Analog Tape Part I – I Lost My Nagra IV-S and QGB

In the 1980s, I worked as a boom operator assisting my close friend and mentor Mike “Father Time” Denecke. He was a very experienced and well respected production sound mixer. He was most famous for his invention of various devices that made the life of a sound mixer easier including the time code slate, the ubiquitous device used to identify and synchronize audio and video during production. In the summer of 1984, we were hired by Cannon Films to provide production sound support for a new John Cassavettes film titled “Love Streams”,” which starred” starring John and his wife Gena Rowlands. I had never worked as a boom operator before but Mike assured me that I could handle the task with a little training. I remember we spent an hour or so at his studio hooking up the gear and learning how to avoid the key light, how to keep the microphone out of the shot, how to sire up the talent with a radio mic, and what the protocol was for operating a boom during a film shoot. When interviewed by the production executives I told them I had worked extensively with Mike in the past…but I didn’t share that I have never acted as a boom operator!

The first day of shooting turned out to be a very challenging day for the sound crew. We were responsible for supplying music playback for the the on stage band as well as capturing the dialog of the actors located in the middle of a dance floor. The set was a rather large club with parallel bars located about 30 feet apart. Behind each of the bars were continuous mirrors. When it came time to rehearse the first scene, I struggled to find a place to stand where I wouldn’t be seen by the camera. Despite my best efforts to get out of the shot, the camera operator could see me directly or in one of the very poorly placed mirrors. It was obvious to everyone on the set that I didn’t know what I was doing. As difficult as it was, I persevered and manage to survive the day. Mike and I continued working on the film for another couple of weeks…lots of hours and lots of overtime. Given that Mike was a union guy and we weren’t getting sufficient turnaround time, we were fired. Mike got has name on the credits but I was left off.

Film sound in the 1980s was still captured using specialized analog tape machines designed and made by a Swiss company founded by a Polish inventor named Stefan Kudelski. The various machines designed and made by Nagra were rugged, portable, reliable, and completely self-contained. For example, the chassis were machined out of a single, solid block of aluminum…there were no welds or seams (this technique is also used by Apple for all of its iPhones). These recorders were – and still are – among the finest analog tape recorders on the planet. While Nagra dominated the portable tape marketplace, Studer, another Swiss tape company, made the best studio machines. Other companies like Ampex, Otari, and Revox made good machines found in studios and homes while Tascam, Technics, Teac, and Wollensak focused on prosumer or home uses for their machines..

Studer on the left and my Nagra IV-S with QGB large reel adaptor.

Audiophiles have been led to believe that analog reel to reel tape machines and tapes supplied by specialized record companies deliver superior sound. A February 11, 2025 article at Absolute Sound titled, “United Home Audio Apollo Open-Reel Tape Machine” written by Jonathan Valin makes the ridiculous and unsubstantiated statement,“Anyone who has listened to a really good commercial R2R tape can tell you that, sonically, it sounds more holistic—more continuous, three-dimensional, rich in timbre, and effortlessly powerful—than the LPs or CDs/SACDs/files that were made from it. Some of these differences have to do with the sonic character of the medium itself—to wit, tape’s inherently fuller, lusher, somewhat more elevated bass, its sweeter, softer treble, its smoother, more lifelike reproduction of the duration of notes (with markedly less emphasis on starting transients than digital sources and, to a lesser extent, LPs), its remarkable solidity and dimensionality of imaging, its continuousness of staging, and its far gentler, more relaxed reproduction of dynamic peaks—or mic preamp overloads, for that matter.“

Jonathan’s assessment – which to me sounds like so much other audiophile-reviewer dribble – is stated as fact when it is actually his personal opinion on the sonic qualities of analog tape. It may also be swayed by the relationships that undoubtedly exist between R2R hardware and software providers and the publications that Jonathan writes for. What does “more holistic—more continuous, three dimensional, rich in timbre, and effortlessly powerful” mean? Are there specifications that describe”effortlessly powerful” or “rich in timbre?” As an audio engineer who worked for years with analog tape, I can tell you with some authority that all of the adjectives included in Jonathan’s descriptions have no bearing on the reproduction fidelity of analog tape, with the possible exceptions of “somewhat more elevated bass.” And if there is measurably more low frequency information in a music signal coming from a R2R deck, then the playback equalizer of that particular deck can—and should—be adjusted to make the playback level of all frequencies align with a standard alignment tape. When I was a very junior engineer right out of school, part of my responsibilities was to align the analog tape decks at Moma Jo’s studio. There is a very exacting process that was performed prior to every session.

I cherished my own NAGRA IV-S. I purchased my own machine in 1986 and soon after I added the large reel adaptor unit called a QGB to my equipment arsenal. I owned the “Ferrari” of portable analog tape decks. It’s true that Studer and Sony decks and the NAGRA T studio machines had better specifications but the NAGRA IV-S outperforms every Tascam, Technics, Teac and Revox. I had my deck tuned up in a specialty shop in Nashville and was told my machine was as good as new. Did it sound sweeter, lusher, or smoother than my catalog of high-resolution PCM digital recordings? Absolutely not. In fact, when I did transfer my pristine digital masters to analog tape, the first generation copies (which purchasers of albums from The Tape Project and others never hear) had less dynamic range, more distortion, and less high-frequency extension. Does making transfers to analog tape increase fidelity? No. Do those transfers sound different? Yes. Are they worth the added expense and operating challenges? Not in my opinion. Your experience may be different.

But you may buy into the core motivations of audiophiles as expressed by Jonathan Valin in his recent article. He wrote, “This magazine (The Absolute Sound) was founded on the ideal that the finest audio gear should take you as close as technology permits to the sound of the real thing—the sound of actual musicians playing acoustic (or, increasingly nowadays, electronic) instruments in a club, concert hall, or studio. Short of being at the session, the sole record we have of what the “real thing” sounded like is the mastertape that preserved the performance. In the family tree of high-end audio, masters are the Adams and Eves—the first-generation documentations of what the microphones picked up (and of what was added to or subtracted from it by the producers, artists, and recording/mixing engineers). For all intents and purposes, they are the “absolute sound.”

If this sentiment aligns with your own, then forget about analog tape and vinyl LPs. Forget ever getting the chance to hear a “mastertape.” During a typical production, the first generation “master mix” tape is copied to the “mastered” master and then copied again to the replication master and then copied again to the safety copy. At each stage of analog copying, the dynamic range decreases by 3 dB. Is this really what any audiophile wants? They pale in comparison to a properly recorded, high-resolution, PCM recording of the same microphone feeds. The dynamic range, speed accuracy, distortion levels, transparency, frequency extension, and crosstalk are far better than any analog format. Of course, there are other reasons one particular format may hold continued preference. Vinyl LP packaging is far superior to a CD or DVD booklet and traycard BUT a DVD or Blu-ray disc display video and loads of artwork on a 75″ television.

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