Source: Press Release, Last Accessed: 2016/02/03

Austria-based Horch House announced the initiation of PROJECT R2R: the development of the world’s only brand new reel-to-reel tape deck. Launched in 2012, the Horch House brand has already developed an impressive reputation for capturing the magic of original analogue master tapes and delivering faithful (and fully licensed and approved) copies on reel-to-reel tape, vinyl records and in various digital formats. Now, the company is also turning its attention to bringing the once essential reel-to-reel deck from its current vintage status back to center stage - where it belongs. According to the press release, the company will be working closely with some of the industry’s foremost experts to deliver the most accomplished outcome possible.
The aim? “To achieve the best sound quality, bar none,” says Horch House’s joint owner and project leader, Volker Lange, whose excitement about the project is palpable. “My passion for audiophile tape machines goes way, way back,” he explains. “This will be the realization of a lifelong ambition. And it’s an absolute hon our and privilege to be working with a team of this caliber”. In fact the team is already hard at work and hopes to be in a position to show a prototype of the new deck at Munich’s High-End Show his coming May.
Reel-to-reel tape recorders and players have been around for a long time, with the earliest models emerging in the late 1800s. Their popularity surged in the 1940s and 1950s, when the process of manufacturing magnetic tape was more or less perfected; from then until fairly recently in the history of audio recording, they were the music industry standard for making master recordings. From the 1950s until as late as the early 1980s, reel-to-reel tape decks were a big part, if not the centerpiece, of most home entertainment setups. But then the 1980s saw a rapid advancement in portable tape recording and playing, as well the advent of digital recording and playback, and so the reel-to-reel deck became a vintage item, much like the humble vinyl record.
Fast forward to 2016 and there is currently no company in the world that manufactures reel-to- reel decks, whether consumer or studio machines. Meanwhile, the resale market of vintage machines is seeing strong and steady growth. Why? Quite simply because the sound quality is as good as it gets. Better than vinyl and far better than anything that digital technology can produce, Horch says. Keep an eye on their site over the coming months, where the Horch House team will be sharing some of PROJECT R2R’s latest news and developments.

For more information: http://www.horchhouse.eu/

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