Re: [AV Media Matters] arsclist RE:Re-evaluating Tape

[smolians@erols.com]

Well....not exactly.

The hierarchy went

1. Ampex
2. Shamrock
3. Irish (or 2 & 3 reverse- I don't recall right now)
4. Wescott (mail order only from Opelika, Al.  Showed up in the
classifieds in Audio Magazine.  I bought some during my college
days. Ordering was from Opelika, AL.  Ampex had a factory there.
Coincidence?  Slitting on this was highly variable.
5. White box

Some patent numbers on some Radio Shack, Lafayette and the like were
also used by Ampex.  I've never done a dformal study of which came
from 3M that didn't meet specs and which from Ampex.

Steve Smolian
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Jim Wheeler
  To: AV-Media-Matters@topica.com
  Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2000 10:09 PM
  Subject: Re: [AV Media Matters] arsclist RE:Re-evaluating Tape

Robert

Shamrock was the name Ampex used instead of selling junk tape in
white boxes.

After tape is made and before it is packaged, a certain percentage
of the batch/run would be tested--something like four from select
parts of a single sheet (web) of basefilm.  If these tapes did not
pass the test, every tape in that web was "white-boxed" and sold to
K-Mart-type stores.  The name Ampex does not appear anywhere on the
reel or the box.  Let the Buyer Beware!

Of course, four tapes doesn't mean the other 1,000 tapes are
bad--some could be great.  I will never forget a Consumer Reports
article comparing reel-to-reel audio tapes and Shamrock was the best
in the world! The State of California bought millions of reels of
Shamrock from the lowest bidder.

Jim Wheeler