Rewind just a few short years and who knew there’d be a category in US audio magazine The Absolute Sound’s Product of the Year Awards for ‘Open Reel Tape Machine of the Year’. Seems like tape is well and truly back on the map!
Okay, so there isn’t exactly a huge pool of contenders, but congratulations are due nonetheless to Kostas Metaxas for crafting a deck worthy of the attentions of such an honourable award – not least since it comes on the back of a Golden Ear Award last November.
The TR-X is, says the magazine, alongside last year’s winner, the United Home Audio Superdeck, “the most realistic-sounding, highest-fidelity source component JV [reviewer Jonathan Valin] has yet heard, as well as one of the coolest-looking pieces of stereo gear he’s seen. You simply don’t come across something that is this sonically flawless, functionally innovative and ingenious, and aesthetically breathtaking every day.”
Full details of all of the awards were published in the January 2023 issue of The Absolute Sound.
For more info on the TR-X, head over to www.metaxas.com
Dave Denyer: The Reel-to-Reel Rambler 