It’s good to see strong coverage of tape decks again in this month’s Editors’ Choice Awards 2025 in the March issue of US audio magazine The Absolute Sound.
In 2024 we had six decks featured and this year it’s seven. The six are the same line-up as last year, which I guess isn’t too surprising since there are only a handful of companies making new tape decks to choose from! The new addition for 2025 is United Home Audio’s Ultima Apollo.
Again, the awards span a combination of brand new and hybrid vintage/new decks, and Jonathan Valin is the reviewer for all things tape related. Here’s a quick round-up of the selected decks.
J-Corder Technics 1500
A “completely rebuilt, highly reliable prosumer deck” that comes with “a wide range of options that make customization a breeze.” You’ll need to add external electronics (EQ) to play pre-recorded CCIR-compatible tapes. The article says there’s a fuller review forthcoming (but it said that last year too!). https://j-corder.com
Analog Audio Design TP-1000 playback-only deck
Valin reviewed this deck in issue 350 (Jul/Aug 2024). If you missed it, I posted a summary here. Valin restates his comment from last year’s Awards that this is “the best sounding quasi-affordable tape player [he has] ever heard, challenging the sonics of the Big Boys in every regard and exceeding them in the bass.” He also adds that it’s “a flat-out steal at $20k. Buy it while the price remains low!”. www.analogaudiodesign.com
Sonorus Audio ATR10 MkII
This is a new, modern “virtual plug-and-play” deck that’s based on the “venerable” Revox PR99 chassis and uses the same mechanical parts as the Studer/Revox professional machines but with entirely new electronics. It’s “a virtual plug-and-play device” that’s tube/valve amplified and is “warm and beautiful sounding”, says Valin. Like last year, the listing is based on the original version of the deck and not the latest MkII edition. https://sonorusaudio.com
United Home Audio Ultima 5
Valin’s review, which reads largely as per last year, enthuses that “the Ultima 5 OPS-DC simply beats [Greg Beron’s] previous wunderkind [the Ultima 4] out in every possible way, approaching (though not quite equalizing) the glories of his SuperDeck (from which it borrows some of its technology).” Which is saying something, since Valin previously reviewed the Ultima 4 as being “one of the highest-fidelity source components he had heard”. To boot, he previously gave the Ultima 5 both a Golden Ear Award and a Product of the Year Award in 2023. https://unitedhomeaudio.com/the-new-uha-ultima5-tape-deck
Metaxas & Sins Tourbillon T-RX
This one won The Absolute Sound’s Product of the Year Award in 2022 and Valin describes it as “the most compact, coolest-looking, best-sounding portable tape deck [I have] heard” – “the very model of highest fidelity” and the literal definition of “the absolute sound”. If you haven’t already, you can read his earlier full review at www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/kostas-metaxas-t-rx-tape-deck. www.metaxas.com
United Home Audio Ultima Apollo
New to the Awards this year is another Greg Beron deck, UHA’s Ultima Apollo: one of two decks that “knocked me for a (playback) loop,” writes Valin. “With a plethora of technical improvements and an all-new high-quality EQ system, [it] sounded better than any Ultima deck I’ve heard” – to the degree that it comes “very, very close” to the sonics of the SuperDeck – for about half the price.
United Home Audio SuperDeck
UHA’s Tascam-based SuperDeck completes the list again this year, and is “one of the two most lifelike source components [Valin] has yet heard in his home.” (The other being DS Audio’s Grand Master optical cartridge which “has pushed vinyl playback considerably closer to the sound of tape”). It won’t be for everyone’s budget “but if you have the dough… it will be tough to find a better full-sized tape player.” https://unitedhomeaudio.com/the-new-uha-superdeck-and-superrecorddeck
You’ll find the complete list of all Award winners – across all audio categories – in the March 2025 issue of The Absolute Sound. They’re not published online yet, but they usually get added to the website in a series of blog articles from around April.
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