Munich 2014

Not allowed to divulge the brand name but a famous Swiss company renowned for its pro audio and semi-pro reel to reel tape decks will begin again next year manufacturing a reel-to-reel tape deck! As unlikely as has been the vinyl resurgence, this news is even more unlikely, yet it is happening.

Why? Because of increased demand for reel-to-reel playback and the willingness of record labels to license titles for reissue on 15IPS 1/2 track 10" reel tape.

These tape sets are very expensive yet the demand grows. The tapes shown here are the Oscar Peterson set also reissued on a six LP set mastered from analog tape by the appropriately named AAA label in Germany. The recordings were originally produced by the well-regarded MPS label that recorded many jazz greats during the 1960s and beyond.

A spokesperson at the booth selling the sets (or at this point taking orders) said the demand has far exceeded the company's expectations and based upon it, it expects to dig deeply into the MPS catalog for future tape releases. Getting raw tape is "no problem" he told me, because someone had bought BASF's tape manufacturing equipment in the "unlikely" event what has happened might happen.