaining the same detail for the "normal" signal.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Tapewolf]

Are there many(any) studios that record primarily, in analog?

Do many of them have analog components to them...ie tube amps, pre-amps, tape....etc?

You have to look, but there are, yes. Most big studios have the capability to do things all-analogue but these days it's mostly done as hybrid. I managed to build my own as a hobby because I thought it might be interesting to experience the workflow, and the machines were very cheap on ebay about 10 years back. I could almost certainly get better results by recording everything end-to-end digital, but working on tape is more fun.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[religionofpeas]

Which means that a smooth input sine wave is approximated by a jagged "staircase" waveform

No, before the signal is sent to the ADC, the digital hardware first recovers the sine wave at higher sampling frequency. If you were to subtract the original sine wave from the output, you'd get only very soft white noise (at least 100 dB below signal) which would be impossible to hear in any normal listening environment.

while that quantization will typically capture (most) of the (average) human's hearing range, it completely discards higher-frequency tones whose harmonics may still be audible,

No. If you can't hear a 24 kHz pure tone, you can't hear it either when it's the 2nd harmonic of a 12 kHz fundamental. A 12 kHz sine wave will sound exactly the same as a 12 kHz triangle or square wave.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quantum Theory would like a word with you.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about sounding better (though some so-called audiophiles have a delusion this isn't true), it's about going back to a different era. It's about escape, and it's about having something physical associated with the music.

I guarantee the next "retro trend" is CDs.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Immerman]

Um, prior to the ADC there is NO digital signal, the ADC is what converts analog to digital - it's right there in the name.

Now granted, for (good) hardware you'll likely sample at a higher rate/fidelity than your final format (integer multiples to avoid introducing greater digital distortion), but that doesn't change the fact that you've already discarded some information.

As for not being able to hear the difference between harmonics - bull. 16kHz square, triangle, and sine waves all sound definitely different, despite the fact that I can't hear a 32kHz signal (I can hear 24kHz just fine, much to my dismay - you woudn't believe how many concert sound guys don't correct high-frequency feedback).

Also, it's not just simple harmonics - you can use ultrasound interference to generate free-floating "acoustic sound" sources.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

"an analog pre-filter that demonstrates the same saturation effects - i.e. boost the gain, pass it through your saturation filter, and then digitize the result? " - Yes, of course, but playing with tubes is much more fun than playing with FIR filters.

Audio is a 'solved' problem. We know how to do anything digitally and with analogue technology. For digital audio phreaks, there are many effects available for sound exchange (sox) for example.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[iksrazal_br]

the days of AAA (Analog recording, Analog mixing, and Analog mastering) are long gone (even Jack White "cheats" now), but that doesn't make it bad. Most professionals in the audio industry use the right tool for the job, be it analog, digital, or a hybrid solution.

Its easy to find professional mastering using analog compressors (Knif Vari-Mu II) , analog eq (I have an API 5500 and its used a lot in mastering) etc.

http://www.audibleoddities.com...

That's not mentioning plenty of the tracking using analog synths, compressors and eq for tracking ... guessing at least 50% of modern vocals use a hardware analog compressor such as a LA2A but that's my perspective.

The company API makes analog mixers, compressors and EQ that has seen a modern surge into the 500 series lunchbox format. Over 30 brands of analog eq and compressors are available in 500 series, including most of the gear from Neve and Chandler.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[religionofpeas]

Sorry, meant to type DAC, not ADC.

16kHz square, triangle, and sine waves all sound definitely different

I don't believe you've actually tried this in a blind test, where you've been careful to compensate the volume to keep energy in fundamental the same.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

As for not being able to hear the difference between harmonics - bull. 16kHz square, triangle, and sine waves all sound definitely different, despite the fact that I can't hear a 32kHz signal

Then what you are hearing is some kind of distortion in the audible range, because the ONLY thing that makes those waveforms different is the inaudible harmonics.

If you can't hear a 32kHz harmonic (and you can't unless you are not human), there is literally nothing to distinguish the square and triangle waves from the sine wave. That's all a square wave is, a mixture of sine waves...as you are aware.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Khyber]

"We know how to do anything digitally and with analogue technology."

Uh, yea, about that; go find me an analog pitch shifter. Good luck with that!

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool ! 2nd graph from the bottom... I've mixed down to that machine at that studio - it sounds really good :-) And yes, the studio still exists but at the rate Seattle is being redeveloped who know for how much longer.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Khyber]

"I don't believe you've actually tried this in a blind test"

Blind test isn't needed - any fucking analysis tool can show this without needing to hear a thing. The waveforms themselves are DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT thus THE SOUNDS ARE DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT.

I guess you never spent any time making NES music - which uses raw waveforms. The difference is clearly audible no matter what.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The waveforms themselves are DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT thus THE SOUNDS ARE DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT.

I'm curious what you think a waveform actually is.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Tapewolf]

"We know how to do anything digitally and with analogue technology."

Uh, yea, about that; go find me an analog pitch shifter. Good luck with that!

Well, obviously the varispeed control on the tape deck will do that. But if you want to change the pitch without affecting the length of the audio, you need one of these: http://www.wendycarlos.com/oth...

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[sexconker]

16kHz square, triangle, and sine waves all sound definitely different

WTF?

There's a reason old sound hardware had dedicated voices for square waves, triangle waves, sawtooth waves, etc.
They sound incredibly different, even at the same pitch and volume (RMS).

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[sexconker]

I somehow quoted the wrong thing, and going back to find the right think I realized the original bitching was specifically about 12 KHz sine, triangle, etc. waves sounding the same.

That's correct. Those waveforms only sound distinct at lower frequencies. Once you get over 8 KHz they start to sound alike, and when you hit half of your hearing range they're going to be indistinguishable.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Biggest question is the availability of audio tape.
I don't know any company making good audio tape, if any audio tape at all.

 

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[ceoyoyo]

Read carefully. The quote in the summary is straight from the horse's mouth:

"nothing else in the analog world gets you closer to the experience of being right there in the recording studio than reel-to-reel tape"

Note the qualifiers.

Digital mastering is better than analog. Digital reproduction is better than analog. Your speakers need to vibrate in an analog (approximately) world, but the more digital you've got before that, the better.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[religionofpeas]

The waveforms themselves are DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT thus THE SOUNDS ARE DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT.

This is only true when the frequency is low enough that you can hear the higher harmonics. You tried some low frequency waveforms, and are blindly extrapolating your intuition to higher frequencies. Physics doesn't work that way.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[q_e_t]

Pre-filter? You can do it after the fact, either by 'reamping' (sending the signal out to a tape head and recording it back with the non-linearity desired), or spend some money on a plugin for an industry standard DAW to do it, which is how 'authentic' tape sounds are often done today, and few are any the wiser. Doing it later means that if you overcook the saturation on the final mix you can dial it back. If you commit to tape, you can't. The other option is to split the signal and record digitally as a back up, and to tape.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[q_e_t]

The waveforms are drastically the same.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[q_e_t]

There are many bands now that will happily sell you physical things along with your CD, or whatever, such as books, and all sorts of other physical presentation material. You can also buy the vinyl with a complimentary FLAC, in some instances, so you can have the vinyl but not ruin it by playing it.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely once any digital element has entered the chain, the so-called "jaggies" appear, defeating the benefits of analog. Of course, with higher bit depth, sample rates, etc, the digital is almost indistinguishably "round".

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[DCFusor]

No point upvoting a +5, but as an engineer - electrical and recording, and a musician (several instruments) who helped create the DAW age - Dzimas has this precisely correct. Just about anything else said about this is either bullshit or off topic.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[aitikin]

Its easy to find professional mastering using analog compressors (Knif Vari-Mu II) , analog eq (I have an API 5500 and its used a lot in mastering) etc.

http://www.audibleoddities.com...

That's not mentioning plenty of the tracking using analog synths, compressors and eq for tracking ... guessing at least 50% of modern vocals use a hardware analog compressor such as a LA2A but that's my perspective.

The company API makes analog mixers, compressors and EQ that has seen a modern surge into the 500 series lunchbox format. Over 30 brands of analog eq and compressors are available in 500 series, including most of the gear from Neve and Chandler.

Yes, but how many of them are only using analog (which was what was required for the AAA badge way back when)? I don't know very many that truly expect you to send them a reel of tape for them to master, most are expecting the project in a digital format. 1979 has Pro Tools rigs for just such purposes, even Albini (has his assistant) import the mixes into digital for final distribution/production.

I have analog gear too, my 560a's are used in tracking, 2Bus LT for summing, 1176/LA2A vocal chain, etc, but the post I was quoting was referencing recording "in analog" and seemed (at least to me) to be implying an all analog signal chain from the microphone to the master. For the record, 1979 does do this when they have the need and I'm sure Electrical will as well. Hell, 1979 will do direct to Vinyl if the band's good enough.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Alypius]

You can try here: http://usrecordingmedia.com/op...

Re: Are there many analog studios left?

[sheph]

Hey I was dropped on my head as a baby you insensitive clod!

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[sheph]

idk, if you're going to bring back poor media 8-tracks would be way better than cd. I own a Pioneer 909. It's beautiful, and it sounds just as good as it looks. Classical music really shines on it, but I've got punk rock, blues, classic rock on open reel. I've yet to run across something that doesn't sound good on it.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[mikeiver1]

To be honest there are very few Tape machines in the tracking chain at this point. They are very expensive and troublesome to run and maintain. Though they sound fantastic to be sure they just cant hold a candle to a 24bit 96K recording let alone a 192K above. There are technical reasons that the tape sounds better to some. Mostly this is due to the non linear nature of the beast at the upper limits of the recorded energy on the tape and the distortion that results. This does have an undeniable acoustic charm to most everyone that listens to it. It can also be mostly replicated with good modern digital plug ins for the DAW. The digital recordings just have to many advantages like vanishingly small distortion and noise and massive headroom. These are the attributes tape just can't touch. Even a tape deck with Dolby SR will not be able to touch it. This is simply fact and not conjecture. I have heard a 1/2" 2 track master with SR and it is fantastic. I have worked on both 2" 16 and 24 track machines. They are a ball of knotted stomach when recording. The trouble and cost are no where near worth it. In the end most of the albums are tracked to digital recorders. Even if you are using an analog desk with fancy outboard tube or vintage transistor mic preamps by the likes of say Neve or SpectraSonics to name a couple and old effects like an EMT plate reverb in the end you are going to be editing in the digital domain. The real issue now days is that allot of the people recording and mixing the music now days are crap hacks! The likes of Parsons, or Trefethen, or Lynne are just not out there anymore. The game is about money, not music. If idiots are gonna buy vinyl they will press it for them and charge a premium too. I do have a nice turntable and a very nice home grown preamp but in the end I would much prefer to have the music in an uncompressed 24/96 or better format. As to the tape, well despite anything that the few out there tell you, the reel to reel tapes are coming off of a digital master. There is no way to keep the original quality of the master if you play it every time you roll off a copy. This is the nature of analog tape.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[jwdb]

Small nit-pick: the frequency response would more accurately be called "not flat". Saying it's "nonlinear" may make readers expect harmonics, intermodulation, and other higher-order phenomena, even if what you mean is just that it's not a straight line.

Interesting plots, however!

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[BrianMarshall]

Regarding the Monster album by KISS in 2012, Gene Simmons said...

"Technology is a seductive bitch, she will seduce you. You press this button, you don't have to do anything. But analog is the love of your life. You can push real hard and it always gives back. For the new album, the actual recording process was 24-track tape and an old Trident board. And as many tubes as possible. You need tubes, electricity and thick wood to make that thick sound."

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Tapewolf]

Biggest question is the availability of audio tape.
I don't know any company making good audio tape, if any audio tape at all.

ATR magnetics and RTM (was Pyral). This is studio-grade stuff mind, so it's not cheap.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Khyber]

No, those were extremely horrible. I inherited one of those from someone. No, just no. Even the shitty digital pitch shifter in the SBLive sound card sounds 3,000x better.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Khyber]

I can hear bat calls and dog whistles. My ears are WAY better than yours.

Re: Are there many analog studios left?

[sound vision]

Theoretically yes, if analog was better than digital in and of itself, which it isnt.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

And your delusions and untreated psychosis way worse too!

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[david_thornley]

Human hearing works by finding the volumes at different frequencies. In order to see whether one waveform sounds different from another, do Fourier transforms. You'll find that a sine wave is all on one frequency, while square and triangle waves have a lot of other, higher, frequencies mixed in.

Re: Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

He said 'many', not 'any'.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. A frequency IS a sine wave, i.e. the rate of oscillation of air molecules or voltages or whatever.

The fact that air pressure can oscillate at multiple simultaneous different rates means when we measure it at a point in space, the graph forms the shape of a square, triangle, etc. doesn't mean those component frequencies are somehow coherent, even if related by fractions of Hz.

Take the partials of a square wave and shift them randomly out of phase, and it will still sound like a "square wave" even though it doesn't look like one.

Re: Are there many analog studios left?

[aitikin]

He said both, but there are many that still use tape (which would be the implication). For example, I happen to know for a fact that Childish Gambino/AKA Donald Glover owns and uses a tape machine in his studio.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[RespekMyAthorati]

any fucking analysis tool can show this without needing to hear a thing.
The waveforms themselves are DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT thus THE SOUNDS ARE DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT.

There is no comparison.

Analysis tools are flat to tens of megahertz.
Your ears aren't!

You clearly lack the most basic understanding of audio signal processing.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[RespekMyAthorati]

I can hear bat calls and dog whistles.

That's nothing.
I can hear leprechauns and gnomes whispering in my backyard.

Re:Are there many analog studios left?

[RespekMyAthorati]

PLEASE
Use

<br>

to make line breaks. Much easier to read.

I don't see this taking off

[alvinrod]

Vinyl can still sell because it's relatively inexpensive and plenty of record stores sell used records for pretty cheap. However, no hipster has $11,000 to spend, so I don't see this having much of a market outside of the rich audiophile crowd that thinks it will pair nicely with their gold-plated monster cables.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Powercntrl]

However, no hipster has $11,000 to spend

Most people couldn't afford reel-to-reel machines back in the day (when it actually was the superior format), hence the nostalgia for shitty ass vinyl. Today, even if it was less expensive, it's likely the hipsters wouldn't want it because reel-to-reel doesn't have that "warm" (which is really just the RIAA EQ curve and any other adjustments done to the sound to make it cuttable) sound they associate with "analog". If you wanted your music to sound true to the source, you'd just be using lossless digital formats anyway.

In other words, people buy vinyl copies of modern albums because they want the shitty music to sound shittier. There's no helping those people.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[geekmux]

Vinyl can still sell because it's relatively inexpensive and plenty of record stores sell used records for pretty cheap. However, no hipster has $11,000 to spend, so I don't see this having much of a market outside of the rich audiophile crowd that thinks it will pair nicely with their gold-plated monster cables.

Uh, let's be realistic for a minute here. The only reason vinyl is selling now is because hipsters found a cool new wall decoration. I'm willing to bet only 5% of vinyl sold today ever actually touches a record needle.

I don't see reel-to-reel taking off because the media isn't considered artsy hipster kitsch, and those who can afford to blow $11K on a deck will "use" it as room decor.

Re: I don't see this taking off

[Anonymous Coward]

You must not know many hipsters. They dont have the money but they buy it anyway. Credit is fake money to them so many are massively in debt

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Anonymous Coward]

Hipsters dont buy things.
They put it on credit and they wait for someone else to bale them out later claiming it was unfair and the bank shouldn't have mis-sold the loan.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[oh_my_080980980]

" lossless digital formats anyway."

LMOL ok Potsy....but you see people aren't. So even in the digital age people are listening to shitty ass digital formats.

So basically you don't have a point.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Anonymous Coward]

However, no hipster has $11,000 to spend, so I don't see this having much of a market outside of the rich audiophile crowd that thinks it will pair nicely with their gold-plated monster cables.

Or, you know, people in the music industry who record stuff for a living.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[TheFakeTimCook]

However, no hipster has $11,000 to spend

Most people couldn't afford reel-to-reel machines back in the day (when it actually was the superior format), hence the nostalgia for shitty ass vinyl. Today, even if it was less expensive, it's likely the hipsters wouldn't want it because reel-to-reel doesn't have that "warm" (which is really just the RIAA EQ curve and any other adjustments done to the sound to make it cuttable) sound they associate with "analog". If you wanted your music to sound true to the source, you'd just be using lossless digital formats anyway.

In other words, people buy vinyl copies of modern albums because they want the shitty music to sound shittier. There's no helping those people.

Exactly.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Brett Buck]

I was into reel-to-reel before reel-to-reel became cool - literally. The premise that it is a more accurate analog medium than vinyl is dubious enough, but there will never be enough content release on reel-to-reel to make it worthwhile aside from hipsters and millennials want to pose as "old-school".

          We went down all these roads long ago. People into audio in the 50's/60's/70's were not all morons, this was long hashed out in any detail necessary. That's why CDs exist and are in any objective way, superior.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[jythie]

At this point they are probably trying to target the trend setters. If the tech gets some traction there then there will be a market for producing cheaper versions for people to play with.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Immerman]

There's no such thing as a lossless digital format - quantization noise discards vast reams of data at the moment of digitization. Mostly stuff outside of the "typical" human's hearing range - but there's lots of harmonics that can create perceived sound from imperceptible frequencies (a modern example being the use of interfering ultrasound signals to generate tightly targetted apparent normal sound sources).

You're probably thinking of lossless *compression* such as ALAC, FLAC, etc. Which doesn't discard any of the information in the original recording - but that can't do anything to preserve the information which was never recorded in the first place.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Anonymous Coward]

> There's no such thing as a lossless digital format

There's no such thing as a lossless format, period - if you define lossless as perfect fidelity.

But that's not what lossless means. The term was coined specifically in reference to digital compression techniques, in which there exist many lossless algorithms. You wouldn't be able to .zip your Excel sheets and get the same data back if this weren't true.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Immerman]

Zip is not known as a lossless format, it's known as a lossless compression format. That extra word matters. Lossless compression is very much a thing, and there's many different varieties tuned to exactly what sort of information you're compressing (e.g. FLAC will generally compress audio better than just zipping the original .wav file).

And yes, you're absolutely right about there being no such thing as a lossless format, at least not for originally-analog signals. But analog recordings typically capture far more of the subtleties of the original signal, even if they are inevitably superimposed with analog noise.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[xystren]

I see this as a demand for tangible products. All too often DRM servers get taken off line. There is something to be said by physically picking up a vinyl records and placing it on the turntable that that clicking a couple buttons on a digital player just isn't there. I won't go into the sound debate of digital vs analogue - as everyone has their own opinion on that.

Personally, I like the physical tangibility of the non-digital media. I can do with it what I want, when I want, sell it, loan it, etc. That is something that digital is missing - and it doesn't incur the privacy issues that is so inherent with anything digital.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Sloppy]

You must have had some weird unpleasant experience with some kind of proprietary music format or service. Not a single issue that you raise, is related to digital-vs-analog. If we changed "digital" to "[censored]" everyone would probably guess you were talking about how much you love CDs.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Anonymous Coward]

> Zip is not known as a lossless format, it's known as a lossless compression format.

As I said, the term "lossless" in contrast to "lossy" was coined to refer to digital compression. That is the only context that matters here, because it is meaningless in terms of fidelity (all reproduction is "lossy" in that sense).

Re:I don't see this taking off

[ceoyoyo]

There's no such thing as a lossless analog medium either. The difference is that the MTF (the modulation of the spectrum) for a digital system is dictated by the amount of memory you're willing to use. The MTF for an analog system is dictated by the physical constraints of the materials in your equipment.

For recorded music, microphones are a component in common, and are necessarily analog. The microphone will have peak sensitivity at a particular frequency and that will fall off with higher and lower frequencies because of the physical properties of the diaphragm + other pickup components.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[jellomizer]

"Lossless digital format" isn't lossless. It is still an approximation of the actual sound. The problem is literately fitting a round peg in a square hole. The sound we hear is waves Lossless digital formats take that wave split it up into millions of data elements, round to the closest value of the average of that segment. Then when they play it back they will just try to round the edges back. Data is lost, but not as much as in our lossy data formats.

These minute lost data is often what people attribute warmth or depth to the music. Now not to discourage digital music. Analog biggest problem is every copy data is loss, and reading will degrade the data over time. So Your digital CD will probably be as good as your Record if treated well after a month (as the needle will over time wear out unexpected spikes) or a Real to real after a year. But it the sound would stay the same.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lossless digital format" isn't lossless. It is still an approximation of the actual sound.

That's not what "lossless" means, it doesn't refer to audio fidelity or sampling resolution.

All it means is that when you decompress, you get back exactly the original signal that went into the compressor.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[sheph]

You might want to have a discussion with Neil Young. He explains in great detail what's wrong with CD, and if you run it to ground he's right. Admittedly, on your cell phone, or walmart stereo there is no distinguishable difference. When you get into higher end systems though the difference is night and day.

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Anonymous Coward]

No it will not make a comeback with $11,000 decks.

I never bothered adding one to my 1980's system because even at a few hundred on eBay it was overpriced for it's utility.

Not to mention even the high-end one didn't mention Quad, but didnt explain custom either so? So the $11k one is even more useless to me since the few tapes I have are 4 channel :(

Without Quad capabilty how would one make the Quad tapes* for the dudes car below ;)

*Yes my system is fully Quad capable including the 8-track recorder and Dolby unit!

Re:I don't see this taking off

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to have a discussion with Neil Young. He explains in great detail what's wrong with CD, and if you run it to ground he's right.

No, Neil is wrong. Monty from Xiph explains why, in great detail:

https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Re:I don't see this taking off

[KozmoStevnNaut]

These minute lost data is often what idiots attribute warmth or depth to the music.

Fixed that for you.

The quantization artifacts in 16-bit PCM audio are at approximately -96dBFS, in other words way below any audible level. If you do amplify an otherwise silent section up so the noise is audible, you'll find that it's more less just benign white noise, aka "tape hiss".

Analog recordings are also "approximations of the actual sound", except they're much much worse than digital recording, due to nonlinear frequency response, crosstalk, speed variation and a host of other issues.

It is blindingly obvious that you have no idea how digital sampling works. Educate yourself: https://xiph.org/video/vid2.sh...

Seems fair

[Joce640k]

If people want the "experience" of rewinding tapes, taking five minutes to change to a different album, etc. then nobody here should try to stop them.

All we need is a law to prevent them bragging about the "experience" in public places.

Re:Seems fair

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the posers continue to fuel the demand for cheap "micro" brews they can brag all they want. That's what the "trendy" food trucks and hot dog stands are for - to get them all away from normal people.

Re:Seems fair

[drinkypoo]

All we need is a law to prevent them bragging about the "experience" in public places.

It's not really a big problem, you can spot their ironic clothing and moustache and give them a wide berth to begin with. Then you only have to worry about it when you're on line with them someplace.

Re:Seems fair

[cascadingstylesheet]

If people want the "experience" of rewinding tapes, taking five minutes to change to a different album, etc. then nobody here should try to stop them.

All we need is a law to prevent them bragging about the "experience" in public places.

Sounds like the holodeck, we are the bored people of the future, simulating that we need to do things like in the past ...

Re:Seems fair

[ichimunki]

I'll allow it the minute I see one of these chumps lugging around a tape reader for their Macbook and I don't mean one of those lame cassette tape systems from the Vic-20, I mean a real paper tape reader. You can't trust the signal off magnetic media like a hard drive, or something based on transistors like SSD -- those signals are just analog sources defined as on/off within certain tolerances... Now, holes in paper? It's either a hole or it's not (2000 election notwithstanding). That's a truly binary/digital medium.

Re:Seems fair

[Chris Mattern]

Paper tape? Kid stuff. Too fragile. Now, punch cards, that's where it's at! (I did my first programming in FORTRAN on punch cards. Yes, that makes me feel ancient)

Re:Seems fair

[Alypius]

I always wondered what happened to the sci-fi geeks of the 24th century

Re:Seems fair

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the exquisite joy of experiencing a power loss in the middle of a rewind...

Re:Seems fair

[NitroWolf]

Indeed... as someone who grew up with tapes and vinyl... fuck off with that shit.

Re:Seems fair

[ichimunki]

Yeah, the old paper tape did seem sort of flimsy, but I think we could probably come up with something better these days. That would mean we could fit more holes in a smaller space too. But then punch cards have the ability to be a lot more random access than a tape. Especially if you drop the batch on the floor. ;)

Re:Seems fair

[Chris Mattern]

Especially if you drop the batch on the floor.

Well, that's why columns 72 to 80 were for the sequence numbers. With those, a dropped deck could be automatically sorted back into the correct sequence.

Can't wait for the return of 8-track

[jfdavis668]

Spent many hours in the car listening to my parents play music on 8-track.

Re:Can't wait for the return of 8-track

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean....
        "Spent many hours in the car listening "... 'ker-chunk'
                                                                      "to my parents play music on 8-track."

Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

are doomed to hear it all over again. 50 years ago, vinyl (45 dB S/N at best) and 15ips tape (65 dB S/N at best, before DNR) were as good as it got. Since the early 80s, there's been CDs (100 dB S/N). That's already nearly 40 years. Going back is not something any person with normal hearing could ever consider. So when you see these things being labelled anything but noisy old gear, consider the source's hearing. No, not everyone hears normally, just like not everyone sees normally.

Let that be a lesson. Hear it.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[oh_my_080980980]

You so realize that cds can sound shitty too. It depends on how things are mastered. The format itself does not make it sound shitty.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Immerman]

Unfortunately, S/N ratio tells only part of the picture. Analog typically records the entire signal, limited only by the frequency response of the microphone, plus random noise. Digital meanwhile discards much of the input signal by introducing quantization noise. The big difference being that quantization discards very definite predictable portions of the signal, and introduces specific kinds of audio artifacts, especially at high frequencies.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

"vinyl (45 dB S/N at best) "

Really? When?

"Going back is not something any person with normal hearing could ever consider."

Uh, at 40 your hearing is shit compared to your younger days anyways. And the real limit of audio is the speakers. Who cares if you have 100dB S/N if you're not in an anechoic chamber?

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[thegarbz]

Ironic. You picked the one technical spec between the mediums no one except for some classical music lovers gives a shit about. CDs with 100dB S/N? Try finding a modern song that uses more than the top 20dB. Try find someone who cares when you point that out.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

"Analog typically records the entire signal" - Consider that if the softest tinkle sound of an orchestra is at the lower threshold of hearing, then you need a multi kilowatt amplified sound system to reproduce the wind organ. Most home users do not have sound systems that can reproduce an orchestra.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, S/N ratio tells only part of the picture. Analog typically records the entire signal, limited only by the frequency response of the microphone, plus random noise. Digital meanwhile discards much of the input signal by introducing quantization noise. The big difference being that quantization discards very definite predictable portions of the signal, and introduces specific kinds of audio artifacts, especially at high frequencies.

Umm....I don't know if you've ever heard of lossless audio, but "quantization noise" really only applies to lossy compression, not to lossless digital recordings.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

The 100dB S/N for digital is true of simple test signals like a constant 1kHz sine tone just below full scale. The best converters might even give you a spec for two sine tones with a graph of the IMD products. Digital systems essentially have the advantage that you can fade to silence vs fade to a little bit of hiss on an analog tape.

However, for complex dynamic signals (music) digital systems are not quite as amazing. For a typical cheap digital audio system the noise floor will be close to 40dB below the music. There are some "golden eared" audiophile types that can actually hear the noise floor shifting around in digital audio systems. (That was the big breakthrough with the ESS Sabre DACs - trying to make the noise floor shift around in a less obvious way.) For the very best high end digital audio systems the noise floor is approaching 60dB below the music signal. For some perspective - a "mastering grade" stereo digital audio system that can achieve that 60dB spec sells for about $2500. Almost as good as analog tape ;-) If you do a little searching you can find actual measurements for real world digital audio systems on a certain pro audio forum.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital meanwhile discards much of the input signal by introducing quantization noise.

You misspelled "very little", and that quantization noise is the noise part in the signal-to-noise ratio. And yes, the noise is predictable, which is a good thing, because it can be shaped to have even less of an audible impact than the artifacts of analog audio media. Not that it matters at all, because the analog noise is louder by a factor of 1000, even compared to unshaped CD quantization noise. That's what a difference of 30dB means: factor 1000.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you forgot HDCD, DVD-A, SACD and Bluray audio.

I can see reasons for people preferring analog over CD (signal amplitude and all that), but analog over SACD or DVD-A? Never!!!

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

CDs *can* sound shitty. Cassettes and Vinyl are pretty much guaranteed to.

I'm not sure what your point is, to be honest.

I mean, if I recorded a 78 onto CD it's going to sound like a 78. And nobody thinks otherwise, so who do you think you're talking to?

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, keep banging your head against the wall with that argument. Analog devices dither the original signal with spectrally shaped noise to the point that information is lost at a much earlier point and to a greater extent than with digital signals. In fact, quantization noise in digital is rarely the actual noise floor since analog noise in the recording with have dithered the signal long before it kicks in. The typical microphone having a 60db S/N at best, and the rooms audio is recorded in have noise floors around 25dB should be enough to convince anyone, but you keep living in those high frequency cloud castles of yours.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Quantization noise is the noise introduced by quantization, not compression. Quantization means turning a continuous signal into a discrete signal (16 bit can only distinguish 2^16=65536 amplitudes.) Instead of reproducing the exact amplitude, a digital signal can only reproduce an almost exact amplitude. The difference is noise. This noise is the reason why CDs don't have an infinite signal to noise ratio. Analog audio could in theory have much higher signal to noise ratios, but in reality the SNR of analog audio is much worse for reasons that are practically impossible to avoid. Audio CDs are capable of recording the same signal with less than a thousandth of the noise level that a good analog audio reproduction would have.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[babymac]

Not to mention wow, flutter, harmonic distortion, poor stereo separation and physical media degradation. I don't think people would be clamoring for old technology if pop music mastering engineers hadn't fucked up the new technology so badly. I'll take a digital file (mastered well) any day of the week over this obsolete garbage any day.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[q_e_t]

Analog typically records the entire signal, limited only by the frequency response of the microphone, plus random noise. Digital meanwhile discards much of the input signal by introducing quantization noise.

The typical vinyl record is more tightly bandpassed than a CD. If it was not sent through an HPF then if you played organ music the needle would skip out of the groove. If it was not sent through an LPF then the needle would overheat. So what you said is very, very incorrect.

Re: Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

For magnetic: don't forget the outliers. There were several 35mm or even 70mm magnetic file recorders in the late 1950s and 1960s, used mostly for audiophile-oriented classical music, where the improved s/n due to wider tracks (sometimes better than 70db) and better flutter control (due to closed-loop tape movement past the heads) was worthwhile for the initial recording. That didn't come without some downsides (cost obviously, but also some odd frequency-response effects that had to be dealt with). All of those oddities went away when Dolby noise reduction arrived, studio-quality machines became more portable, and some of the technical features (like closed-loop) found their way into more normal machines. There was some fabulously nice stuff around in the 1970s-80s, and digital as a whole wasn't really competitive for the entire recording chain until the 1990s.

Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Those who have not heard the history of audio

[Anonymous Coward]

Except every generation hears it in lower fidelity.

Useless.

[TigerPlish]

The real "magic" tape decks of the 50's - 90's were the ones that ran two-inch tape at 15 inches / second. And that was super expensive. I think $200 for ten minutes is the last I heard, and I think that was for Squirrel Nut Zipper's "Hot"

These new tape decks are 1/4 inch, which are really not made for studio recording, no matter what their looks try to portray.

The topic is too complex to be easily addressed in any kind of civilized manner, but I think the digital / analog debate can be summarized as such: Early digital capture, 44khz PCM is crap. Yet 44khz PCM playback is OK. Well-mastered, analog-born sound played back on CD sounds wonderful.

The real breakthrough was DSD. Capture it in DSD and the playback will sound as warm and rich as any two-inch Ampex machine from the past, especially if equal care is put into the mikes, the miking, etc.

Too complex to easily address here. It *will* de-evolve into flames, namecalling and tiny closed minds.

Re:Useless.

[oh_my_080980980]

DSD is only helpful in editing. However how anything will sound is dependent on the recording. If the recording isn't done right, then nothing will make it sound better. Garbage in, garbage out.

Re:Useless.

[Anonymous Coward]

DSD is shit anyway. "Hey, let's take the output from a one bit oversampler and use it to store the music! The playback chain will be so much cheaper!"

I'll take 24/96 over it any day.
 

Re:Useless.

[Tapewolf]

The real "magic" tape decks of the 50's - 90's were the ones that ran two-inch tape at 15 inches / second. And that was super expensive. I think $200 for ten minutes is the last I heard, and I think that was for Squirrel Nut Zipper's "Hot"

250 GBP will buy you 2400 feet of 2" tape. Running at 15ips that'll give you about 33 minutes, minus any test tones you may want to record. If you run at 30 you'll get less tape hiss, but you'll also reduce the running time to about 16 minutes, which at current tape prices is crazy. I'm running an Otari MX80 as a (very expensive) hobby and by planning carefully I can usually get an album onto two reels.

The machines being offered here could potentially be used as a 1/4" mixdown deck, but you'd have to be very rich to consider it given that you can get an actual studio recorder off ebay for considerably less.

Re:Useless.

[ichimunki]

If you used a 1/4 inch tape for a two track recording system (0.125 inch per track), wouldn't that actually be better than using a 2 inch tape for a 24 track recording system (0.0833 inch per track)? I should think the width is important for capturing differences in amplitude, but even more than that, the speed of the tape under the head right? Surely there is an analogue here with the sampling rate issues in digital recording.

The real trick here is that you need a system with good motors and head and wheels and such, otherwise you're going to get inconsistent read/write off a piece of tape that is variable in its contact with the head and not at a uniform tightness. I'd guess a 1/4 inch strip of the same exact tape material is going to be less consistent than at a 2 inch width, since it will have less ability to resist stretching or warping. But it's one thing to expect the world of 1/4 inch tape in a Sony Walkman snapped to your belt and another to expect it to do well on a finely-tuned $10k machine sitting on a sturdy surface.

Re:Useless.

[Tapewolf]

If you used a 1/4 inch tape for a two track recording system (0.125 inch per track), wouldn't that actually be better than using a 2 inch tape for a 24 track recording system (0.0833 inch per track)? I should think the width is important for capturing differences in amplitude, but even more than that, the speed of the tape under the head right? Surely there is an analogue here with the sampling rate issues in digital recording.

It was a compromise between sound quality and track count. In the very late 60s and early 70s, the standard was 2" 16-track which had the same width as the 1/4" stereo master. Running at 30ips, this was basically the pinnacle of studio recording quality on tape and did not require noise reduction. 'Crime of the Century' by Supertramp was done this way and was used as a reference recording for sound systems for at least a decade afterwards.

24-track allowed the artists more flexibility, but the quality went down a little and noise reduction started to become a bit more necessary, though you could still live without if need be. There were more experimental formats such as the Stephens 2" 40-track system which is rumoured to have been used on things like Bohemian Rhapsody where they needed crazy track counts. There were also 32-track machines like some of the Otari MX80s, and I think Telefunken made one too, but the format was a bit too noisy, and by then people were locking multiple 24-track machines together anyway, before finally going over to digital.

Re:Useless.

[hackertourist]

Those 2" decks recorded 24 tracks onto the 2" wide tape. The widest 2-track tapes were 1/2" (Studer A80) IIRC, which would have been used for the downmix that became the source for vinyl and tape reproduction.

1/4" 2-track recorders were common in e.g. radio studios, and available in the high-end consumer market.

Re:Useless.

[iksrazal_br]

If you used a 1/4 inch tape for a two track recording system (0.125 inch per track), wouldn't that actually be better than using a 2 inch tape for a 24 track recording system (0.0833 inch per track)? I should think the width is important for capturing differences in amplitude, but even more than that, the speed of the tape under the head right? Surely there is an analogue here with the sampling rate issues in digital recording.

Up until recently the cassette decks were not available balanced i.e. pro level +4db ... basically balanced is a hotter and better signal than a -10db consumer level.

I haven't used 24 track 2" tape since the 90's and wouldn't dream of maintaining a vintage tape machine. I expect reissues in a few years and will reconsider then.

Anyways, the saturation and warmth of 2" tape just sounds better as I see it and 24 tracks means it is more of a mixing workflow.

I had good results with 8 track 1/2 tape back in the day and expect reissues in that format too.

I would use even the best cassette deck as sort of a effect pedal - delay for example. IOW not as a 2 track final mix.

Re:Useless.

[jhecht]

What's good enough depends on what annoys you. I recorded 4-track 1/4 inch reel to reel tape from vinyl at 3 3/4 inches per second and it was good enough for my ears. I never noticed a significant difference at 7 1/2 inches. Reel to real took a little fiddling, and careful recording, but it held up better than vinyl, which suffered scratches and pops. Reel-to-reel requires some maintenance but is fixable. Cassettes tend to be noisier, the tapes are fragile, and the drives didn't hold up, tending to jam and eat the tapes, and I never found them fixable.

Re:Useless.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention DSD is "way oversampled", at 2.8224Mhz, which makes all the difference in the world. Sure, DSD would be way better if it was 4bit as originally planed, but at 1/2822 it still rivals the quality of 24/96 for reasons you probably wouldn't care to understand.

Re:Useless.

[Solandri]

The big innovation in tape decks was writing data at an angle instead of linearly. When you write data linearly, the only way to increase the amount of data per second is to increase the speed at which the tape moves past the read/write heads. That's why high quality tape recorders had to move the tape at high speeds like 15 inches/sec.

By angling the read/write heads slightly and spinning them, you can write magnetic data in diagonal strips on the tape. And so the relative speed of the magnetic media past the read/write heads is higher than the speed you're winding the tape, and you no longer need to pull tape past the heads at ridiculous speeds (which is the most common cause of tape breakage). This is the innovation which made VCRs possible.

Re:Useless.

[Tapewolf]

These new tape decks are 1/4 inch, which are really not made for studio recording, no matter what their looks try to portray.

It's perhaps worth pointing out that 2-track 1/4" at 15ips was the format everything was mixed to until around the mid-80s. 1/2" stereo was sometimes used, and DAT started to become more common in the 1990s, but 1/4" was what all the classic 60s and 70s albums were recorded to.

Unless the album has since been digitally remixed from the multitrack tapes, 1/4" stereo is what the CD or 24/96 digital master will have been created from.

Re:Useless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds to me like you *want* there to be a fight

Can't wait until Cylinder Phonographs come back

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I for one can't wait until unpowered cylinder phonographs come back. I even bought a gold-plated horn to ensure optimal audio fidelity.

Re:Can't wait until Cylinder Phonographs come back

[mea2214]

Cameras that use glass negatives will be the rage one day.

Re:Can't wait until Cylinder Phonographs come back

[4wdloop]

Yea, and a good kerosene lamp or whale oil one to go with it. I wish the cave ceiling wasn't leaking....

Re:Can't wait until Cylinder Phonographs come back

[Plumpaquatsch]

I wish the cave ceiling wasn't leaking....

The stala[gm|ct]ites are free interior decorations.

Re:Can't wait until Cylinder Phonographs come back

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, am looking forward to when cassettes come back. Real audiophiles know that music is supposed to have a constant HISSSSSSSSS and that in-and-out sound when half the spool got demagnetized. And you can't truly appreciate an album until you're untangled 20 feet of tape from the read head and wound it back up onto the reel.
   

Re:Can't wait until Cylinder Phonographs come back

[Anonymous Coward]

I even bought a gold-plated horn to ensure optimal audio fidelity.

A Monster gold-plated horn?

Reel redux

[ElitistWhiner]

IF it comes back, it will be updated with all new signal processing, technology and tape innovations.

Think grandma's Oldsmobile turbocharged, boosted and blown for the ultimate analog reel to reel.

Innovation on top of reel to reel could get interesting in a DRM world. The Supremes could be rereading some Bill of Rights more closely.

most musicians record to computer, not tape

[jsepeta]

can you feel the zeroes and ones better on tape then through your speakers? fucking lunacy.

Re:most musicians record to computer, not tape

[Anonymous Coward]

Tape is linear and record 1s better than 0s. However, round speakers reproduce round 0s better than long 1s, so the distortion cancels out...

Papa made a good investment

[DalM]

All you suckers said he was a fool. But I knew papa had made a good investment 40 years ago!
https://www.reddit.com/r/vinta...

An example of "modern vintage"

[iksrazal_br]

I realize lots of people are skeptical of tape, but things like balanced ins / outs and control voltage (pre-midi, Moog and analog equipment uses it still) was not even twinkle in someone's eyes on cassette tape decks when the digital age started.

In short for this example, digital delay doesn't sound as good. It sounds too perfect. Binson tape delays were used by Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin a lot but cassette decks opens new possibilities. CV can actually control wow and flutter for cool effects. This space case TE-1 deck with all the bells and whistles is around $1000.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc...

Re:An example of "modern vintage"

[chispito]

In short for this example, digital delay doesn't sound as good. It sounds too perfect.

Can't it be modeled?

Re:An example of "modern vintage"

[iksrazal_br]

In short for this example, digital delay doesn't sound as good. It sounds too perfect.

Can't it be modeled?

They've been trying digital modeling for 35 years and while the ADC has improved it still is like a sex doll vs a real girlfriend. Its close, but if they had 85% bananas some people would prefer the real thing.

The way I see it, the warmth of tape, transformers and transistors is something people will try to program for centuries and will be pretty much at the same place they started in the 80's.

More seriously, analog is forever. If you buy an analog eq, compressor or synth its pretty much the same design as the 60's (LA2A) or Moog Model D reissue (70's) . You do usually get MIDI and lower noise as a plus. The sound is all that matters. Upgrades is for digital, analog not so much.

SMT has actually brought the analog clones and reissues to be cheaper than the software emulation - the Pultec EQ reissue is now cheaper than the software plugins.

Re:An example of "modern vintage"

[Anonymous Coward]

Analog is forever, but the components are not, especially for anything produced nowadays.

Re:An example of "modern vintage"

[HornWumpus]

You'll never reproduce the 'warmth' of rotating ferro-oxide covered platters.

Not hard drives, Hammond Organs, with spinning leslie speakers.

Re:An example of "modern vintage"

[Scroatzilla]

You can (and people do) digitally reproduce analog gear pretty much perfectly. Professional music engineers even concede this. However, analog gear will never reproduce digital. Its audio domain is limited by its very nature.

Re:An example of "modern vintage"

[Anonymous Coward]

Warmth is a concept that is masturbated to but is in fact a complete load of fucking shit.

Re:An example of "modern vintage"

[HornWumpus]

I didn't think I needed an explicit /sarc

No reason for it to come back

[drinkypoo]

Just ordinary cassette tapes will come back long before 8 track, because 8-track is too fiddly. It would have been cool if Quad-8 had taken off for automotive use, though, since most cars actually have four speakers and that would have implied that we'd get quad discrete inputs on our stereo head units.

Re:No reason for it to come back

[Mike Van Pelt]

But who doesn't miss the wonderful transformative power of the 8-Track to make piano sound like bagpipes?

Backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

The later reel to reel decks by Pioneer could play in both directions so you didn't have to rewind. The fancier decks had a bit of metal you could put on the tape and, once it hit the end of the tape, it would play backwards automatically (or auto-rewind.)

Ballfinger? Seriously??

[Viol8]

Either these guys have a mischievous sense of humour or something got lost in translation from German!

A Few

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a few all-analog labels around. A few audiophile labels - Chesky, Sheffield Lab, and Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab have all-analog mastering chains. Jack White's Third Man Records does direct-to-disc, where they record straight to a vinyl master disc live, as well as regular analog tape.

Did someone say Reel to Reel?

[ReneR]

Recently made two videos w/ my farther's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... However, I do not seeing them coming back, though I never liked vinyl as a child, I understand today, that at least you can buy them, and even had rondom access, and can play them in 20 years - on reel-to-reel you need to first record, you can usually not "just buy" prerecorded, and then you do not even get random access, nor can play them in 20 years with high end quality, due to play-thru and such of the magnetic tape by just storing it, ... and the type may even disintegrate / smear, ...

LOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Re:LOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. It's just FUN. We evolved to manipulate objects, that's why we have five fingers. If we evolved to mash screens we'd have one big finger on each hand.

Of all the bygone tech, tape is my least favorite.

[TigerPlish]

I have vacuum tube hi-fi stuff, in storage.

I have a very nice Thorens turntable.. in storage, along with about 12 linear feet of LPs.

I have fountain pens, wind-up watches. THe watches see use weekly. The pens, not so much. Quick notes are better served by pencil, imo. I used fountain throughout the late 70's well into the 90's, when writing was replaced by computer writing.

I enjoy all that old tech tremendously and may return the tube stuff to service .... when I get around to fixing the power amp.

But there is no force on this earth that will get me back to tape. It was the most compromised, asinine, fragile format whose only saving grace was the ability to make my own mixtapes... the second I got into MP3 tape was over. First with a Diamond Rio, then an iRiver, and then just whatever phone I have on me.

Anyone remember seemingly miles of tapes strung from a random fence? Or a deck eating a tape? Or having to reset the azimuth because all your tapes sound like dreck?

I had cassette and reel to reel, and the second I got good results with MP3 all the tape machines I had hit ebay. Even the built-like-a-tank geek-gorgeous Pioneer RT707, and that thing was the source of much hypnosis, staring at the reels and meters while the music poured out of the speakers. Don't miss it.

  I do miss the turntable, I need to get that back in operation. One day. Not a priority right now.

Yes and no

[Anonymous Coward]

The saturation is a bug, not an advantage. You can get the same effect digitally, but nobody does/want it, most want a good reproduction of the original signal, so that what they give in is what they get back out. Distortion from analogue signal and sampling are not what I would call an advantage. Of course if you want them there is almost certainly a professional filter to just reproduce ad hoc the same from the perfect digital signal.

Re: Yes and no

[Anonymous Coward]

False.

Source: 20 years in the industry.

Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a TEAC X-3 and a Pioneer RT-909, both dead because of electromechanical problems, and the Pioneer needs new heads.

I wonder how difficult it would be to manufacture tape heads again? It wasn't trivial engineering to get the performance we got out of these things before they became obsolete.

Even though we like to think Star Trek is just around the corner, things are much more complex than they appear to be at first glance.

Re:Good thing

[Tapewolf]

I wonder how difficult it would be to manufacture tape heads again? It wasn't trivial engineering to get the performance we got out of these things before they became obsolete.

There are people who still make them, largely as aftermarket support for studio recorders. JRF Magnetics for one, and I think there's a place in Japan though I forget the name. Besides, cassette decks are still in limited production, and mag stripe readers use similar technology, so it's not like it's entirely lost.

Re:Good thing

[HornWumpus]

Both Matsushita. Not worth fixing, even if any real to real was.

The MTD mowers of consumer electronics.

Re:Good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, I think I'll take my advice from someone who can spell "reel to reel", thanks.

Re:Good thing

[HornWumpus]

Go for it. Don't stop there, get an 8 track. I hear 'Realistic' is the best brand that all audiophiles use.

If tapes, why not MiniDisc...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about MiniDisc ?
Surely that can be 'in vogue' again... i hope so...

Re:If tapes, why not MiniDisc...

[acoustix]

I remember reading reviews where cassette tapes with Dolby S noise reduction was beating MiniDisc in overall sound quality.

Re:If tapes, why not MiniDisc...

[Anonymous Coward]

cassette tapes with Dolby S noise reduction
 
Yeah but how many times can you really listen to "She Blinded Me With Science"?

Do people just hate fun?

[jythie]

Just the other day I was looking at used Regina Music Boxes and companies that were even producing new disks for them, and got to listen to one in person as part of a historical demo. Sometimes it isn't about something being technically superior, but fun and interesting to operate. I know people who still do things like wet plate photography even though it has been outdated for a century or more, or who work on older cars, or even smith their own tools. For that matter, I know people who actually have a horse and buggy and enjoy the hell out of riding in it. I am always amazed at how touchy technophiles can be if people fail to be into the latest and greatest of whatever they obsess over.

Re:Do people just hate fun?

[Alypius]

I think for that kind of person, the joy is in the fiddly-bits. I like tinkering with electronics, so I have a tube headphone amp and a restored Pioneer receiver. The fact that I can do stuff with it after I'm done fiddling is gravy. And there is *always* more fiddling to be done!

Millennials?

[TJHook3r]

Who the hell is buying all this retro stuff? I love the tactile nature of physical media but you know what I love even more? Space! My collection has gone digital and I have a streaming account. That is an entire wall I have reclaimed. Millennials can't even afford houses so where do they plan to keep record players and tape decks?

Re:Millennials?

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Agreed. I have two 128TB media server mirrors at different sites. All the media (lossless albums, movies, etc.) that I'll ever need, in a large ATX case.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid millennials...

Stop wasting your money on stupid shit like this and buy a fucking house.

Re:WHY?

[x0]

They are fragile, awkward to use, degrade easily, are bulky, hold little content....

Lots of negatives there, butch... But show me *one* digital source device with any of the sex appeal of a Nakamichi Dragon... m

Re:WHY?

[sjbe]

Lots of negatives there, butch...

Yep and every one of them well deserved.

But show me *one* digital source device with any of the sex appeal of a Nakamichi Dragon..

If you think that has sex appeal you badly need to get laid so you can learn what the term actually means. That's the sort of device douchebags buy to impress other douchebags.

Re:WHY?

[x0]

Wow, you used 'douchebags' iteratively. Can I subscribe to your newsletter? Your post is just an asshole's rendition of: Stop liking what I don't like, or I'll really post mean words!

m

Re:WHY?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

show me *one* digital source device with any of the sex appeal of a Nakamichi Dragon...

You've apparently confused "sex appeal" with "being nerd-shunned by women".

Re:WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the lowly cassette tape is regaining popularity as some millennials embrace analog music over digital downloads and streaming services.

Translation: "Some millennials" = "Hipster douche bags"

Casette tapes SUCK. They need to die a permanent and gruesome death in a fire. I grew up with them so I should know. Anyone using one is just trying to gain social points by using retro tech. There is certainly no audio advantage to them. They are fragile, awkward to use, degrade easily, are bulky, hold little content.... The list of their failings is almost endless.

I agree with you. Vinyl, I can get behind in a sense. Cassette tapes however are just trash. At this point for me it's either FLAC (digital), Blu-ray Audio, CD, or Vinyl. Anything else is almost for sure a waste of time (DVD-A and SACD still exist but I'll take Blu-ray over the other two if I can get it).

Re:WHY?

[jetkust]

Physics are still cool, that's why. Storing and playing analog music on a tape or a flat piece of vinyl is like magic, especially if you are growing up in an all digital world and missed that whole part. Plus they are really just collectible items. And it's really no different than any of the other millions of collectible things people buy all the time.

Re:WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong answer.

This is the correct answer.

Re:Why?

[q_e_t]

They can't afford houses. They are making shelters out of vinyl,

You analog lovers are nuts

[Plumpaquatsch]

The "warm noise" of vinyl is bad enough, but the magnetic echos that not only follow but precede the sounds that create them on magnetic tape are nerve wrecking.

Re:You analog lovers are nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

"are nerve wrecking."

Your spelling is nerve racking.

Retarded nostalgia

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously.

I can understand nostalgia for old games and the like.

But records and magnetic tape?

It just seems like a manufactured fad.

WHY?

[sjbe]

Even the lowly cassette tape is regaining popularity as some millennials embrace analog music over digital downloads and streaming services.

Translation: "Some millennials" = "Hipster douche bags"

Casette tapes SUCK. They need to die a permanent and gruesome death in a fire. I grew up with them so I should know. Anyone using one is just trying to gain social points by using retro tech. There is certainly no audio advantage to them. They are fragile, awkward to use, degrade easily, are bulky, hold little content.... The list of their failings is almost endless.

No

[sjbe]

Are there many(any) studios that record primarily, in analog?

No because that would be a stupid and expensive thing to do.

Do many of them have analog components to them...ie tube amps, pre-amps, tape....etc?

No because that would be a stupid and expensive thing to do.

Wouldn't it really only sound the best on analog home play, if the source was also at least mostly recorded using analog technology?

The idea that analog sounds better is a myth. It's the sort of bullshit audiophiles tell themselves to justify spending outrageous amounts of money to pretend they can get "better" sound and impress their friends. It's the sort of bullshit hipsters spout to gain social points pretending they know something the rest of us don't.

Pffftt

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I'm bypassing all you techno-dweebs by converting all my music back to wax cylinders, the way god and Edison intended.

You haven't heard anything until you've experienced Lady GaGa's "Born This Way" in the original 15rpm 5 kilohertz mono version.

Re:Pffftt

[Anonymous Coward]

Be sure to convert from the original uncompressed file (FLAC/WAV/CD), or you might suffer severe loss of quality.
Personally I converted my collection from 256kb AAC to wax, and I can definitely hear some deterioration!

A blast (or bzzzt) from the past

[k6mfw]

I have various cassettes of audio recordings from 1970s that I recorded police calls on a tunable VHF receiver. I remember those days when you hear every 11 seconds you can hear "bbbzzzzttt" from the Mt Umunhum (Alameden AF station) air defense radar (huge powerful, the signal strong enough a non-radio stereo system will pick it up). Though not sure how good the tapes are after all these years but some of the police calls may be historical interest (procedural as years before MDT).

Hipsters, buy a clue..

[h8sg8s]

I got rid of my Revox A77 (arguably one of the best prosumer decks ever) circa 1990 as parts were no longer available and CDs had notably better sound. Hipsters looking to the analog past may be everywhere these days but that doesn't make them well informed or conscious of the technological improvements that took us to the present state of audio devices. I'll take WAV, AIFF, FLAC - or even lossy formats like MP3 - any day over incessant hiss and analog recording artifacts any day.

Direct drive capstan?

[Anonymous Coward]

The add says 3 direct drive motors.

Drive motors have torque ripple as the poles go by.
For the reels, this is fine.
For the capstan, a belt and flywheel seems nice to have around to filter out the resulting wow and flutter.

Strange that they would say that direct drive is a 'feature' there.
Alternatively, this makes perfect sense if this is just BS.

Reel to reel? Pfhhttt

[LynnwoodRooster]

I want t

o have so

me 8 trac

k goodness!

Tascam Fostex

[Walter White]

I've always wanted a Tascam Fostex ever since I first heard the name. I have no idea what it is and I think those words don't mean what I think they mean, but it just sounded so cool... ;)

Google tells me they are two different devices. I'll never own one. :(

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Pre-Made reels

[sheph]

Please tell me this means that I'll be able to get pre-made reels, or blank tapes at a reasonable price. What a time to be alive!

Wish we would see more in opposite direction, SACD

[Eravnrekaree]

I find the idea of the interest in vinyl and tape to be curious. Some people prefer the imperfections that it offers, in the same way there can be nostgalgia listening to music on AM radio. Digital is by far superior, offering the best reproduction. There is no way that analog can come close, to digital, with all of its error correcting Reed-Solomon coding and perfect copies and playback.

I am more into the Super Audio CD to allegedly offer more detail than you will be able to hear, rather than to invest in lossy artifact ridden formats. The proliferation of Mp3 and all of its lossy compression was a step back from the CD in sound quality.

If I buy the $24,000 tape machine...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I buy the $10,000 ethernet audio cable. And then I swear I saw some $46,661 headphone on Amazon, do I burn them in with my custom 10 hour white noise album?

I wish I had a dollar

[Anonymous Coward]

for every fucked up fallacious analogy and half-baked smack down I have read on this site. Tall cotton.

Vinyl forever!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because how else can you do infinite loops at the end?

Now get off my lawn!

Great Article

[youngone]

It's no secret that sales of vinyl music are at the highest in decades. Even the lowly cassette tape...

Oh, OK, it's about hipster idiots

a German company is reviving what may be the ultimate format: a new reel-to-reel tape machine...

WTF? Why?

...is now making a comeback with audiophiles and artists including Lady Gaga..

Oh, hipsters and people who hate music then.

...will retail from about 9,500 euros...

Ha ha ha! Oh, hipsters who hate music and have too much money.

"When it comes to audio quality, nothing else in the analog world gets you closer to the experience of being right there in the recording studio than reel-to-reel tape."

It just gets better. I'm in favour of people like this taking money off idiots. I am wondering how the idiots got all that money in the first place though.
Probably rich parents.

Can people can really tell the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you set up a digital and a vinyl and a reel-to-reel, to all sound as much alike as possible, would it be easy for most people to tell the difference?