Fewer than one in a million have access to high-value legacy analog master tapes.
We build specialized hardware for those that do.
Imagine listening to irreplaceable original master tapes played back in unrivaled fidelity on state-of-the-art equipment engineered to protect those tapes from wear and damage.
To learn more about our professional reproducers, contact our Sales Engineering department and request the list of free ATAE technical papers.
Frequently asked questions:
What’s a reproducer?
Reproducer is the historic name for any apparatus that plays back or reproduces recorded sound. (A tape recorder having playback capability is known as a recorder-reproducer.)
Why build tape machines that don’t record?
There are two important reasons why reproducers have no recording function:
1. To prevent damage to recorded tapes
2. To obtain the highest audio quality in playback
What would damage a tape recording?
A recorder’s ability to erase and over-write disqualifies its use for the playback of irreplaceable master tapes. It’s equally unwise to needlessly pull high-value tape recordings over erase and record heads (and/or fixed-pin lifters) as this causes unnecessary tape wear and could inflict permanent tape damage.
What makes a reproducer the highest quality platform for playback?
The audible benefits originate mainly from improved time-base stability, including reduced high-band flutter. Additionally, far better speed, tension, guidance and azimuth control can be realized with a reproducer incorporating a single-head tape transport architecture.
We have a white paper discussing the technical and audible benefits of the ATAE Model One and Model Two professional-grade reproducers.
Single-head? I need multiple playback heads to accommodate different formats.
The only correct way to meet this need is by having interchangeable headblocks. Mounting multiple playback (read) heads in the same headblock is misguided, as it destroys most benefits of a reproducer.
ATAE reproducers use our own developed, quick-change, high-precision, ultra-low-flutter SHRO headblocks. Our machine bases include a headblock storage drawer.
What is SHRO?
SHRO is Single-Head Read-Only, a headblock architecture found on any reproducer designed for delivering both highest audio quality and lowest tape wear.
Did ATAE invent SHRO?
No, we simply were the first to give it that name twenty-five years ago.
Who invented the reproducer?
All we know is that by the late 1960s, several of the world’s leading manufacturers of professional audio recorders had independently discovered that playback on any two or three-head recorder-reproducer would be inherently compromised and that highest quality playback could only be realized on a single-head platform.
If reproducers are the superior platform for tape playback, why aren’t they popular?
In the 1950s though the 1980s (the analog recording era), people didn’t want them. At that time, over ninety-five percent of professional recorder-reproducers were sold into the broadcast and motion picture industries. Those primary market users found the playback quality of the better machines acceptable and thus saw a separate dedicated playback platform unnecessary. This lack of demand led manufacturers to abandon efforts to develop professional-grade, stand-alone reproducers. (Music recording studios accounted for less than five percent of the market.)
An exception was for the tape-based broadcast program automation systems of the 1960s and 1970s, where thousands of lower-cost reproducers were manufactured specifically for that application.
Misconceptions supporting purported benefits of using a recorder-reproducer for playback have circulated for decades and are still heard today. (See our paper: Common beliefs about analog tape playback that are untrue.)
How could playing back a master tape on the same machine that originally recorded it be less than perfect?
It might seem intuitive that playback on the same machine that originally recorded a tape would be ideal, but this notion is far from correct. Analog recording and playback are independent yet inter-related processes fraught with a variety of amplitude and time domain distortions that compound. It follows that optimum playback should add no (or only minimal) further distortions.
What’s desired then is a reproducer having amplitude and time domain error contributions that are lower by an order of magnitude than those of the machine that originally made the recording. Using the original recorder for playback could instead nearly double the distortions.
Absent playback on a state-of-the-art ultra-low-distortion reproducer, you can never know the true recording quality of the tape you’re listening to.
Isn’t analog magnetic recording obsolete?
The technology might be obsolete, but the recordings made with it are not.
Why are ATAE reproducers based on Studer A80 and A820 tape transport mechanisms?
Studer was practically alone among manufacturers to conceive and build tape machines incorporating costly precision guidance, all-rolling element straight-line bypass spooling and servo constant tension. Today these features are recognized as extremely important to the responsible conservation and preservation of high-value heritage master tapes.
We believe that re-purposing these beautifully designed and constructed Studer-built machines is both respectful and responsible.
Why is the transport mechanism a separate component in your reproducers?
This is the logical way they were built when tape recorders intended for professional use were first conceived. It was only after the important broadcast customers asked for their tape recorders to be re-packaged into smaller, “all-in-one” enclosures for roll-away stand-mounting or placement on table-tops that we saw electronic circuitry being buried inside the transport mechanisms. As knowledgeable service personnel will attest, this was never a good idea.
Another factor is that Studer recommended A80 transport mechanical re-conditioning no later than every ten years. (We have a technical paper that explains why.) Separating the transport makes it vastly easier and more economical to ship to us for a ten-year reconditioning.
Many A80s are over fifty years old and some 820s are now forty. Today almost none of them will meet their original specifications for time base accuracy (flutter) which is what audibly distinguished them from their competition when new. A transport re-conditioning addresses this.
Due to the sophistication and high precision of A80 and 820 transport mechanisms and the requirements for special training and tools, transport re-conditioning should only be trusted to a recognized specialist.
Why are ATAE reproducers so expensive?
Our reproducers are intended for use in sound recordings archives holding high-value collections where uncompromised, state-of-the-art playback is demanded. Accordingly, they are built to industrial-grade standards. Over 520 man-hours are required to build an ATAE Model One or Model Two. The pricing reflects the high cost of that skilled labor, as well as our insistence on using only the highest-quality components, many of which we manufacture (or re-manufacture) in-house. Additionally, we source hundreds of new parts from Europe, or have them manufactured for us here in California.
What is done in your re-manufacturing of the old Studer transports?
We begin by completely dismantling, cleaning, inspecting and then expertly rebuilding and updating many heritage Studer components removed from core machines that we purchase world-wide.
An example is our in-house capstan motor re-manufacturing, where Studer’s original sintered-bronze bearing designs (which are no longer supportable) are converted to high-precision ball-bearing, for guaranteed serviceability far into the future.
Also noteworthy are the superb Studer transport foundation castings, which after cleaning and expert visual inspection are dimensionally checked on a CMM before being accepted for assembly.
Completed ATAE re-manufactured tape transport assemblies are then Manquen flutter-tested in our lab to confirm that they exceed the excellent time-base stability specifications of the Studer-built originals.
Finally, we assemble the new reproducers into all-new, high-grade furniture, including rack-mounted enclosures for the logically-grouped ATAE-built electronic modules, a design improvement insuring that ATAE machines remain easily serviceable into the future.
Will ATAE re-condition my Studer A80 or A820 recorder?
Since 2011 we’ve been limiting outside service work in order to concentrate on manufacturing our reproducers. However if you have an A80, A800, 816, 820 or 827 recorder-reproducer needing factory-level reconditioning you’re welcome to contact us.
Why do you say that playing back a legacy master tape on a studio tape recorder is irresponsible?
Most surviving original master tapes are experiencing chemical degradations rendering them increasingly fragile. The conservation of these tapes should be a foremost consideration.
First do no harm! In 1987, after observing under microscopy the damage to a calendered oxide layer that occurs when tapes are pulled over fixed-pin lifters, fixed guides, or multiple heads, we began warning against the use of tape machines having those construction details. This caution also applies to Mylar-based tapes that have been thermally-treated or “baked.”
But doesn’t everyone use vintage studio recorders for playback?
It could appear so, but we must hope they aren’t working with irreplaceable legacy master tapes. It’s irresponsible to play these tapes on vintage studio tape machines.
Weren’t all the important master tapes long ago transferred to digital?
Domain transfer for CD re-issues began as early as 1982, but there’s never been agreement that those transfers were performed optimally. A great many clearly deserve to be re-visited.
Today in 2025 the labels are again ordering retrieval of heritage master tapes, this time to produce new collector re-issues on vinyl. This work is once again putting fragile, irreplaceable tapes in danger from improper handling. Hence the urgent need for promoting more thoughtful, more responsible conservation of the surviving master tapes.
ATAE builds the Model One and Model Two reproducers because we believe the world needs state-of-the-art, ultra-low distortion analog magnetic audio tape playback systems that are engineered from the ground up to protect irreplaceable heritage master tapes while also letting those tapes be heard in their highest fidelity for the first time.
If you work professionally with high-value analog master tapes, you should talk to us. We’re located in Northern California.
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