Hi DSC (btw we use our real names here),
Glad to see another lurker dive into the swamp!
Regarding GP9, I've seen some selling on eBay from time to time but aside from the usual chances that you take when purchasing anything there, GP9 as well as all of the back coated tapes that Quantegy made has a good chance of developing binder hydrolysis better know as sticky shed syndrome. As a matter of fact, here's a quote from Paul Stubblebine from a while back.
"In my experience, Quantegy NEVER fixed their sticky shed problem. Even in their last year of production I was baking--for myself and for customers--reels of 499 and GP9 that were less than six months old."
It would be one thing if there were no alternatives to this tape but there are two high output tapes that are in current production,.. RMGI 900 and ATR Magnetics tape. Both can be had here;
http://usrecordingmedia-store.stores.yahoo.net/You may of course, find some GP9 for less money, but if only 20% were to become unplayable,.. well, you get the idea.
On top of that, these two remaining manufacturers of very high quality recording tape have really stuck out their necks to keep the worlds tape machines rolling (can you imagine going to a bank and asking for a half mil or so to make magnetic tape?). I think we should support these guys or before long, we'll all have to buy tape on eBay.
If you're unfamiliar with Sticky Shed, there is a short discussion of it in the "Beginners Guide" located in a sticky above the General Forum. The discussion starts in Reply #23.
