In January I posted a review of the brilliant Saturday Night In San Francisco from Horch House, and this is kind of a P.S. to that review.
The review focused on the music and on the recording quality, but I also wanted to mention the format and packaging of the tapes. Horch House have recently upgraded their tape formats and packaging across the whole catalogue, and this was my first purchase since the upgrade.
It’s a pretty significant upgrade, and a very welcome one.
A choice of three formats / versions and price points
First off, each tape release from Horch House in now available in three different formats / versions, which is great from a couple of standpoints. This gives you options depending on what type of deck you own. And, just as important, it gives you some wiggle room on budget. As we all know, genuine master tape copies are costly to produce and so they don’t come cheap to buy, so I think this is a really cool move by Horch House – offering a scale of prices and formats.
The three versions offered for each tape are:
Studio Master Copy
A Studio Master Copy is recorded as a 1:1 duplicate of the ‘original’ master tape onto two reels of Recording The Masters SM900 tape, at Horch House’s preferred studio standard of 510nWb using CCIR equalisation. This tape will give optimum results when played back on a studio level tape deck.
Standard Master Copy
Pretty much everything here is as per the Studio Master Copy except that instead of two reels of SM900 you get one reel of LPR90 (the long-play version of SM900). This is a tape I often use myself and it certainly isn’t a low quality option, and the advantage is that it saves some money and some shelf space. This version is recorded at a more ‘normal’ (in studio terms) 320nWb/m, again in CCIR equalisation. This is the level used by The Tape Project, Analogue Productions, etc, so again it’s hardly what you’d call a lower cost ‘compromise’.
Start Master Copy
Finally, if you have only 7” reel capability, or even a 4-track reel-to-reel machine, then the Start Master Copy is the version you’ll need. It’s recorded at 7.5ips onto a 7” reel of LPR90 RtM tape. This version is recorded in NAB equalisation (which is by far the more common option on these type of tape machines) and at a tape operating level of 250nWb/m, which is perfect for the typical domestic tape deck, but still pushing it to its pro studio quality limits. This tape should be playable on both 2 and 4 track machines.
The price of each of these versions depends to some degree on where you’re located (as most European countries charge their own specific sales tax, which needs to be added), but as an example, the ‘Rest of World’ prices (ie. without these local sales taxes) are:
- Studio Master Copy – €408
- Standard Master Copy – €285
- Start Master Copy – €180
Compared with the typical copy master copy tapes available, these are very keenly priced! The Studio and Standard Master Copies come in Horch House’s new ‘Deluxe Packaging’ while the Start Master Copy comes in their new ‘Eco Packaging’.
On which note…
Two new types of packaging
Originally, Horch House tapes came in a packaging that I found a tad inconvenient on a couple of levels (I have two of the tapes in question, Count Basie’s Atomic and Elgar’s Cello Concerto featuring Jacqueline du Pré which I reviewed here earlier).
Now, I’m not criticising here as such, more nit-picking to be honest, since the original packaging was smart, robust, great for protecting the precious tapes within, and full of high quality artwork and technical information about the tapes.
My two ‘gripes’ were basically that (a) there was no labelling on the outside of the box to show which tape was inside (so if you had more than one Horch House tape you had to open the box to see which was which), and (b) the boxes were roughly 12” square, which is fine if your music storage shelves were designed for vinyl LPs, but since I went all out and got a custom-made shelving unit for tapes which was designed to house 10.5” reels (in boxes), these 12” boxes kinda messed up my storage system as I had to store Horch House tapes with my LPs! (Yeah, I know, first world problems, but you know us collectors – we can get strangely obsessive about the tiniest details!).
Anyway, it’s a ‘win’ on both counts with Horch House’s newly upgraded packaging. My new ‘Saturday Night in San Francisco’ tape was a Studio Master Copy version, so it came in the new ‘Deluxe Packaging’.
There’s an embossed outer slipcase which is very similar to the outer box previously used, except now it’s a size that fits on my tape shelves! Each slipcase contains (in the case of a two-reel album) two individual ‘tape-care’ boxes in a smart red design, along with an artwork folder containing the cover art and tape information sheets previously mentioned. You can easily slide the tape-care boxes out of the slip case (leaving that on the shelf, if you wish) – a small detail, but immensely ergonomically pleasing.
The individual tape-care boxes aren’t just for ergonomic benefits. They’re actually very high spec, designed for optimum protection of the tapes and produced by Canadian company STIL. Each box is a one-piece moulded case with locking catch and ‘universal’ hub attachments that can used to safely store NAB hub, trident hub and AEG pancake hub reels / pancakes.
They also have a couple of additional really cool and novel features: they incorporate anti-static properties and also they deal with humidity (one of tape’s Achillies heels) by ensuring equal humidity levels both inside and outside the case. This prevents condensation and the many troubles (such as sticky shed syndrome) that it can lead to.
The ‘Eco Packaging’ supplied with the Start Master Copies comes in the same red STIL tape-care box, but without the outer grey sleeve or the separate grey folder for the artwork.
The good (great) news is that Horch House will be making this new packaging available to owners of their tapes that came in the previous style packing. Drop them a line to make enquiries: www.horchhouse.com
Dave Denyer: The Reel-to-Reel Rambler 