I've never used Zonal and I did find one bad experience regarding this tape on a google search;
http://www.electrical.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=41942Regarding 456, it is a tape that is also no longer in production. There's still lots of it out there to be had. You can usually find this tape at bargain prices compared to RMGI but if you have a problem with it, you're on your own. Tape is unlike other media types. It can and has had entire decades of production problems. 456 is ground zero for these problems and if you happen to get some from one of these era's, the seller won't be able to tell that some thing's wrong with it and you might not for a while. I don't know how much tape you plan on using or how important
what you'll be putting on the tape is, but if you don't mind possible headaches related to buying unusable tape or some that will degrade over time, than the money you save by buying 456 might be worth it. Bear in mind, you'd have to have your machine biased to 456 just like any of the RMGI to take advantage of the headroom.
If you plan on using tape for a while and consider what you've recorded on it important (in otherwise, won't be recorded over or not needed right away) I think it's important to support the few companies who have stuck their necks out to re-introduce new production reel to reel tape. It wasn't that long ago that Quantegy was the only producer in the world. And it seemed like every couple of years, they'd announce that they were stopping production. It sent users of tape on a roller coaster until RMGI finally stepped in and started a new company based on the Agfa/Emtec formulas. If the users of reel to reel tape don't support these guys (and Mike Spitz at ATR Magnetics, the only other current producer) then we won't have a choice anymore and will have to buy questionable products from eBay and closeouts.
That's my soapbox speech for the day.
