On my way to the Revox room in Warsaw's Sobieski Hotel, my mind wandered/wondered: If a voracious reader is a bookworm, is a tape enthusiast a tapeworm?
Maybe not, but this I know: When it comes to madcap marketing lingo, Revox is up there with its claim that the new B77 Mk III reel-to-reel is "built for eternity." I coughed politely behind my hand. Will a B77 give many years of top-notch service? I expect so. Will it outlive your grandchildren? Perhaps. The next ice age? No. For the record, the warranty is just two years.
Does the German-built machine look and sound lovely? This I can confirm.
Revox's Volker Lange told me that the company has radically updated the classic B77 (named for 1977, its year of introduction) and B77 Mk II (launched in 1980). New electronics in the Mk III improve voltage regulation and frequency response. The Mk III uses a three-motor direct-drive system with servo control. Two winding motors accelerate and decelerate the tape reels quickly and smoothly. The direct-drive capstan motor, Lange says, uses "precision regulation" to minimize speed variations. Revox says that the capstan is engineered to a concentricity of one thousandth of a millimeter. The heads—three of them, for recording, playback, and erasing—are made of a special alloy for magnetic efficiency and longevity. The Mk III also has balanced inputs and outputs (on XLR of course). What hasn'tchanged is that this latest B77 is strictly analog; there are no microprocessors or software-driven bits anywhere in the machine.
Interested? $19,750 and it's yours—if you can snag one: 20 will be produced each month. Should you like your music with a side of mascara and bat blood, you can opt for the limited-edition Alice Cooper B77 Mk III ($27,950), which comes with a personal meet-and-greet with Alice. Yes, really.
In other who'd-'ve-thunk-it news: Next year, Revox will launch a cassette deck line, starting with a portable player. Wow. (Also flutter, possibly.) Lange believes it's a "bridge product" that will attract younger buyers. The signs are there, he says: "In 2015, 150,000 cassette tapes were sold worldwide. In 2024, it was between 14 and 15 million." Revox also intends to sell high-quality prerecorded cassettes, for a wallet-clipping $35 a pop.
Does the German-built machine look and sound lovely? This I can confirm.
Revox's Volker Lange told me that the company has radically updated the classic B77 (named for 1977, its year of introduction) and B77 Mk II (launched in 1980). New electronics in the Mk III improve voltage regulation and frequency response. The Mk III uses a three-motor direct-drive system with servo control. Two winding motors accelerate and decelerate the tape reels quickly and smoothly. The direct-drive capstan motor, Lange says, uses "precision regulation" to minimize speed variations. Revox says that the capstan is engineered to a concentricity of one thousandth of a millimeter. The heads—three of them, for recording, playback, and erasing—are made of a special alloy for magnetic efficiency and longevity. The Mk III also has balanced inputs and outputs (on XLR of course). What hasn'tchanged is that this latest B77 is strictly analog; there are no microprocessors or software-driven bits anywhere in the machine.
In other who'd-'ve-thunk-it news: Next year, Revox will launch a cassette deck line, starting with a portable player. Wow. (Also flutter, possibly.) Lange believes it's a "bridge product" that will attract younger buyers. The signs are there, he says: "In 2015, 150,000 cassette tapes were sold worldwide. In 2024, it was between 14 and 15 million." Revox also intends to sell high-quality prerecorded cassettes, for a wallet-clipping $35 a pop.
