Mara Machines
 

Anyone familiar with Mara? Not that I am in the market for R2R, simply curious. http://store.acousticsounds.com/c/40..._Reel_Machines

Never heard of them; pricey though.

"So, why an MCI tape machine? MCIs are very unassuming tape machines. They are very simplistic in design, and most importantly, they sound great! What more can you ask from a machine? So, what does an MCI sound like? The answer is simple: Just buy an album from the '70s or '80s, and most likely it was recorded on an MCI machine or an MCI console. There's literally a who's who of studios and artists that used MCIs over the company's 25-year span: Eric Clapton, Criteria Recording, The Bee Gees, Muscle Shoals Sound, Ray Charles, Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Ringo Starr just to name a few. If you listen to music, you HAVE heard MCI before."

So these are restored decks. Looks very well restored BTW.

(Additional comment moved to its own thread)

Chris Mara (Mara Machines) is dedicated to preserving the art of Analog recording. His "Welcome to 1979" recording studios in Nashville do recordings of all types, including analog and digital tracking, Analog and digital mixdown and mastering as well as cutting LP's and making stampers for Vinyl LP manufacturing. They also do Direct to Disc analog recordings. Mara has been at RMAF several times and his machine demo's are always very impressive sounding. Mara is involved in the Analog Productions reel to reel master tape program. According to Chris, AP uses a Mara 1/2" 2-Track for the "master" copy from which the 1/4" 2Track copies are made for the excellent AP reel to reel tapes.
BTW - the Mara MCI JH-110 1/4" 2 Tracks were only $4K before Acoustic Sounds got involved in the retail end (just sayin!). Then again, there is finite supply of these amazing decks, and I know that Chris Mara buys every one that he can get his hands on. Supply is shrinking and demand is increasing - so ....

Thanks for that info -- interesting.

Best Sir,

Bob