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Welcome to the first installment of Hit Play!, a bimonthly column (at least in the beginning) dedicated to the ultimate in music and sound on 15-ips reel-to-reel tape. Why devote space to a column about an obsolete analog format? Easy. Tape is far from obsolete! To start, three companies (Analog Audio Design (France)/Metaxas (Holland)/Ballfinger (Germany)... Read More »

It's been a tad over 15 years since The Tape Project set the audiophile world atwitter with the release of their first, soon to be followed by 29 more, real time duped, high speed, 15-ips tapes. And it was love at first listen for oh-so many of us! In that intervening time, the reel-to-reel tape... Read More »

By Harold Tichenor Harold Tichenor:  a portrait. (Photograph by Matt Tichenor.) I encountered Harold Tichenor recently, while looking for a particular box set of the complete Solti Wagner Ring on Decca [recorded in 1958-1959] and issued in 1970, over at discogs.com. Since that time, we have gotten to know each other a bit, and I... Read More »

It is the story of birth of digital audio, as well as a journey through the 1970s and 1980s, the best period in the history of digital recorders, and finally the story of their unique representatives; reel-to-tape recorders from Mitsubishi. (Part 1 can be found HERE) DIGITAL SOUND RECORDING method of preserving sound in which... Read More »

It is the story of birth of digital audio, as well as a journey through the 1970s and 1980s, the best period in the history of digital recorders, and finally the story of their unique representatives—reel-to-tape recorders from MITSUBISHI Mitsubishi. (Part 2 can be found HERE) DIGITAL SOUND RECORDING – method of preserving sound in... Read More »

"Hey Danny, are you familiar with Hemiolia Records?" asked Kerry St. James, YG's formidably friendly European sales director late last year. "No," I replied. "Well, you should and I'll put you in touch with them, I know you love tape and they have some really cool stuff out that I think you'll dig." Fast forward... Read More »

How times have changed! Just a decade ago tape enthusiasts literally grabbed any title they could get their hands on just to have something, anything, to play on their machines. Many of those tapes, in retrospect, were pretty darn bad. Jump ahead a decade and there is such a glut of tapes on the market... Read More »

Prokofiev: Lt. Kije (recorded in 1957); Stravinsky: Song of the Nightingale (recorded in 1956), Fritz Reiner (conductor), Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Producer: Richard Mohr; Engineer: Lewis Layton. Acoustic Sounds/RCA Living Stereo Ultra Tape, 15-ips, 2-track, reel-to-reel tape, LSC 2150. Price: $450. Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performance of Prokofiev's Lt. Kije paired with Stravinsky's The Song... Read More »

Blank tapes:  Not usually the topic of an article in a high-end audio journal! But Greg Beron, he of United Home Audio fame, with its treasure trove of RTR tape recorders, knows whereof he speaks. He has lots of experience with tapes, and here shares a few comments about two tapes that are currently available.... Read More »

At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas I was showing my UHA tape Decks with Tom Campanga of Quintessence Loudspeakers and PBN electronics. We had a nice size room on the main floor at T.H.E. Show in the Flamingo Hotel, thanks to our late pal Richard Beers. The room just happened to be... Read More »

[By way of introduction, Greg Beron has become well known in the world of high-end tape recorders for his outstanding Phasexx series. I was extremely impressed by his Phase11S when it was here back in 2013, and used it to do some seminal test transfers of several of our reference library tapes (e.g., Opus3 Records... Read More »