Why not magnetic tapes in stead of vinyl records?


My understanding is that previously, original recordings were captured on magnetic tapes. The recording is then transferred to a metal stamper, which then creates the vinyl records we use at home. But, why don't they just copy the magnetic tape to other magnetic tapes and sell us those? I mean the same size and everything that the engineer uses. Then, audiophiles (at least some) would have nice magnetic tape players in stead of turntables.

I know people did use reel to reel for some time. I remember cassettes. But I don't believe people ever had an interface to play the big magnetic tape reels at their homes.
elegal

Showing 2 responses by dfel

Well here is one idea as to why: Stamping thousands of records take a lot less time and is cheaper than creating duplicates on to kilometers of expensive tape. I think it has little do to with the sonic attributes, or anything else other than cost/time/ease. I am not an expert, it is just what I always thought.
Onhwy61, Yes this technique is very popular in the recording community. They go from digital to 2 channel stereo tape and then back to digital to get the tape "saturation" effect. I think it is getting the worse of tape, and degradation since you are re-sampling twice and the process seems silly to me but what do I know. Now there are a lot of plugins that try to emulate the tape artifacts/character.

Will these efforts make it sound like you are getting analog out from a R2R...NO!