LAST MAGNETIC TAPE FACTORY CLOSES!!! YIKES!!!

No kidding, happened Friday; no more Emtec, in fact the slitting machinery was scrapped except for a few pieces shipped off to China. And now, Quantegy goes down for the count:

http://www.oanow.com/servlet/Satellite?c=MGArticle&cid=1031779976767&pagename=OAN/MGArticle/OAN_BasicArticle&path=!frontpage

Better stock up folks, it's gonna be a bloodbath at your supplier until Quantegy reopens, IF they reopen.

going to be able to score some deals on some 2inch machines over the next year or two...

That would be the bright side, yeah. Let's do a group buy! I hope whoever buys or partners w/Quantegy keeps making open reel tape. They started selling Firewire drives for a little while there.

[quote author="bradzatitagain"]That would be the bright side, yeah. Let's do a group buy! We could have a very own brick and mortar factory. I hope whoever buys or partners w/Quantegy keeps making open reel tape. They started selling Firewire drives for a little while there. I'm going to feel like a total geekazoid buying a case of 2" tape before I the 2" deck.[/quote]

So nobody is manufacturing 2" tape anymore???????

[quote author="tubejay"]So nobody is manufacturing 2" tape anymore???????[/quote] No body is manufacturing ANY tape anymore. A vendor friend indicated in a moments-ago e-mail that this is just a formality, it'll come back but in a very different guise. He gave no indication who capitalized Quantegy but mentioned the Japanese video tape manufacturers had a hand in an evil p.r. coup dis'ing Quantegy video product to gain world market share. Like corporate black-mail/slandering. My pal says it's just a bump in the road, we'll get to see what happens in a couple of weeks. He said: "They didn't formally notify us (they informally mentioned something would happen but it wasn't anything to get up in arms about.)" So, apparently no disaster, for now. I hope they keep making 632, I love that tape.

Can't imagine these big manufacturers are going to continue makin 2" tape for what amounts to a small handfull of producers/engineers tracking drums. I've got a huge closet full of 2" tape, maybe I can get something for it now.

[quote author="bradzatitagain"][quote author="tubejay"]So nobody is manufacturing 2" tape anymore???????[/quote] No body is manufacturing ANY tape anymore...[/quote]Not even cassettes?

[quote author="Flatpicker"][quote author="bradzatitagain"][quote author="tubejay"]So nobody is manufacturing 2" tape anymore???????[/quote] No body is manufacturing ANY tape anymore...[/quote]Not even cassettes?[/quote]

There is no other tape manufacturer that offers open reel audio tape. Quantegy is the Last Mohican. No kidding.

Yes it looks like it is true.
BUT I would say last plant in the USA.
There has got to be another plant
for the video business in China or Korea or India.

But it is scarry.

Someone leave the computer chair Monday!
And call them and see what they say.
Quantegy, Inc. PO Box 190 Opelika, AL 36803
(800) 752-0732 Fax: (800) 628-0535

Just open reel audio tape. Video, dat, vhs, all the rest, as supplied by all your fav manufacturers (not ADATs again...) is still as plenitfully available at your local Walgreens as it ever was. Quantegy was the last tape manufacturer that was offering 1/4" 1/2" 1" and 2" open reel audio tape. Emtec slammed shut some months ago. BASF and Agfa closed up their shops for open reel, I think BASF is kaput altogether, no? Word has it there isn't anything in China to be had, and what the Chinese government makes for internal use is closer to sand paper than polished tape. I'd guess Russia would be the same. Data tape don't work good on yer tape recorder no how! Time for a few new cases. I wonder how much is out in the pipe, shelved by distributors and retailers, and how much Quantegy has warehoused. 1" is probably going to go to the chopping block first, anybody with 8 tracks might want to hustle. Luckily 1/2" is popular with the mastering houses, and 2" should be safe for now as well.

Well, I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid buying a 24 track hard disk recorder forever.

Sucks, we were just going to get a 2" machine at my studio. I need to rethink that one now!! :evil:

[quote author="rich"]Can't imagine these big manufacturers are going to continue makin 2" tape for what amounts to a small handfull of producers/engineers tracking drums. I've got a huge closet full of 2" tape, maybe I can get something for it now.[/quote]

I think the government data tape to a degree subsidzed the audio tape. I think there are more than a handful of folks using tape; I'm sure sales weren't anything like they were when tape was the only game, but I think alot more people use tape than you might imagine.

I'd bet something's in the works at Quantegy, some one capitalized them according to me pal, but we won't know until they break the story. He said two weeks outside, we'll probably hear someting this coming week. They probably have partnered or been bought outright by a Japanese company, for some reason the Japanese tape man's have been at Quantegy for some time. When a Japanese corporation decides they want to increase their market share it's usually accomplished through the corpo version of an outright war. Toyota did this, they publicly announced the percentage of global market share they wanted in '95 or '96 or something, and then they did it. It could go sour in anyway, some new board of directors could wipe out product offering lines just to get the place financially reorganized. But it would be sheer stupidity, Quantegy holds the entire open reel audio market, they don't have any competition left.

I blame pop music.

Aaron
___________
Why don't they just call it Amateur Utensils?

Yea but the writting's really on the wall. Even if they monoploize the market or whatever, what I'm saying is there is no market. Most 2" tape machines sit in the corner collecting dust in most studios. Within ten years I would have to believe 2" tape is long gone, nobody even makes the machines anymore. I'm sure they're still going to make magnetic tape for Govt. back up purposes or whatever for awhile but I doubt they'll be making 2" open reel tape.

[quote author="rich"]Yea but the writting's really on the wall. Even if they monoploize the market or whatever, what I'm saying is there is no market. Most 2" tape machines sit in the corner collecting dust in most studios. Within ten years I would have to believe 2" tape is long gone, nobody even makes the machines anymore. I'm sure they're still going to make magnetic tape for Govt. back up purposes or whatever for awhile but I doubt they'll be making 2" open reel tape.[/quote]

I know, this is like the day they stopped making the Mexican (and final) version of the airhead Beetle. All the aircooled Volkswagen freaks I know went on an engine case and cylinder head buying frenzy. VeeWee still makes parts, those Beetles are cabs in Mexico, but it was goofy freaky when that happened. Mucho anxiety over future piston and valve acquistion the week that story broke.

But when the very last batch of tape starts to stick to itself, then it's really all over. Ten years is prol'ly about right, let's hope for 15. That will suck suck suck. Maybe they can time it so it coincides with selling the last barrel of crude oil that's left. Maybe Studers & big Benz's will become cheap, imagine that.

Wow. This year sure is starting off on the wrong foot. Time to buy up all the existing stock of 2" GP9 I can afford, I suppose.


Are you sure we are not still in 2004?

has there been an official press release in regards to this? If not, this is very much "the sky is falling" kind of thing.

dave

[quote author="soundguy"]has there been an official press release in regards to this? If not, this is very much "the sky is falling" kind of thing.

dave[/quote]

Dave, the link to the story is in my first post, Kurt at USRecording hit me and said to not wait until tomorrow to buy tape, they're getting cleaned out on their online store as we chat. Other guys he's talked to that have online ordering capability are reporting pretty much the same thing, so if you've got a deck, buy some tape. I just ordered 2 cases of 1/4" and a case of 2" on panckakes.

It's kind of hard to believe. Google Quantegy and Opelika Alabama, the site of Quantgey's LAST plant. They've got ads on the net with capital services brokers to find a partner or a buyer. They claimed Chapter 11 Friday. On 12/17 the US Bankruptcy Court Diary has an entry Thurman VS. Quantegy Inc., a motion to avoid lien.

It could be grim, or they could be restructuring and they'll reapear. Everybody on the Ampex list is ordering cases of tapes; those guys really aren't a bunch of panic artists. If I had a Nagra I'd sure be buying a bunch of Nagra tape right now.

I guess we'll see how long tape stays unavailable once it becomes unavailable. sounds like the sky is falling to me.

dave