I’ve come across the closest thing to a pure play for good audiophile sound: The Tape Project. Run by Paul Stubblebine, Dan Schmalle, and Michael Romanowski. Paul and Michael both run mastering studios and Dan is well-known as “Doc Bottlehead“. Their product are reel-to-reel tapes directly recorded off of running master tapes which are recorded from the original session or mix tapes. These aren’t the mass-produced quarter-track tapes of the 1960s, but a pair of half-track 15 ips tapes on 10″ reels recorded on custom-modified Ampex ATR-100s with Tim de Paravicini tube electronics. There are currently ten released “albums”, mostly jazz and classical. These don’t come cheap - each album lists for $329, but cost $200 each (shipping not included) if bought in a subscription of six per year. A rich man’s plaything? Perhaps, but the cost is not out of line if compared to $30 to $150 audiophile LP pressings. Also, unlike some pirated master tape copies that are floating around, these are fully licensed recordings.
Some years ago I had a chance to hear first-generation copies of jazz master tapes at an audiophile’s home, being played back on an Ampex 351, and the sound quality was staggeringly good. When compared against the CDs of the same album, the CDs were dismally bad. There was an aliveness and “presence” from the master tapes that seems to get lost on even the best LP or digital recording system. Analog tape certainly has its defects and limitations, but well-done professional-quality tapes seem to capture the realism of a live performance the best.
The obvious question comes up “how do I play these things on my home system?”. Some people still have their semi-pro TEAC, Sony, Akai, or Technics tape machines left over from the 1970s or 80s. They could probably use refurbishment by now. A lot of professional tape machines have been dumped on the market over the last 15 years by radio stations and college music departments as they “went digital”. I picked up a pair of Ampex AG-440s in decent condition about 8 years ago for $400. These still usually need work - anything from a re-alignment to new heads to electronic repairs. The Tape Project has a solution, though - they offer various services and equipment ranging from a $500 alignment and tape path update to a complete package of a refurbished Technics RS1500 with custom Doc Bottlehead tube-type playback electronics for $6,500, plus nearly everything in between.
With the faltering of the two high-resolution digital formats, SACD and DVD-Audio, there isn’t much else for us hes-res fans to fall back on other than audiophile LPs. These can be excellent, but are fragile, fussy, and a really high-quality playback system can cost upwards of $10,000! I’ve been aware that the fanatics in the pro-audio community have been keeping analog tape alive, but this is the first time I’ve seen pro-quality tapes offered to the public. I’ll have to finish the rebuild of my AG-440C and try these out!
