the open reel story

  Sound recording was tricky before tape. You only have to look at Thomas Edison’s cylinder phonograph recorder from 1877 to see how crude it was. Ten years later, Emile Berliner’s direct-to-disc recording system appeared, but was also far from

Akai GX-625

Back in the nineteen seventies, Akai was a mighty brand, catering for discerning buyers of tape recording equipment. In the cassette field, it wasn’t quite up in Nakamichi territory, but its top decks weren’t far off, and one look at Akai’s reel-to-reel