Why Not Bring Back Analog, Reel to Reel Tape

This might be a bit OT, but keeping tape alive has been an interest of mine for a very long time.

Tape can shed its oxide after a few years. However, this is easily stopped for extended times by baking the tape in an oven at 150 degrees for about 45 minutes. This will not harm the recording.

I've seen a lot of studio tapes start shedding after a few years of storage. I had also noticed that the cassettes I play in my car seem to hold up fine- some are 25 years old! I usually store the cassettes indoors normally. Then I realized that on trips, the tapes stay in the car, where it can get quite warm in the sun! It was counter-intuitive at first- but the heat of the car is what has been keeping those cassettes alive all these years.

I thought I might share this, as tape shedding can be a common problem. I mentioned this in another thread: if you keep the tape in a plastic bag, put a little silica-gel packet in there with it to absorb humidity- its the moisture that leads to oxide shedding.

Sorry to disagree but the Jacqui Naylor is not that bad. The better the system, the better the sound of all the tapes including the Naylor. It's a very nice studio recording with all that this statement brings. A new preamplifier in the system has brought this tape to be far better than ever imagined.

We must not have heard the same tape, Myles :-)

Try it against the CD sometime. We did that at United Home Audio. Dave

BTW I have a subscription to the Tape Project and have compared some of the tapes to the LP's, it is no contest the tapes win hands down.

I have to politely disagree with Myles on two accounts:

First, as a TP subscriber and one who has compared the Naylor tape to the cd many times, there is no contest. The cd wipes the floor with the tape---in my opinion. It was so bad in favor of the cd in fact; that I thought my tape was DEFECTIVE. Upon sending it back to the TP folks, they proclaimed that it WAS DEFECTIVE, and sent me another dupe. The second dupe may have been marginally better (I later found out it was NO better), but the cd STILL wiped the floor with it! Now, that is just MY opinion. My friend who is a recording engineer (with several commercial releases to his credit) heard the cd and the tape side by side with me---and he liked the TAPE more!! He said he understood the sound they were "going for" on the tape version (overly warm, full bodied, super tube like, and intimate) as compared to the cd which is clearer, cleaner, and more open and more dynamic sounding. And that comparison was done on a system approaching one-half million dollars as a sidebar. So, as they say----different strokes for different folks!! But I'm with Dave and the guy from United Audio on that Naylor release. Way too muted and dull for my tastes.

Second, I disagree that you need to be at 15ips on open reel to get sound that beats a high quality turntable. I have close to 300 commercial open reel tapes at 7.5ips----mostly 2 and 4 track MLP's, LS's, Blue Notes, Verves, and a nice group of rock and roll (Beatles, Doors, Moody Blues, Zeppelin, Who, etc.). Many of these releases on 7.5ips tape simply DESTROY their LP counterparts. It doesn't happen every time, no, but man when it DOES you know you have come across something very special!