new Revox B77 MKIII tape machine

[holdingpants01]

Revox is releasing a new tape machine Revox B77 MKIII. I never understood the appeal of tape machine outside of the studio, what was the purpose of it? To record FM radio auditions? Basic piracy? Anyway, the price is 15,950.00€ (not a typo), tape not included, but you can buy some music on tape from their music shop: https://w15h.revox.com/en/music-shop/
The bad news is albums START at 339€. The slightly better news and a really cool thing is they are selling fully refurbished and calibrated MKI and MKII models for around half the price of MKIII.

 

[holdingpants01]

There's another company making those: https://www.ballfinger.de/tape-machines
I don't know the prices but they look way more expensive

 

[EERecordist]

Good catch. There is a revival in audio niche playback of tape and tape master source material.

Neve has a tape emulator in their 5045 and there are many plugins. Tape in recording, like tubes, has compression.

 

[Palmer]

That's insane. I wonder if they kept the tooling, after all these years? For that money there is a plethora of machines out there, that can be acquired and serviced to new spec, for less than that.
I went to the factory around when they discontinued the PR99, and despite stock visibly rolling off the line they wouldn't sell me any. I was asking in increments of ten, for various interested parties, dealers all. I wish them well, though - keeps manufacturers of tape stock around hopefully.

 

[holdingpants01]

Good catch. There is a revival in audio niche playback of tape and tape master source material.

Neve has a tape emulator in their 5045 and there are many plugins. Tape in recording, like tubes, has compression.

Sure, but those tape emulators both hardware and software are available for more than 2 decades now, emulation is definitely not a new thing and there are even double vintage tape/tube emulators like PSP Vintage Warmer, which is a digital emulation of old hardware but now itself is super old. Or SPL Machine Head which was early digital but hardware tape emulator, long discontinued and now got a plugin emulation. So it's a digital emulation of a digital emulation of analog gear. New tape machines are truly "new" and a bit higher level of nostalgia than before, especially at those prices. BTW there's a difference between emulations which are used in music creation and those machines, where their usefulness is questionable as they're only stereo/2 track, they're definitely aimed at consumers

 

[Palmer]

This type of investment, I'd hunt for an Ampex ATR 102 - in 1/2 inch. All the good Masters are in private hands now, and any 1/4 inch "releases" are probably at least 2 generations down, if not more.

 

[Palmer]

There's another company making those: https://www.ballfinger.de/tape-machines
I don't know the prices but they look way more expensive

About the same, they stagger from Playback only, to Record with bells and whistles. Not sure however, how many actually made it to customers.

 

[Multicore]

Revox is releasing a new tape machine Revox B77 MKIII. I never understood the appeal of tape machine outside of the studio, what was the purpose of it? To record FM radio auditions? Basic piracy? Anyway, the price is 15,950.00€ (not a typo), tape not included, but you can buy some music on tape from their music shop: https://w15h.revox.com/en/music-shop/
The bad news is albums START at 339€. The slightly better news and a really cool thing is they are selling fully refurbished and calibrated MKI and MKII models for around half the price of MKIII.

It's a portable machine. It has a handle on top. You can take it to record all sorts of things including concerts and rehearsals. Today it seems a bit expensive and inconvenient relative to a digital recorder but you said "never" which expands the time scale a lot.

It's more decorative that a lot of hifi gear but for 16 grand I can think of a few other things I'd rather have.

 

[holdingpants01]

It's a portable machine. It has a handle on top. You can take it to record all sorts of things including concerts and rehearsals.

but it's a consumer product, a music lover wouldn't even know how to set up the whole thing, there are no microphone inputs so one would still need a lot of other equipment. From the marketing material the main angle is playing back "master" tapes which they sell directly.
There are portable professional tape recorders available more fit for the job, like Stellavox (I'm not sure if it's still manufactured, but looks like it): https://stellavox.swiss/ or Nagra in the old days

 

[Multicore]

there are no microphone inputs

what? was this always true of B77? i recall it being a very useful machine back on the 80s. Justin Currie had one and it was critical to Del Amitri's start as well as to our demo.

 

[Deleted member 77012]

Crazy machine ...

 

[holdingpants01]

what? was this always true of B77? i recall it being a very useful machine back on the 80s.

Ah there are microphone inputs, my bad, one could record their vocal on top of Madonna song straight from FM radio broadcast

 

[holdingpants01]

BTW I have a semi pro 8 track 1/2 inch tape machine, Tascam 38. When working properly (which is rare) it sound pretty good, actually too good to bother using it as a sound coloring device, therefore it's sitting somewhere unused. Also I had Studer A80 stereo machine a decade ago, but it also had this "problem", sound was basically the same as digital audio interface just with a slight hiss, properly calibrated and with enough headroom it was basically perfect, so I sold it

 

[Multicore]

Ah there are microphone inputs, my bad, one could record their vocal on top of Madonna song straight from FM radio broadcast

Yes, exactly, it's quality equipment for the content creators of that period. But not all the content was uninteresting as you suggest.

 

[Palmer]

Ah there are microphone inputs, my bad, one could record their vocal on top of Madonna song straight from FM radio broadcast

I have had A77, B77, PR99 and the pretty but not as good Technics RS1500. While the B77, and the PR99's had no phantom power, you could lug those around to location - as this enterprising lad did numerous times, and make quite good recordings. On the PR99 one could bounce tracks between two machines quite a bit, before noise floor and high frequency degradation would set in. I keep an A77 around these days, mainly for nostalgia and educational purposes.
It is an involved format, at some point they drift, and now you are buying MRL tapes, signal generator, a scope, and you need a good bit of skill to align the darn thing back to spec. Fun fact: A good tape op would align a Studer A800x 24 track recorder in about 20 minutes or less. Within reason of course, i.e. the machine being not too far out...
Time is Tape is Money is Rolling.

 

[DSJR]

I loved my high speed B77mk2 (IEC), but after the novelty wore off and I'd playted my master copies a couple of times, it sat there, the reels under the dust cover and did nothing. I did no live recording, as a pal did with his, so I sold it for £750 thirty years ago to a good friend (who's sadly passed away and his museum of mostly mint audio gear was sold by his widow). My favourite was the sometimes tetchy A700, but the B77 and A77 before it, were so popular all over, even in pro circles, it's nice to keep it going, although most of these mkIIIs will be ornaments I think. Most amateur or semi-pro live recordists will use a digital recording system now I'm sure. The large 'pro' NAB adaptors were expensive and like hens teeth for years I remember.

 

[ElJaimito]

The original was OK-ish. Perhaps I ought to get my A77 Mk 4 going, needs a few caps... but that price is more than an Otari 24 track used to cost.

 

[Deleted member 77012]

Oh man … Some 50 years ago I desperately fell in love with the father of a classmate of mine – simply because that guy had some in-fuсking-credible Technics reel-to-reel recorder standing in their living room. Will never forget that

 

[thegeton]

I don't get it.

I'm assuming that its tech specs are at least as good as this: https://www.reeltoreel.de/worldwide/B77.htm

And it's almost $16k.

 

[holdingpants01]

Found another currently manufactured machines:
https://www.analogaudiodesign.com/products starting at $27k
https://sonorusaudio.com/atr10 this one is funky as it uses Studer motors and heads but vacuum tube electronics and new mechanics, $32,500
https://metaxas.com/product-page/product-page-audio-2/product-page-audio.html ugly as hell but they make two models, one starting at 54k€ (playback only) and the other from 86k€ up
https://www.thorens.com/en/thorens®-tm-1600-en.html this one looks nice and is made with cooperation of Ballfinger, 12k€

one or two more and there will be more new R2R decks than SACD players...