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

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.

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?

[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?

[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/

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.

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.

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.

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: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.