Each November, US audiophile magazine The Absolute Sound showcases a selection of the world’s best hi-fi components in its annual Buyer’s Guide. In the just-published 2024 edition, five tape decks feature among the magazine’s top picks.
The list pretty much mirrors the selections in The Absolute Sound Editors’ Choice Awards 2023, with the odd tweak for slightly enhanced versions of selected decks. Here’s a quick round-up with some review extracts – ranging from $6k to $90k, but with three of the five sitting around the $30-$35k mark. All selections / reviews are by Jonathan Valin (JV).
J-Corder Technics 1500
https://j-corder.com
From $5,995, $7,995 with enhanced record/playback option
“J-Corder offers beautiful cosmetic choices with completely rebuilt Technics prosumer reel-to-reel machines that not only preserve the Technics’ original functionality but also bring those highly reliable decks back to their original specifications – and beyond, with J Corder performance options.”
“These decks are really designed for users to make incredible recordings of their favourite tracks.” To play pre-recorded CCIR-compatible tapes requires the optional second playback-head output married with external electronics.
Sonorus Audio ATR10 MkII (2023)
https://sonorusaudio.com
$32,500
Designed by Sonorus’ Arian Jansen, the ATR10 deck “retains the classic chassis and time-tested transport mechanism of the vintage Studer/Revox PR99 deck but completely updates the unit’s tape drive and tube electronics.”
The result is “gorgeous mid-to-treble-range timbre and texture, simply spectacular wall-to-wall soundstage and astonishingly three-dimensional imaging.”
United Home Audio Ultima 5 OPS-DC
https://unitedhomeaudio.com
$34,500, or $41,000 with optional OPS-DC outboard DC power supply
“With parts and circuitry derived from Greg’s $90k SuperDeck [see below], the Ultima 5 is more neutral in balance with better reach ad dynamic impact in the bottom octaves, a wider, deeper soundstage, tighter imaging, higher resolution, and fuller, more accurate, natural and continuous reproduction of the dynamic/harmonic envelope than previous Ultimas.”
“If you’re in the market for a great, full-sized, playback-only 15ips tape deck (and don’t want to bet the farm on a no-holds-barred UHA SuperDeck, the Ultima 5 OPS-DC would, unquestionably, be the unit JV recommends.”
Metaxas & Sins Tourbillon T-RX
https://www.metaxas.com
$35,000
The TR-X is Kostas Metaxas’ attempt “to improve upon the build quality, sonics and ergonomics of Stellavox’s celebrated SP8, which many professionals considered the best portable tape recorder ever made.”
“Before he heard Metaxas & Sins’ Tourbillon T-RX, JV would have bet big money that nothing else out there could compete with Greg Beron’s UHA decks. Turns out, however, Mr V. would’ve lost his wager. This relatively petite, portable tape player… is not only an object of great physical beauty and Swiss watch-like mechanical workmanship; it is also a sonic wonder.”
“[It] is gorgeously made, performs flawlessly and sounds fabulous.”
United Home Audio SuperDeck
https://unitedhomeaudio.com
$89,998
“This completely refurbished, three-box, 15ips, Tascam reel-to-reel tape deck, with bespoke enclosures, boards, parts, damping, and wiring, is the best effort yet from tape maven Greg Beron – and, along with the Metaxas & Sins Tourbillon, is the best (which is to say the most lifelike) source component JV has yet heard in his home.”
“If you have the dough and a hankering for the sound of the real thing, it will be tough to find a better source component.”
The Absolute Sound’s Buyer’s Guide 2024 is out now, in the November issue of the magazine.
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