How much did 2 16-track recorders cost in 1969 ?

[al mcguire]

[Ze Frias]

That's roughly $550,000 in today's dollar value, considering about 4% annual inflation.

[Philip Perkins]

Those prices are why TEAC sold a lot of mid-fi recording gear starting just a few years later.  Not nearly as good but good enough if you knew what you were doing (and what choice did you have anyhow, usually?). 

[al mcguire]

Those more ancient than me suggest that 16 track MM 1000's were available at the time.  

 

[Philip Perkins]

That's the one--based on the Ampex Quad video transport.  A beast but a great sounding beast.

[jrd456]

I worked for Wally Heider studios in 1970 t0 1974.We had the 3M M56 16 track machines[great machine] in San Francisco and if I remember correctly they cost $1000 per track [$16000]. The 24 tracks didn't come out till 1973 for 3M and Ampex.

3M's M74 24 track totally failed because of a stupid new design of the electronics by having a huge mother board that flexed and cracked when plugging and unplugging the sub-boards [preamps,bias,etc.] in and out.

I was flown down to Camarillo to inspect the prototype M74 with an older wiser engineer who was drunk and stoned the whole trip.

I reported back that the machine would fail and why, and the older engineer reported back that it was really cool.So  Wally Heider [since I was relatively new,he didn't listen to me] and we bought 8 or 9 M74's which after a month ate tape whenever they wanted.

 

[dolo72]

On 26 June 2016 at 9:39 PM, jrd456 said:

I worked for Wally Heider studios in 1970 t0 1974.We had the 3M M56 16 track machines[great machine] in San Francisco and if I remember correctly they cost $1000 per track [$16000]. The 24 tracks didn't come out till 1973 for 3M and Ampex.

3M's M74 24 track totally failed because of a stupid new design of the electronics by having a huge mother board that flexed and cracked when plugging and unplugging the sub-boards [preamps,bias,etc.] in and out.

I was flown down to Camarillo to inspect the prototype M74 with an older wiser engineer who was drunk and stoned the whole trip.

I reported back that the machine would fail and why, and the older engineer reported back that it was really cool.So  Wally Heider [since I was relatively new,he didn't listen to me] and we bought 8 or 9 M74's which after a month ate tape whenever they wanted.

 

Respect to you Wally Heiders studio produced some of my favourite ever recordings. Here in Europe I beleive the Telefunken M10 machines were so expensive that Abbey road could not afford them, they had to settle for Studer C37's 😳

 

Lisala