Age of masters

Yeah, either pro JVC or Panasonic. I know, some people do it.

Not yet, but a bunch of NOS cassettes already purchased.

I think the JVC stereo VCR is what you need @inna 

Anyone used pro SVHS VCR and SVHS tapes for audio only recordings, anyway ?
chakster, did you get a cassette deck ?

One such collector was HW of VPI who used such tapes to guide his TT production.  His stated goal was to make his TTs sound like these tapes.

@mijostyn 
There were hundreds of thousands of tapes across the world, most of which ended up in a skip back in the late 80s/early 90s, as record companies moved to CD. There are a number of places in Europe and the USA, where people saved these from the rubbish tip. If you search hard enough, you can find reliable sources of tapes. There are also a few collectors, who share tapes.

@topoxforddoc , Hi! How did you manage to come up with all those production masters? Must have been a great gig! Truly jealous:-) 

I have about 100 production master tapes in my collection - these would have been copies taken straight off the original stereo mix down by the record company and sent across the world to record pressing plants. Local record pressing plants would often cut their own lacquers, hence the variation in quality between different pressings.
If a record company decides to remaster an album, they will use the best available tape - multitrack session tape, original stereo mix down, production master - depending on the availability and quality of the different "masters". If they don’t have tape available, they will use the digital archived copy.
My tapes are all 30-50 years old and sound magnificent. But just like the record companies, I archive my production masters onto new 15 IPS 1/4 inch tape as well as a 192/24 digital archive copy. I play my dupes and store the production masters safely.

If the mastertape is damaged, lost or burned in fire all we need is original record (not a reissue from digital copy)

@chakster 
That's very true. But in some cases, they dare not run a decades old master tape with missing or peeling oxide, or edge damage on an ATR.

Transfer of analog to digital is OK for streaming and digital releases, but it make no sense for vinyl releases, lacquer cut direct from an old mastertape is what we need on vinyl. Master tape rules anyway.

Many record labels transferred their analogue libraries to digital to preserve the master.

For the Mercury Living Presence story: https://trust-your-ears.simplecast.com/

I read that Mercury is making it all available to streaming services. Nice of them...

Mercury is about to re-release its entire classical catalog.  Some of the masters are as much as 70 years old and still sound great.

Some can be great depends on condition of storage.

So there is hope for my cassettes and open reels from the mid-70s? 😊

Watch this discussion, those masters are timeless and if they are stored properly in the archives then no problem to use them even 50 years later.