It’s the time of year for saving money!
If you read my articles over at HomeTheaterReview.com, you might be hip to the crazy concept called The Bel Air Circuit. If not, it’s basically a somewhat hush-hush club that gives some of the richest and most connected people in the world access to first run movies in their home on a day-and-date basis. Yes, these lucky few (I think there are a little over 500 people in the club now), mostly in return for investing in movies, get the key code and/or hard drive for a new, first run movie in 4K, complete with all of the theater-quality, object-based surround sound to watch from say a Friday through a Sunday night. These people don’t have home theaters like you and I do, by the way; they have actual movie theaters in their homes, complete with projection rooms, fully vented $100,000 4K Christie or Barco projectors, and whatnot. I will warn you that, much like flying in a private jet the first time, you will never be the same after experiencing The Bel Air Circuit experience. It is the ultimate in home theater, luxury, and convenience, and unless you hit Powerball and decide to invest in movies (I’ve tried it and I highly recommend against it), you likely aren’t getting into this exclusive little club–no matter how cool it is.
But what if there was a similar club for Audiophiles? A way to get analog master tape right into your life?
I just heard about a clandestine, loosely associated crew that has been quietly operating on a global basis with significant ties to the recording industry. The name-less club deals in quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape copies of very significant music, and has been around since the launch of the Compact Disc in 1983. The idea was to make backup, one-off copies of meaningful music and preserve them while also enjoying what is a damn-close-to-the-master-tape copy of an album. By design, copying said tapes can be tricky, if not a downright pain in the ass. Hell, getting access to high quality blank tape isn’t easy anymore. The reel-to-reel tape decks themselves aren’t easy to find, and require a certain amount of care and long-term maintenance that is found more in a recording studio than in an audiophile’s rig. If you wanted to make a copy, by definition you are getting farther and farther away from the analog master tape, thus a deterrent in the basic nature of the club. Logistics also suggest that you need two reel-to-reel machines to make a copy, thus raising the barrier to entry.
It is very unclear how to get invited into the exclusive audiophile club. I saw my friend at CES (yes, I went for the day for a project not related to HomeTheaterReview.com and had a little time to see the barely-there displays on the 29th floor of The Venetian Hotel) and he taught me about this new world of audio goodness. My buddy was playing quarter-inch reel-to-reel tapes in a pretty trick Classé Audio and Magico rig, and I was compelled.
I’ve seen other audiophiles playing tapes of truly fantastic albums on reel-to-reel at shows, only to learn when I asked how said tapes were acquired that the guy made a dub from a Compact Disc. That’s not what we are talking about here. These reel-to-reel tapes are basically a “safety copy” of the real deal master tape. And they sound good. Really good. And while this audio is analog, it is not vinyl. It sounds much, much better. With reel-to-reel master tape, you don’t suffer from highly limited dynamic range. You don’t have crackles, pops, and general overall distortion that you get from vinyl or cassette. What you do hear is an incredibly clean, spacious, detailed sound. While listening to The Final Cut by Pink Floyd, I could hear the detail of the reverb being used in ways that can get lost in all but the best digital rigs. It was audiophile crack glowing in the glass pipe and whispering in your ear to take a puff.
Can you get into the club? Doubtful. I don’t know what you need to bring to the table, but it seems to be an invite-only type of thing. I saw partial copies of records like Steely Dan’s Aja, The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Blue Rondo à la Turk, Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens, and more. The albums don’t even really fit onto one reel, so my buddy–for safety (and space) concerns–only brought half of most of the albums. One listener asked if my friend could cue up a specific part of the Pink Floyd record. No buddy. That takes too long. Tape is clunky, awkward, and fragile. Once it is carefully spooled up, you are best to sit down and listen. If you want to jump around, shuffle songs, and whatnot, then break out your phone.
The cost of said club? It ain’t cheap, let me tell you. A copy of a good record–if you get the chance to buy it–can be over $400 per copy. While that might seem insane, when you consider it the super high-octane fuel for your audiophile race car that isn’t available anywhere else, it isn’t that expensive. I mean, how much is that next preamp upgrade that you want? More or less than $400? My buddy says there is a “drug deal like effect” to the whole experience. I want to believe that there is a list these albums on reel-to-reel on the dark web and that you can only by them in crypto currency. Like black tar heroin, only slightly less addictive.
Would you join such an exclusive audiophile club if you had the chance? Would you bring a big, clunky-ass (but super cool looking) reel-to-reel right into your audiophile system? Would you pop for $400 for yet another copy of Aja if it was the best you’ve ever heard? (By the way: the original CD mix of Aja is widely considered the best over the SACD and other esoteric offerings, but come on–you’ve bought all of those crazy imports, haven’t you?) Chime in via the comment section below.
$400 is a lot of money for one album. However, when you stop and think about it, it really isn’t that bad for what you would get. If this is the absolute best quality recording, I bet it is running at 15 inches per second (or should be). That equates to a lot of tape for an album, likely two reels for most. Add to this, the copy has to be made in real time and time = money. Lastly, this product is finite. Each time you run the original tape you are shortening its life and there will come a point when the original is damaged due to normal wear or mechanical failure. So, when you add up the cost of materials and the time it takes to produce a copy, if you are truly getting the best the album ever sounded, it’s really not too outrageous. Owning a suitable, well-maintained player and the system to realize the quality of the recording is another story.
Jerry we have the “We oppose MQA fraternity aka The Fraternity. Does audio really need another group? Especially when the membership requirements become less restrictive and it becomes the largest audio group in the world.
Hunh?
Jerry, Grateful Dead fans have been trading tapes since the sixties. Trading tapes is no big deal.
Right now The Fraternity is a little smaller than the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society because membership is restricted those actively opposing MQA. In the future it will be open to all those who saw through MQA. There are many other issues of mutual interest to us.
I would be ****very, very**** surprised that they are playing the actual, original master tape that came from the studio in the making of these tapes. Those older masters are fragile, and literally irreplaceable, and I would doubt very seriously that any sane recording company would allow these masters to be repeatedly played over and over in order to make duplicates for the masses (even considering they cost $400).
Consider, its a huge costly deal to allow these original master tapes to be played even a couple times when these titles are remastered for vinyl or digital. The thought that the masters are being played dozens of times for these tapes is beyond believable.
More likely, the original master is played once in order to make an analog copy, and THAT copy is used for duplicating purposes. That would make the copy you buy a 3rd generation copy.
Of course, it would make more sense if the master was played to make a digital copy for duplication purposes, but then the company wouldn’t be able to say “made from an original master”, meaning the copy they made of the original tape is their “master”.
Heck, many vinyl reissues these days (probably most) are sourced from a digital copy of the original master tape, or straight digital from original digital studio masters.
As much as I love the reel to reel tape medium, I have to call BS on the almost mystical qualities some people seem have about its sound quality. While its better than vinyl in some ways, a direct-to-disc laquer or a really good pressing can have a better dynamic range than tape. Also, the distortion tape produces is almost entirely odd order harmonics; the 3rd, 5th etc. This is just the nature of magnetic recording. Vinyl produces predominantly 2nd harmonic distortion, with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th in descending levels. This type of distortion signature is almost identical to that of a single ended triode amplifier. If you have to have distortion (and you do with both these mediums, and their overall distortion levels are almost identical at 0.6% at operating levels), then tape, with its harsher odd-order distortion is not going to sound as good as vinyl.
You can look at a spectrum analysis of tape verses vinyl here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FoPWw0pe_5L6rZk8qBSa0rLDQtDv8fOz/view?usp=sharing
I’ve been a recording engineer for decades…..
BTW, raw tape stock is still being made by two companies, and you can order it online in any length and width you wish; adjusting for inflation, it costs about the same as it did back in the day.
Direct to disk done right is really, really nice but studio tape is damned good and, aside from being able to have tweaked the performances at least can be duplicated in kind. I agree, these are not at all likely to be direct copies of the masters, but copies from the backups of the original downmix. They would generate a number of them in parallel without going through the Dolby decode/encode for production facilities like one I worked at back then.
Way back in the late 60’s and ’70s when I worked in the industry, for a while I worked for a major tape duplication facility I was lucky enough to get hold of a few Dolby A master backups of what are now classic albums (I was responsible for setting up the production masters for 8 track (yes) and cassette product which involved such niceties as reordering the media to fit neatly (time wise) on the product. Since I owned (and still have it packed away in the basement in it’s original carton) a 15 ips half track Revox A77 and I HAD a Dolby A encoder/decoder that I got from a defunct studio (by the time it died, in the ’80s I wasn’t using it anymore anyway, since those tapes were only very rarely played), so I never replaced it). But the music of the era and the top-of-the-line quality, mixed with some interesting pharmacology of the era made for some ‘mind blowing’ times.
Maybe it is time to pull some of the media I have and do some review – if it is still clean maybe I’ll hunt down a decoder – the Infinity columns and the old Bryston amp could use some exercise.
Is one of those companies RMG? And, if so, who is the other one? Too bad Maxell doesn’t still make RTR tape. I always felt it was the best. Also, those tape club members own uber-expensive, re-engineered tape decks either from Tascam, Technics, or Revox. Would love to get me hands on one of them! I own a 2-track Revox B-77 which I use in my home “voice-over” studio, paired with a DBX 224x Noise Reduction unit.
Having a recording studio myself the specs on a good tape machine are better than any vinyl I’ve ever seen the SNR and the dynamic range as well as the frequency response and channel separation on reel to reel is simply better. I wasn’t able to open your link, I’m always open to another viewpoint. RTA I use for the live system tend to confirm my experiance Even a consumer Teac reel to reel at 7 1/2 is 30-28k with a SNR of 58 db,and 50 db channel separation, better decks are up in the 70’s SNR or more especially at 15 ips. Vinyl though theroretically can reach close to 70 DB generally are arounfd 55 SNR, 20 ish channel separation, Even my lowy Sony cassette recorder, because of all the work put into them when they were most popular, will get into the 70’s SNR and 30-18K.response. I have a small audio museum and what surprises people the most is the despised 8 track tape. At the end of their time the consumer pioneer recorders with dolby would record at 30-15K at 45db SNR. But consider they were essentially a tape machine running at 3 3/4 IPS. Given most peoples hearing range usually tops out at 14k that is perfectly acceptable. I pulled all the machines out to the studio and mixed a song direct to each format for comparision. All machines are perfectly maintained and most people can’t tell the difference. Granted most people can identify the CD but after that it’s all over the place and an entertaining excersise as many people have never heard properly working equipment played back on the same decent sound system side by side. And that leaves out formats like DAT and ADAT’s but they are more like CD’s although in the case of the later ADATS, 24 bit/48K so 16 times better… As far as the masters, I agree, no way you’re getting a master copy. The best you can hope for is a 24/48k copy of the real master and your copy made form that. The only studio master copies we’ll ever hear are the ones we’ver made ourselves.
There’s another factor to be considered. If the master was Dolby A or SR encoded (and most, if not all post mid-60s analog masters were), a decoded copy isn’t capable of the same dynamic range that the master was.
And if the copy is encoded, the appropriate decoding hardware needs to be sourced and integrated into the playback system.
I have Revox made tapes…. but with age, print-through is an issue.
I am one of the owners from J-Corder Luxury Audio. We make custom reel to reel including the sparkly purple model featured in this article. We attended the CES show at the Venetian this year and have exhibited there in the past. I can confirm that open faced reel is here to stay. We have been building beautiful tape decks for the public at large for over a decade now.
I suspect the exclusive club referred to is the Tape Project, which came out with some first generation high quality tapes a few years back. You had to pay a large membership fee then you were provided access to buy the tapes for about $400 each. They delivered a short list of limited titles and for a while were the only game in town for high quality pre-recorded tape. They are stilling selling on-line today.
Now that open reels have become so popular, there are a number of great resources for good tape. They start at around $150 for a decent pre-record or $70 for a blank master tape. Many of our customers make their own tapes using J-Corder tape decks and either digital or turntable sources. Recording from a CD to tape is very very popular and produces a surprisingly warm and wonderful sound.
That said, this is not an inexpensive hobby. If you are an audiophile who seeks a natural enveloping sound and like to tinker with your gear, open faced reel is for you. Tape decks touch multiple senses with their hypnotic movement offering a unique entertainment experience. Plan on spending about $10k for a good quality entry level tape deck and upwards of $50k for one with all of the bells and whistles. Totally worth it if you love analog!
To Kim Anderson: Are your tape machines built from scratch or “re-engineered” models from Tascam, Revox, etc? And do they record as well as play back? A year or two ago I read somewhere that Revox was going to make a new recorder. Have you heard that rumor?
I have a Crown SX 724 reel to reel tape recorder which I bought in the early 70’s. It still runs but needs fixing to the take up motor. If anybody is interested in buying this from me, I’d let it go for a very reasonable price. My audio now is mostly vinyl. I have a very good turntable, cartridge and other components. I have a few prerecorded tapes I would give to the purchaser of my recorder. 1. Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, Berlin Phil, Karagan – conductor 2. Stravinsky, Complete Firebird, Song of the Nightingale, Pulcinella Suite, Ansermet – conductor 3. Bartok, Miraculous Mandarin Suite, Music for Strings, Perc. & Celeste, Solti – conductor 4. Bartok Concerto No. 1 and Rhapsody for Piano & Orch, Geza Andy, piano, Fricsay – conductor.
The shipping will be fairly expensive, it’s very heavy. I would deliver to Seattle or Spokane area.
If you snobby pretend “audiophiles” really want to be taken seriously, please use the accurate name for these tape decks. They are open reel machines. Remember please that a compact cassette is also a reel to reel system.
Perhaps snobby pretend critics should just take a chill pill or two…and we have some very accurate names for this type of audiophile…unprintable, naturally…
Majors like EMI, Decca, RCA were incredibly strict on copies of masters being made by anybody even for the artists who in most cases got test discs to approve as these were cut to sound well on middle of the road turntables (pop and rock) and even classical had their frequency ranges cut at the bottom frequencies (grooves would be too widely spaced) and top (inherent problems with the cutting lathes). Fear of piracy was the main reason for this strict policy and who could blame them as tapes were in many cases highly valuable.
So I am too very skeptical about claims that these 15 ips are “masters”. In the best of cases they may be taken from a 15 ips copy from the copy master (not the original master) and sent to a foreign country under a licencing agreement for local pressing if metal parts were not sent from the licencor. But most may, I suspect, derive from CD’s and commercial 7 1/2 ips reels. My suspicions are two fold. Look where most of these so-called master reels emanate from – Moldovia, Russian Federation, Poland and the second is that the 3 majors (Universal, Warner and Sony/CBS) won’t entertain making copies of their masters as it is not worth their while. My information on much of this came from my uncle (long since passed away) who was the International licencing manager for Decca (London) records so it is probably pretty accurate. He also told me that it was completely untrue that Decca (UK) pressings sounded better than London (USA) ones as they were pressed from the same vinyl from the same metal parts on the same presses at Morden in South London. In fact if anything they should sound better as they were pressed on the best presses manned by the best operators in the middle of the day when the machines were running at optimum smoothness. Why? Because the USA accounted for the largest % of Decca (London) sales and they shipped the lp’s in inner sleeves from the UK to the USA and so any returns was an expensive waste of time. Also if you are a successful business you look after your major customer with the best possible product. there is a lot of rubbish talked by people who have a vested interest (financial and egotistical) so be very careful. “Ockham’s razor” (look him up on Wikipedia) applies to our hobby as much as anyone else’s, the simplest explanation is usual the right one!
P.S. If you want a superb reel tape deck (secondhand/used of course) then try and get hold of a Bang & Olufsen 2000 Deluxe (or 1800) which has both 2 and 4 track play back functions (make sure as later models did away with the 2 track playback head). It does only take up to 7″ reels but was superbly engineered and designed (beautiful Scandinavian 1960’s design) in Denmark using in many case superior German heads and other parts. It is certainly the equal of the Revox and nearly as good as the much later Technics Rs 1500/1700. As an additional piece of information Nick Drake used one at home to record his first versions of tracks. Also Ballfinger of Dusseldorf in Germany are currently making reel decks ($30,000+) if you fancy a brand spanking new one!
I would love a reel to reel club.
Mike
New Jersey
FOUND BRAND NEW 1963 CORVETTE IN BARN!!!
We’ve all heard those stories. And yes, sometimes they are absolutely true. Reel to Reel is making a serious comeback for the Elite Audiophiles, that appreciate the warmth and quality and being second in line only to the Master tape. Well let me tell ya. I’ve got hundreds of 11” reels. Each with 24 cuts.
I owned the oldest independent radio station in America till ten years ago. KGEZ 600 AM Kalispell, Montana. On air since 1929. Lots of changes in the music industry since then.
During the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s it was all LP’s, 45’s or Reel to Reel. Reel to Reel worked great for a top 40 radio station. Commercial vendors, would supply the top songs of the day in four song segments, take break start again. All timed for programing and most followed the 3 minute rule. Each reel is approximately 60 minutes +/-. And contains 24 songs of various artist of the day. The songs range from Sinatra to Zepplin and everything in between you can imagine.
These were purchased from “ Broadcast Professionals.”
Most are unopened and still in original shipping box, wrapped in plastic with play lists. I have hundreds. Of course many were in service, but if you know anything about the radio days of the 60’s, the DJ’s handled them like babies as it was their livelihood.
It was the complete library and playlist of the station. Of course the industry went digital and these gals got moved to the basement in storage. When I sold the station, I relocated and placed into storage in a cool dry dark moisture free warehouse. No excessive heat ever.
Looking to sell the whole collection at once. I suppose retailers could by them and sell them on EBay one at a time with tremendous mark up.
So. There still are 1963 Corvettes in Barnes out there, if know where to look and act on it, instead of would of’s and could of’s.
Contact me by e-mail
stokes@z600.com
Look forward to hearing from you,
John Stokes