Well DVD-Audio died, SACD is as good as dead in many places, Elcassette never even made it to living enough to die, and DAT made a splash pro-side but died an agonising death in domestic. It's dead and buried now.
R2R is essentially a zombie format, reanimated using mostly old tapes and even older machines brought back to life by the care and attention of dedicated souls, but you'll not find much in the way of new stock tape heads kicking round now. The amount of NOS should be enough to keep the small army of R2R enthusiasts going, however.
LP all but went the same way as R2R, were it not for the hipsters. Whether its regrowth will survive the great beard cull of 2015 remains to be seen.
Alan sorry to correct you but there is absolutely no problem procuring tape heads. JRF or Flux Magnetic heads are readily available and in fact are markedly
BETTER than the stock heads. Many if not most studios using tape have switched over like Bernie Grundman and our own Bruce on WBF. No, tape is not for everyone, primarily because of cost, not sound. But if you put the price of tape from 1958 into the CPI, there's actually been no increase in cost. For those seeking the ultimate in sound in their homes, there's nothing like tape.
As far as new music, you should have come to the tape forum at Axpona that I hosted and seen the number of companies releasing
new recordings on tape. And as the list grows, more companies will join the list. As a matter of fact, the new Lyn Stanley release produced and recorded by Al Schmidt (in analog) will soon be available on R2R.
As far as new machines go, Greg Beron at UHA can't keep up with demand. He's back ordered something like two months on his machines and Christian (here) and Jock (over at audioshark) are patiently waiting their turn. Remember his turn key machines also come with a two year warranty.
For others, there's certainly the refurbished machine route like J-Corder and ATR-Aria machines as well as Arian Jansen's totally rebuilt Revoxes known as ATR-10s. In fact, look through the Newport Show pics and you'll see one in Philip O'Hanlon's room. How good is the ATR-10? Pick up any of the NEW recordings done by Yarlung Records on LP/CD/Hi Rez files or tape (yes they're available in all formats) done with Arian's machine and the classic, tube with gold frame C24 mike. I'll be a monkey's uncle if they don't knock your socks off. (Not to mention the Lysy recording won a Grammy.) I put Smoke and Mirrors on this weekend (one if my choices for product of the year last year) and played it back through the Magico S5s. Listeners were gob smacked. Low end on digital? Please. The low end on this puts digital to shame (MikeL should, if he hasn't already, get this tape and play it back through his speakers!). Oughta set off a few seismic warnings. Yarlung is a relatively new audiophile music label who's story has yet to be told.
Rather than sounding like a bunch of crotchety old farts, writers and audiophiles should be frigging hailing the reintroduction of this format since IMHO it's the real high Rez format (how many of your DSD files are really DSD?). If audiophiles demand tape, the format will survive. But when writers crap all over the medium, especially without hearing it, then there's something wrong. And you know what? I'm not sure I can honestly say I'd be involved in high-end audio if all we had to listen to was digital recordings. But that's just me.
Tell you what. The next time you're in New York, you have an open invitation to come hear tape at my place and tell me it's not the best sound you ever heard in a home environment. In fact, we'll compare some reissued LPs played back on the new VPI Classic Direct with the 2nd or 3rd generation tapes and you can report back on what you heard. In fact, five audiophiles dropped by my place at various times over the past week and not one left not being astounded by the sound of tape. Once you've heard tape, there's no going back.
