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The reel-to-reel world has seen two huge announcement in the second quarter of 2016 that will immensely impact the format's future. First, the stunning announcement by Chad Kassem that Acoustic Sounds will begin releasing music on 15 ips reel-to-reel tape. So now it's one stop shopping at Acoustics Sounds: LPs, digital, d/l hi-rez digital and DSD and now reel-to-reel tape. Second and just this week, Horch House/Volker Lange and Revox announced at the Munich Audio Hi-Fi Show a joint partnership to manufacture the first new reel-to-reel tape machine that the world has seen in over two decades. Yet people -- and especially some old tapeheads -- seem to always see the half empty rather than the half full glass of water.
Let's look at the bright, non old fart, cynical, glass half full glass of wine. Consumers will with the new Horch House/Revox machine have a new, warrantied, sexy looking, upgradeable deck for a reasonable investment. Without doubt, that will provide a huge boost to the burgeoning tape movement. Who knows! Maybe some other companies might even get back into the reel-to-reel machine market.
Not only that, things can only be looking up with 23 companies and now a huge software retailer like Acoustic Sounds now releasing reel-to-reel tapes. No one but no one has access to the huge world wide music catalog like Chad and Acoustic Sounds. That will certainly attract the attention of many more audiophiles looking for the best possible sound from their system not to mention even the record labels. Now the record labels might not release recordings in the R2R format but at least they might be more open to making their master tapes available for release. Plus there are quite a few new companies doing brand new recordings and these developments will give the tape renaissance more legs.
So it will be interesting to see how the rest of this year plays out in the reel-to-reel world as well as the final finished Horch House/Revox machine early in 2017.
Let's look at the bright, non old fart, cynical, glass half full glass of wine. Consumers will with the new Horch House/Revox machine have a new, warrantied, sexy looking, upgradeable deck for a reasonable investment. Without doubt, that will provide a huge boost to the burgeoning tape movement. Who knows! Maybe some other companies might even get back into the reel-to-reel machine market.
Not only that, things can only be looking up with 23 companies and now a huge software retailer like Acoustic Sounds now releasing reel-to-reel tapes. No one but no one has access to the huge world wide music catalog like Chad and Acoustic Sounds. That will certainly attract the attention of many more audiophiles looking for the best possible sound from their system not to mention even the record labels. Now the record labels might not release recordings in the R2R format but at least they might be more open to making their master tapes available for release. Plus there are quite a few new companies doing brand new recordings and these developments will give the tape renaissance more legs.
So it will be interesting to see how the rest of this year plays out in the reel-to-reel world as well as the final finished Horch House/Revox machine early in 2017.