General Category > Prerecorded Tapes

the 2 track era

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steveidosound:
Anybody ever research  the year and label issue of the first 2 track stereo pre-recorded tapes and also what were the last ones to be issued before 4 track took over completely in, I would guess, the early 60s?

docb:
Staggered or in-line?

("What do you mean? An African or European swallow?")

ironbut:
Hi Steve,

The earliest commercial tapes I have listed in my catalogs is 1956. I'm not sure about stereo but the 1958 Harrison Tape Guide (winter) has more stereo tapes listed than mono (single and dual track).
I believe that the Harrison Guides started in 1957 and were up to 6 issues a year by '58 and oddly enough, the Winter 1958 catalog is 58 pages long. 27 pages of it is stereo listing.
Regarding the staggered/in line heads question, many companies who produced staggered head stereo tapes (like Livingston), continued to do so even after they began to release "in line" 2 tracks (at least for a while). This kind of blurs that cut off date.

There was a discussion of commercial tape releases on the ARSC list about a year back (IIRC). I don't there was a solid answer on exactly who and when the first tape releases made it to the public but the darts kept hitting 1956 (although we guessed there might have been some "special releases" which weren't sold to the general public,.. worlds fairs/special events/speeches etc).

Regarding the last 2 track tapes that were released, I heard of some folks calling themselves The Tape Project that are still hangin in there.
Seriously, I'll check my catalogs and add a reply to this thread sometime in the near future (it'll give me a good excuse to clean up my scans).

MylesAstor:
Not exactly but what I remember are that R2R tape reviews came out in Stereo Review and High Fidelity about two years before stereo LPs. I think the first (Audio Fidelity) LP review was in '57.

steveidosound:

--- Quote from: MylesAstor on November 30, 2011, 10:02:12 PM ---Not exactly but what I remember are that R2R tape reviews came out in Stereo Review and High Fidelity about two years before stereo LPs. I think the first (Audio Fidelity) LP review was in '57.

--- End quote ---

Yup, about 1-2 years before the stereo Lp.

As to staggered or inline, I think staggered was first by a bit but not sure why I think I know that. Magnecord and VM had players.

 The Ampex home player was about 55 or 56 also.

I just wanted to know if anyone had any idea when RCA, Columbia etc. (or any of the smaller guys) stopped production in favor of 4 track. Did some linger till the mid 60s for example, making both?

I would call the Tape Project more of a "revival" of the format, but really it is the extension of the pro master tape into the high end "consumer" world. But I guess a stereo Ampex player was "high end" for the mid 50s !

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