DAT Compact Cassette Discontinued Cassette Recorders Other Formats Reel to Reel Mini Disc Microphones Vintage formats Vintage Open Reels Noise Reduction Systems Manufacturers links Distributors Defunct Audio Companies Record Labels Jargon Dictionary About Audiotools.com Record Players - Tonearms Discontinued Turntables Pickups - Discontinued Arms 78 Rpm. - Phono Preamps Discontinued Pickups SACD - Compact Disc Valve Audio - Headphones Loudspeaker Drivers Cables and Connectors Tape Retailers USA & Canada Andol Audio Arcal Compass Express Junk55 NOS tapes, not recommended, but may be usable for vintage machines Kelly Industries Musicans Friend Pro Tape Tape Complex TapeTape Tape Works Texas The Tape Company World Class Tapes Recorded Media Supply UK SVS Media Dreamhire Switzerland Dr.W.A.Günther (Switzerland) Claim to have the entire Emtec/BASF range in stock Music Produktiv Musix Germany Heinz Bluthard Dabelstein + Lubos Musicans Gear Nagra Germany Thorman Wittner Kinotechnik XXX Berlin Pro Audio Spain Alfasoni Delta-Pro IberAlp Russia ISPA S-Pro Systems X Russian France Audio Plus Slovakia Media Tech See pricelist Japan Paradise Records Denmark Interstage Per Meisterup Belgium 3.14 Ukraine MIK R2R Rentals David Denny Consulting R2R Hardware Retailers BSW Sells Tascam & Otari decks along with splicing gear etc. Sweetwater Sounds Sells Tascam recorders Used R2R sales Eastern Electronics (UK) Uk supplier with a range of r2r's for sale Jack Berg Occasionally has used R2R's for sale Don Larking (UK) Usually has multitracks and 2 tracks in stock Play it again Sam Sells used rell to reels Sonic Circus (USA) Usually has multitracks in stock AudioVillage Usually has a lot of used machines for sale. BigDMC Brodcast specialist, usually has broadcast R2R's in stock. Séne & Son Sell uses studio equipment including R2R's AudioShopper.com IntoIt Audio Vintage Electronics This retailer has a nice range of old recorders, perhaps a bit pricy. KIK (Denmark) Look further down their page and you will find that they usually have a few old recorders in stock Electrofix (UK) Usually have a few pro and multitracks in stock Sundry info According to this page you cannot import used Reel to Reel machines into Indonesia without a business or an industrial license..... Service Centers UK Brian Reeves (Revox) Courthouse (Ampex) Formerly Arny's Shack, Arny is mad about all things Ampex Tim Owen Eastern Electronics (Revox) Audio Centre (Sony R2R) Sverige Starec France Studio Décibel (Revox). Holland jdB Audio Studio Service. USA ATR Service (Ampex) Sprague Magnetics Suntronics (Multitracks) Joe Stumpf Discussion Boards & Mailing lists Here go all Discussion boards, mailing lists on related stuff that are not strictly trading posts. Reel to reel mailing list One of the most active forum for open reel fans, but note that the average user is using a 30 year old 4 track, so if you are looking for a discussion of studio quality recorders this is not the place Tape Recorders forum at Justcollectors.com Replacements heads Note that most manufacturers of replacement heads will relap heads that they do not usually make replacement parts for. JFR Magnetics Saki Magnetics No longer supply heads, contact JFR here above for info on SAKI heads. Sprague Magnetics Supply replacement heads for Ampex with better than OEM spec. Flux Magnetics Supply heads for Studer and Ampex, will relap other brands International Electro-Magnetics Manufacture a large range of head and will relap or even custom build what they do not have in stock Tape recorder alignment Lyrec TG-511 Alignment unit Magnetic Reference Laboratory Loads of info + Calibration tapes. Emtec Makes a lot of really good alignment tapes but limited info on their hompage, take a look at this dealers page instead J. Vermillion's article on TR alignment Analog Tape Recorder Alignment Basics of Tape recorder alignement Modifications ATR (Ampex) Courthouse (Ampex) Formerly Arnys Shack, all things ampex Technical Info Basics of analogue tape recorders Recording Tutorial. Nagra EQ Information Information on the nonstandard improved Eq. availeble on Nagra-Kudelski recorders at 15 ips. Tape rewinding speeds Odd page this, it lists the rewind speed of the most common reel to reels. Tape info Tape Preservation Tips 3M Tape Info Technical information on the now defunct 3M line of recording tape. Spares Athan Supply spares such as pinch rollers etcfor most types of studio recorders. Chemicals & demagnetisers Last Make preservants & cleaning solutions. Labels/Markers NB Services (US) Please send any factual corrections, dead links, information and/or links that you feel that should be on this page to the page maintainer but please note that I do not have an Internet access at the moment so there may be some time before I can answer.

Reel to Reel recorders have a long history, originally invented in Germany in the 1920's, the format used today is a development of the tape format conceived by German companies Telefunken and BASF in 1934. Although most R2R recorders are analogue there exist digital recorders as well, electromechanically the only difference between the digital recorders and the analogue ones lies in the heads, ordinary tape heads are fine sandwiches of magnets but the heads on digital recorders are usually lithographed. The processing electronics are very different between those 2 types obviously.

All speed references are slowly being converted into the DIN standard, for reference for our American readers the equivalents are : 2,38cm = 15/16ips, 4,75cm = 1 7/8ips, 9,5cm = 3 3/4ips, 19cm = 7 1/2ips, 38cm = 15ips etc..

Denon
Makes the broadcast oriented DN-3602RG but only appears to market it in Asia, more info here, this is the only currently manufactured recorder that comes with 76cm capability as standard rather than an option, it also supports 9,5 - 19 and 38 cm speeds.

J. P. Gurtner (Stellavox Analogue)
This company sells (and apparently makes) the TD-9 modular analogue recorder and the SP-9 portable recorders. Both recorders feature replaceable headblocks giving you a choice of mono or stereo operation, in addition the TD-9 can use a variety of tape widths and even record onto the magnetic stripes of film, in addition to a head spinning variety of synchronisation options.

Lyrec
Makes the TR55-MM 1/2" recorder in both 2 and 4 track versions, the 4 tracks is available in both side by side and interlaced version (the side by side variant is useful for making duplication masters).

Otari
Otari makes the MTR-90III 24 channel 2" recorder, the MTR-15 mastering recorder that can be delivered in 1/4" or 1/2" versions, both DIN and NAB and in stereo, 2 track or 4 track versions. It's a very versatile devise that comes with 30, 15, 7.5 and 3.75 ips speeds as standard and is fully automatically aligned. The good old 5050 is still available in version BIII, it's a 1/4" version and so is the MX-55. Otari also manufactures a top of the line broadcast 30 ips 1/4" called the BTR-10J, it's a standalone recorder with modularised electronics that sports a host of unusual features such as eq options for 4x speed, mono/stereo switching etc.. They also make a specialised version of the MTR-15 for high speed reproduction called the MTR-15DAS 2/4, and info on that machine can be had on the DAS homepage .

Polyconcept USA
Makes the Reel Media Centre, I am not entirely sure if this is Mod-tro or Nostaklígja but I am biased towards the latter. This is basically a music system styled as a hybrid between a 40's tabletop radio and an upright tape recorder, along with the usual CD/radio/built in speakers the unit has an open reel recorder based around Compact Cassette technology, in other words a 4 track 1/8" tape running at 4,75 cm. Apart from looks and the fact that it is considerably cheaper than a Nagra S the only advantage I can see of this device is the fact that the reels contain 4 times as much tape as a C90 cassette and thus can record up to 6 hours on one tape.

Sony
Sony makes 2 DASH multitrack recorders, the 24 track PCM3324S and the 48 track PCM3348HR.

Studer
Manufactures the A807 analogue 1/4" 2 track, A827 analogue 2" 24 track recorder and the DASH format D827 MKII MCH 24/48 track digital recorder.

TEAC
They still make a 4 models of 1/4" 2 and 4 tracks, the BR 20/BR 20T, the Model 32 2T and the Model 34B 4T, however the Tascam site is constantly being changed so we cannot find the product pages but this technical specification page has info on the models and you can download info packs on the BR20 and Model 34B in PDF format. An alternative source of technical info on the web is the homepage of Sweetwater Sounds, they have info on the BR 20T, the 32, the 34B and on the 8 channel 1/2" TSR-8 multitrack recorder, but I am fairly certain it's no longer being manufactured despite what it say's on the page.

Uher
As the German homepage for the company does not even mention those and has not done so since it was first put up, I was under the impression that the line of open reel recorders had been discontinued years ago, but not only are they still making them they have recently added updated models! The 4000 line of recorders are relatively small (285mm x 100mm x 235mm), portable open reel recorders geared toward reporters and location sound recording and are available in 3 main versions, first is the 4000 Report Monitor a 2 track mono recorder with a sync track (but no sync electronics) and the 4200 and 4400 Report Monitor are stereo 2 and 4 track variants. The 6000 Universal is a mono 2 track with time code capabilities (a poor mans Nagra, so to speak). All of the models are 1/4", 4 speed (2,4cm, 4,75cm, 9,5cm and 19cm. the 4200 and 4400 may be ordered in a 38cm version, the 6000 series goes from 4,75cm to 38cm), have a built in monitoring loudspeaker, feature 3 heads, and can be powered from mains power, alkaline batteries or rechargeables.

You should be careful when choosing recording tape, machines may need to be aligned to a specific tape to get the most out of it. Most, if not all machines made in the last 20 years are aligned with Emtec tape in mind. Older machines will also need a bias and head voltage adjustments to work with modern tape, although most suppliers also sell the older variety (ask for non EE or normal tape) but unless you have a big collection of older tapes that you play regularly, I recommend changing the bias since the sound quality improves quite a bit.

Maxell
The company makes the XLI for mastering applications and the UD tape for consumer applications, sadly the company announced recently that they will stop manufacturing r2r tape in the near future but it's still being distributed in europe at the least when last checked in December 2003, more info and technical specifications to be found here.

Sony
Sony Media makes 1/4" tapes in the form of D1/4 14xx and 1/2" tapes in the form of D1/2xxxx series.

Please note that all specifications that are quoted are from the manufacturers literature, some of these may be a bit optimistic and on the other hand with the advances in tape technology mean that some may actually be a bit conservative with modern tape formulations

Akai Electric Co.
Stephen Bender holds out a great Akai site that lists and has pictures on most models of Akai open reel recorders that were produced.

Ampex
You can visit the Ampex virtual museum, under construction nb.

Brenell
Made the Mini-8 (aka Type 19), it is an 8 track on 1" tape recorder introduced in the mid 70's and manufactured into the mid 80's, although smaller than studio 8 track recorders the "Mini" part of the name is something of a misnomer not only is it bigger and much heavier than competing recorders from companies such as Otari not to mention Teac and Fostex but it also has a somewhat klunky outboard power supply as well. Good sound though, especially for the time and in the UK were it originated, inexpensive enough to interest people that would otherwise buy a Tascam 8 track.

Crown International
Made recorders from the late 50's into the late 70's that were at the time popular with audiophiles in the US, in particular the SX-722 2 track, but advances in recording technology were not followed through by the company and the bottom fell through their market. Interestingly the company had a modular semi pro line of recorders such as the CX844 1/4", it could be bought as a 2 or 4 track and updated from 2 to 4 tracks and to overdubbing by adding the Track-Sync module, this recorder was also one of the first logic controlled tape recorders and had a fairly impressive technical specification for ar 1/4", or 20Hz to 15KHz and 55dB S/N and 0,18WRMS @3,75ips, 20Hz to 25KHz and 60dB S/N and 0,09WRMS @7,5ips, 40Hz to 30KHz and 60dB S/N and 0,5WRMS @15ips, crosstalk was given as 50dB (Single frecuency).

DUAL
The Dual Classics hompage has info on the TG-12A reel to reel but the company had other machines such as the TG-27.

Fostex
The company was founded by ex-TEAC engineers in the early 80's with the intention to make more affordable versions of the recorders that Teac was supplying to the home recording market, they archived this originally by using cheaper mechanisms with only a 7" reel capacity and by cramming 8 tracks onto a 1/4", and they quickly followed with a even more revolutionary 16 track 1/2" model that was a huge success with the smaller studios. While electronically these recorders were excellent designs and the mechanical engineering was fairly good the industrial design was not up to scratch on some of their models, to save on production costs some PCB's were not fastened down with screws but relied on loose plastic fasteners, extremely irritating if you wanted to move your R8 around and could make gigs "interesting".

Kenwood
People tend to forget that this company made some interesting recorders including the quadraphonic KW-6044, a 3 head deck that with a little bit of love and care can be quite nice, this model was a popular mod donor for broke musicians in the late 70's and early 80's since only minor changes were needed for 4 track sound on sound capability.

Mark Levinson
Info on the stunning 2" ML-5 2 track that used a modified Studer 2" multitrack mechanism for recording stereo.

MCI
A series of professional machines called JH-110 was introduced in 1975, most units are 2 track 1/4" and 38 and 76cm only, but other wariants exists i.e. 1/2" etc. The "budget" 8 track on 1" JH-110/8 recorder was introduced in late 1977 but did not ship in any numbers unthil 1978, a bit late and never sold in any great amounts, production stopped in 1984 for all models in the series, this company has some spares for this model and others in the series. Some of the last few models sold under the Sony brand.

Mitshubishi
In responce to Sony's DASH based professional digital open reel recorders the Mitsubishi Pro Audio group came out with digital recorders that used an encoding format called Pro-Digi, it combined the advantages of digital with some of the user friendliness of the analogue format, for instance unlike the Sony machines the X series machines allow you to edit the tape by cut and splice (there was also an electronic editor available). The first 2 track in the series was the 1/4" X-80 and you can read a evaluation of it here, in late 1986 they replaced it with the improved X-86. It was available in 3 versions, the main version offered 44,1 and 48 KHz sampling , 4 subtracks including 2 for cue, 1 for timecode and one for low quality audio. SMTPE read write and generation along with a parallel and serial interfaces and sync to most video standards out of the box. The variant versions were the X-86LT that sampled at only 22 KHz but gave you a 4 hour recording time instead and the X-86HS that gave you 96KHz sampling rate but less than an hour of recording time, it should be noted that the digital output on this machine is only capable of 48 kHz so you cannot fully utilise the higher sampling rate with an external converter. At the time the sound quality of the machines was considered better than of other 2 track digital recorders on the market but by todays standard the converters on them sound a tad dated. There was also a line of multitracks, more info on them later.

Radio Shack
Here is info on the Tandy TR-3000 open reel, this may have been sold as Realistic or Radio Shack in the US and is actually a rather nice 3 head Teac in disguise.

SABA
While this company mostly made 4 track models for the consumer market they were exceptionally good, and in fact models like the 600 were so reliable that they were often chosen for data logging applications in preference to professional machines (that model is also very sexy BTW). Their later recorders such as the TG-424 and TG-664 were not as good mechanically and like so many models on the German market came with a built in amp and external speakers both of a somewhat dubious quality.

Soundcraft/Saturn
The Soundcraft company made a series of 2 track and multitrack recorders in the early 80's these were interesting designs at fairly keen prices that proved popular with English studios, in 1988 the manufacture of multitrack recorders was spun off from the company into a new one called Saturn, they made a line of recorders based on the earlier Soundcraft models that had a lot of innovative features like auto alignment and were some of the best recorders that have been made but the market was by then really keen on digital and the company went bust in 1992. There is an English company that specialises in repairing and servicing those recorders they have some info on their site including a setup and alignment manual for the 381 and 760 models.

Sony
Here is info on the TC-645, but Sony owners should note that Vintage Electronics in the US sells a booklet that teaches how to refurbish old TC series recorders. (the booklet info is near the bottom of the page).

Studer & Revox
The Willi Studer company in Switzerland began to manufacture tape recorders in the late 1940's under the Dynavox trademark, in the early 50's the line was split up and the professional models were thereafter called Studer and the consumer models were named Revox but the lines retained a certain commonitaly of parts (and sometimes models, some models were Revox if low speed and Studer if high speed, also after the split of studer/revox all open reel recorders were named Studer). The history of modern open reels from the Studer company starts with the introduction of the Revox A77 in 1967 and the Studer A80 in 1970, both machines started a small revolution in their respective fields, the A77 was available in a variety of versions and was the first consumer machine to offer sound quality and operational reliability that approached those of professional studio machines, at the least the high speed variants of it, the relative affordability of the machine along with sound on sound capability etc. meant that it was the starting point of many a small studio (remember that multichannel machines did not become standard in even pro studios until the 1970's). The Studer A80 however ushered in the era of modern modular high end recorders and was available in a variety of versions from 4 track 1/8" for cassette duplication QC purposes to 24 channel 2" machines intended for high end studio's. The machine became a studio standard overnight although the high cost of the machine meant that initially 16 and 8 track machines were more popular than full blown 24 track machines. It Was replaced by the A800 in 1978, although a development of the A80 concept it had a lot of innovations including microprocessor control etc. but still featured basically the same transport for all tape sizes, the upgraded A810 was introduced in the early 80's and the A820 in 1985.

revox.net has loads of info on old Revoxes but the site is in German nb., audioreview.com has a retro-review of the A77. There is a brilliant German site called Reeltoreel.de that has Revox info. In the UK Brian Reeves handles servicing of old Revoxes and sales of spare parts, there is also some info on his site. There are some A-77 repair tips published at Sonically pure. This Swiss site has a lot of info, all in German. Eastern electronics has the B77 specs up. Peters Studer-Revox Page has info but mostly pictures of old recorders. There does also exist a mailing list dedicated to Studer recorders, please note that the list is for Studer discussions only, no Revox even though they shared parts and sometimes models. Another mailing list is dedicated to Studer & Revox products in general.

Tandberg
The hompage of the Norwegian Radio Club has an almost complete list of Tandberg decks, both vintage and recent. The comany made an updated version of the grand old TD-20A right into 2000, some dealers in Norway bought up that last production run and may sill have a machine or 2 for sale as NOS, some of the refuse to sell them outside of Norway though. For original parts follow the above link for the official parts supplier and for compatible parts and USA service info visit this page at Soundsmith.

TEAC
Apart from being Akai Electric Co.'s main competitor in the stereo open reel market along with Sony for the most part of the 60's and 70's this company is also responsible for single handily started the home studio revolution in the mid 70's. When a manager in the USA side of the company requested a simulsync version of one of their quadraphonic recorders for his personal use, the result was good enough for the company to start making them commercially and when a bigger than anticipated market appeared it was quickly followed with 8 track 1/2" recorders and in the early 80's with a 16 track 1" and a more conventional 24 track. Here is info on the 4 channel 34-B. The MSR-16 was Tascam's answer to the 16 tracks from Fostex, introduced in the early 90's it featured a DBX and varispeed but was more expensive than the competition and did not do well in the market. There is a basic tutorial on the use of the MS-16 to be found here.

Technics
The Unofficial Thechnics homepage has more info on their older models but I have been unable to find a page that deals with decks from this company that were branded National or Panasonic.

Tesla
This Czechoslovakian company made some quite good tape recorders from the 50's into the 80's. These sold very well in Germany due to a keen price and late models can often been seen there for sale and were also the most common brand to be seen in the DDR. The models that might be most interesting to a modern user are the B113 was the predecessor to the 115 and had quite similar specs, the B115 was a 1/4" 4 track recorder with a built in amp (2x 10W at 4 ohm) and supported speeds of 9,5 and 19 cm and had reasonable technical specifications or 40Hz to 16KHz at 9,5cm and 40Hz to 18KHz at 19cm, you could also get a remote control for that model, this type was made well into the 80's. B116 was the same model as the 115 except that there was no built in amp. Slightly earlier modles were the B730 and the CM 130 that shared similar specs. All these recorders can nota bene work with both 115/60Hz and 230/50Hz voltages and oddly enough have English markings despite never having been sold in a English speaking country in any numbers.

VEB
East-German manufacturer of studio recorders, all the models that I have seen were standalone models looked quite impressive but were mono and had a max speed of 19 cm. I did a bit more research and found that they were intended for use in radio stations, and most of the Eastern European ones only required mono but stereo versions exist.

Sundry Models
You should take a look at Peter O'Neill's Audio Recording Page, it's a fascinating page with information on Australian makers of recording equipment from the late 40's upto more recent studio equipment. Some of those Aussie makers such as Plessey, Byer and Rola Australia did find their way to Europe. Open Reel Forever has info on many 70's & 80's recorders. This impressive German site called TonbandWelt is very good and very thorough and has some information in English and French, especially good if you are looking for info on Uher recorders.