Our mission is preserving heritage master tapes and uncovering their true audio fidelity.
Very few people have access to high-value analog master tapes. We build specialized playback hardware for those that do.
Two important reasons for using ATAE reproducers:
Responsible conservation - some tapes are now over seventy years old and increasingly fragile.
2. Obtaining the highest audio quality in playback.
Conservation of irreplaceable master tapes:
It's been known since the mid-1980s that tapes exhibiting oxide binder degradation or base film deterioration should not be played on a three-head studio recorder due to the increased kinetic friction creating high tape tensions with resultant destructive abrasion of the information-carrying oxide layer.
Equally damaging to vulnerable tapes are machines having fixed-pin lifters. Transports employing forced-guidance should also be avoided, as edge abrasion greatly accelerates tape deterioration.
What’s desired is a precision-guided transport having only one stationary (non-rotating) component in the tape path: the read (or play) head. The transport can then be designed to operate with much lower tensions, subjecting the tape to only minimal stresses.
Highest audio quality for playback:
Decades ago, several leading professional analog audio recorder manufacturers independently discovered that playback on any two or three-head recorder-reproducer will be inherently compromised and that highest audio quality playback can only be realized on a single-head platform.
ATAE SHRO reproducers:
The above findings drove our development of professional-grade audio tape playback systems engineered to protect legacy master tapes while letting them be heard in their true highest fidelity for the first time.
To learn more about our products contact our Sales Department using the form on this website.
Recent history on the preservation of heritage master tapes:
Thirty years ago, following a more than ten-year effort to "digitize" their entire back catalogs, the “big three” record labels, Sony, Universal and Warner, began shipping their vast collections of analog master tapes to Iron Mountain for long-term storage.
Today in 2025, on the Iron Mountain website one reads:
“We understand the fragility of older audio carriers and the risk of playback damage, which is why we use well-maintained vintage decks and carefully customized workflows to ensure safe transfer.”
Really? They’re using vintage tape decks for playback? Why?
It’s likely that Iron Mountain is only doing what the record labels ask.
For decades the labels believed that once their analog masters were transferred, the tapes would no longer be needed. No one imagined that one day the public might want new, higher-quality transfers.
Curious about analog audio tape playback?
Here are answers to twenty-four frequently asked questions:
What’s a reproducer?
“Reproducer” is the historic name for a device that plays back recorded sound. A tape recorder having playback capability is technically known as a recorder-reproducer, while a machine configured for playback only is called a reproducer.
Isn’t analog magnetic recording obsolete?
The technology might be obsolete, but the recordings that were made with it are not.
Playback only? Why build new tape machines that don’t record?
There are two important reasons why a reproducer has no recording function:
1. To prevent damage to recorded tapes (especially original master tapes!)
2. To obtain the highest audio quality in playback
How could a tape recorder damage a recording?
A recorder’s ability to erase and over-write disqualifies its use for the playback of high-value master tapes.
Further, tapes can be subjected to dangerously high tensions when played on a standard three-head studio recorder.
It’s equally ill-advised to use tape machines having fixed-pin lifters or forced-guidance anywhere in the tape path, as these cause harmful tape wear and could inflict permanent 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.
Why are ATAE reproducers based on Studer A80 and 820 tape transport mechanisms?
Studer was practically alone among manufacturers to conceive and build tape machines incorporating precision guidance, all-rolling element straight-line bypass spooling, servo-controlled capstan motors and servo-controlled constant tension. Their flagship A80 and 820 transports had all of these costly features, now recognized as essential to the conservation and preservation of heritage master tapes.
Does the tape transport affect sound quality?
Absolutely! Because recorded audio is an amplitude versus time record, a highly accurate and invariant time base is fundamental to a recording’s perceived sound quality. With analog tape the transport alone determines the time base accuracy, which will be clearly audible to any observant listener.
The role of the reproducer transport is hardly trivial, as it must pull the tape at a constant, unaccelerated speed while following a precisely defined path over the read head without wander and without introducing scrape flutter, while also closely maintaining the operator’s desired tape tension.
Who invented the reproducer?
By the late 1960s, three of the world’s leading manufacturers of professional audio recorders (3M, AEG-Telefunken and Studer) had independently discovered that playback on a two or three-head recorder-reproducer would be inherently compromised and that highest quality playback could only be realized on a single-head platform.
Single head? I need multiple playback heads to accommodate different formats.
The correct way to meet this need is by having interchangeable headblocks. Mounting multiple playback (or read) heads in the same headblock is seriously misguided, as it destroys the benefits of a SHRO reproducer.
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. Our reproducers employ our own developed quick-change, high-precision, ultra-low-flutter SHRO headblocks and our reproducer machine bases have headblock storage drawers.
Is ATAE the California company that restores Studer tape recorders?
We’re a specialist remanufacturer, repurposing old Studer A80 and 820 tape machines by remanufacturing them into new state-of-the-art reproducers.
If reproducers are a superior platform for playback, why aren’t they popular?
During the analog recording era, few people could justify the expense of owning a dedicated reproducer. They instead used their recorder-reproducers for playback, deeming the audio quality “good enough”.
Following the digital recording revolution, thousands of professional analog recorders were given away, so that anyone needing analog tape playback could find a free tape machine, nearly one-hundred percent of which were recorder-reproducers.
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 long term chemical degradations rendering them increasingly fragile. 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 using tape machines having these construction details for master tape playback. That caution also applies to Mylar-based tapes that have been thermally-treated or “baked.” First do no harm!
Doesn’t everyone use vintage studio recorders for playback?
It could appear so, but we hope they aren’t working with irreplaceable legacy master tapes. It’s hugely irresponsible to play these tapes on vintage studio tape machines.
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.
Does ATAE offer recorder-reproducers? Our archive uses them to make preservation masters.
We can build ultra-high-quality recorder-reproducers by special order. However in most recordings archives there’s almost no justification for having one, as the practice of making analog-domain preservation masters is long obsolete.
Isn’t the record function needed for measuring the flutter and for adjusting the low-frequency reproduce response of any tape machine used for playback?
No. Recording functionality is not needed to optimally align or test a reproducer. There are modern, more accurate test and alignment protocols for the items you mention.
Why is the transport mechanism a separate component in your reproducers?
The A80 and 820-based transports in our reproducers are high-precision mechanisms. Constructing them as separately-housed components is, in our view, clearly the best design approach and perfectly logical. A further argument for separating the transport is that it becomes vastly easier to ship. Not well-known is the fact that Studer recommended A80 transport mechanical re-conditioning no later than every ten years. (This is also true for the 820.) 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. Our transport re-conditioning addresses this.
The sophistication and high-precision of the A80 and 820 transport mechanisms and the requirements for special training and tools demands that transport re-conditioning is trusted only to a recognized specialist.
Why is the playback amplifier a separate component in ATAE reproducers?
Reflecting a design philosophy of modularizing sub-components for performance optimization and ease of long-term serviceability, playback amplifiers are not built into our reproducers. They are instead housed in their own rack-mounted enclosures, fitting into the machine base.
We also do this with the power supply, control logic and motor control.
A further consideration is that some users will have multiple playback amplifiers, selecting among them for the best performance with a given read head, tape speed and equalization. We offer about ten different playback amplifiers, while also allowing you the freedom to use your own. Our modular component architecture assures that reconfiguration changes are easy.
Why are ATAE reproducers so expensive?
Our products are intended for use in sound recordings archives holding high-value collections where uncompromised, state-of-the-art playback is demanded. Accordingly, we build our machines to industrial-grade standards. The pricing reflects the high cost of the 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.
Many people understandably find tape recorders both entertaining and fascinating, but we’re not involved in the consumer hi-fi “tape hobby” or “tape novelty” market.
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?
If you have an A80, A800, 816, 820 or 827 recorder-reproducer needing factory-level reconditioning, you’re welcome to contact us. However we limit outside service work in order to concentrate on manufacturing our reproducers.
Weren’t all the important master tapes long ago transferred to digital?
Yes, domain transfer for CD re-issues began as early as 1982, but there’s never been agreement that those transfers were performed optimally.
Today in 2025 the labels are again ordering retrieval of heritage master tapes, for such things as producing re-issues on vinyl. This work is again putting irreplaceable tapes in danger from improper handling.
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, get in touch with our Sales Department. We’re located in Northern California.
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