Are these tapes useable?

Discussion in 'Other formats: DCC, MD, Reel 2 reel, CD...' started by leamspaceman, Jun 4, 2025 at 7:50 AM.

  1. leamspaceman

    leamspaceman Member

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    I recently bought a reel-to-reel machine and it came with a LOT of tapes. Some are quite obviously not able to be used but some look like they might be okay?

    I've attached images of the tapes and wondered if anyone had any thoughts or experience?

    There are nine of the 'INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONICS' tapes. Four appear darker than the other five and I hope this shows in the photographs?

    The reel-to-reel has been professionally serviced and I was advised to NEVER use old tapes, only new ones. I'm fine to do that but just thought I'd ask about these tapes that came with it.

    It's a B&O Beocord 1200.

    Thanks in advance...
     

    Attached Files:

    leamspaceman, Jun 4, 2025 at 7:50 AM
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  2. Jorge

    Jorge Well-Known Member

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    What a strange advice!
    BUT:
    A good excuse to buy Analog Productions R2R at $450 a roll...

    This reminded me of a scandal around Beatles catalog 'remastered from the original Master Tapes' for stereo LPs. When folks at Stereophile, folks with golden ears, started complaining, it was finally admitted that LPs were pressed from the digital files. Explanation was that "Original Master Tapes were too valuable to be pulled out of storage for the sake of a few audiophiles" But the stench from those few audiophiles was so high that Beatles in Mono was later pressed from the Originals - we won!!! [see Beatles Remasters]
    :)
     
    Jorge, Jun 4, 2025 at 10:41 AM
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  3. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    They go into sticky shred syndrome more over on AudioKarma, here's a thread with some of the "bad" tapes you might want to check for. I don't know a lot but apparently there was a bad binder used on these 60's-70's tapes but older tapes don't suffer from it. I always touch the sides and look for sticky or even black boogers. The worse that can happen is you play the tape and it loads the transport up with this nasty stuff that takes hours to clean and makes a mess of everything it touches. Your tapes look like they might be old enough to not worry about.

    https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/sticky-shed-syndrome-list.893546/

    Good luck, it's always fun to play old tapes and see what was on them.
     
    Mister X, Jun 4, 2025 at 11:31 AM
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  4. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    If they are going sticky you can bake them to re-stabilise them for a while. That is what they would do out of caution with precious master tapes. Just Google "Tape Baking" and make sure you understand whether they are talking Centigrade or Fahrenheit.
    As for the different colours, unlike a company like BASF or 3M, "International Electronics" sounds like a brand who would buy from whatever manufacturer was offering a good deal at the tine.

    Since we were talking about Beatles Master Tapes
     
    Longman, Jun 4, 2025 at 1:55 PM
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