Columbia Retail Reel-to-Reel Tapes

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Disclord

900 Club - QQ All-Star
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
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Location
Plattsburg, MO (just outside Kansas City)
I have a slightly off-topic but related question for anyone who might know. Prior to the release of CBS Q8's and SQ LP's, did CBS regularly release albums on open-reel tape or was that something that 'died' when they got into quad? And if releasing open reel is something that they stopped doing (or refused to do in the case of Q4 tapes), was it really for the reasons I've heard? i.e., that they wanted no comparisons between discrete Q4's and SQ LP's, whereas it was OK with Q8 since the sound quality of Q8 was so horrible anyway.
 
Yes, CBS released open reel tapes (but no quads that I am aware of). You could get them through the Colombia House music club, too. They discontinued r2r as sales dwindled on the format. It had nothing to do with quad.
 
I have a slightly off-topic but related question for anyone who might know. Prior to the release of CBS Q8's and SQ LP's, did CBS regularly release albums on open-reel tape or was that something that 'died' when they got into quad? And if releasing open reel is something that they stopped doing (or refused to do in the case of Q4 tapes), was it really for the reasons I've heard? i.e., that they wanted no comparisons between discrete Q4's and SQ LP's, whereas it was OK with Q8 since the sound quality of Q8 was so horrible anyway.

Well. Columbia did offer a high quality line of reel to reel stereo tapes, some recorded at 7 1/2 ips of their artists. As I recall, a lot of these were what was described as "Easy Listening" acts, although there were some popular acts of the day, including BS&T and Simon & Garfunkel. These were all stereo, and I really don't remember when they started and stopped, and if they continued after they began selling reels through their "Columbia House" mail order 'club'. The Columbia House reels were not of the same quality as the retail Columbia stereo reels, as all of the Columbia House manufactured reels were recorded at 3 3/4 ips and a lower quality and thinner tape was used.

Since SQ was pushed out way before any SQ decoders of even decent quality were available, it was widely believed that Columbia did not release Quadraphonic Reels either through retail or Columbia House because they wanted to maintain the SQ LP as the defacto high quality audio carrier of quadraphonic sound. The Q8 was far more discrete, however, it was "just an 8 track", made for the car. No right minded audiophile would ever take an 8 track seriously, they thought.

Today, some of those 8 tracks have created some fine conversions and it's quite amazing what audio quality they hold to this day.

So, to answer your question disclord, I would have to say yes. There is no reason that Columbia did not join RCA, WEA and AMPEX in releasing quad reels other than the fact that it would have shown their SQ system (actually, the decoders of the day) to be lacking in performance.
 
I scoped a few stereo reels on eBay to get these examples. Here is a look at an official RETAIL stereo reel from Columbia. Note the "COLUMBIA STEREO TAPE" logo on the front, and the catalog number that matches the LP (and tape) catalog number. This particular tape is at 3 3/4 ips.


BST Front.jpg
BST Back.jpg
 
Now here's a look at a Columbia House reel. The front cover is just the photo from the album jacket with no text of any kind, and the catalog number of the release does not match the catalog number of the retail LP or Tape. If you look at the reel itself, there is hardly any tape on it at all, as the tape used was VERY THIN!!! :)

LM fromt.jpg
LM Reel.jpg
LM Back.jpg
 
Thanks for the in-depth answers!

When Columbia House started their LaserDisc club and Sony opened their DADC LD pressing plant in Terre Haute, IN, I figured the Columbia House LD club would soon start issuing their own custom "club" pressings of other studios titles on LD, just as they did with LP's, cassettes and 8-Tracks - and that we'd lose features from the standard releases like the trailer at the end of the film or gate-fold jackets (Columbia House was notorious for issuing single-sleeve jackets for their LP pressings that came in gate-fold jackets in the original studio release). Amazingly, they never did any custom pressing but became one of the best ways to collect LD's inexpensively since, for the first few years, after you completed your initial 'agreement', you got a free LD for every 2 you bought - and their prices were not jacked up as compared to Ken Cranes or other mail order LD retailers like Starship Industries. I ended up getting the $99 CAV box sets of Alien and Aliens for free because of their buy-2-get-1-free deals - and the free disc didn't have to be of equal or lesser value at first either. So you could buy two $24.95 titles and request a $125 Criterion box set as your "free" disc! All you paid was $3.95 shipping. The first few years of the Columbia House LD Club were wonderful.

I have an ad from a 1974 issue of High Fidelity for the Columbia House Quadraphonic Club - it's all SQ LP's and Q8's, and from the looks of it, they didn't offer RCA or Warner CD-4's or Q8's or any QS LP's - and no quad reels. The RCA Quad Club ad has SQ and QS LP's among their offerings along with quad reels. CBS sure didn't want comparisons!
 
If the RCA Quad Club had any quad reels they must have been just the Magtec/Stereotape issues, rather than exclusive club releases. I don't remember them ever having quad reels though.

As for Columbia not having quad reels there are some that look like Columbia quad reels on the CTI label. Some Deodato stuff and a few other jazz artists. Very obscure.
 
Here are some pictures of a rather rare CTI stereo reel, advertising a quad version on the back cover. Never have seen a quad one of this title though.
 

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I have a slightly off-topic but related question for anyone who might know. Prior to the release of CBS Q8's and SQ LP's, did CBS regularly release albums on open-reel tape or was that something that 'died' when they got into quad?

Columbia released reels as far back as the 1950s, with some albums being released in 2-track (one sided) and 4-track (two stereo sides) versions (a long forgotten format war). As others have mentioned, they continued releasing reels through their club for some time...it was possible to get reels through Columbia House long after the format had completely disappeared from retail outlets.

Columbia reel boxes always opened right-to-left (like a cassette box), which seemed natural to me. The boxes from most other manufacturers opened bottom-to-top.
 
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I had a few of those old 2 track reels.
They went the way of the 4 track Muntz cart.
Always wondered why they never made the reels stereo / mono compatible.
Mono used the upper half for side one and lower for side two but stereo used tracks 1 & 3 or 2 & 4.
You may say channel separation, but it also led to crosstalk if not perfectly aligned.
It would have been cool if you didn't have a stereo unit but had an old Wollensak or Telectro! :)
They did it for cassettes though.
 
Probably when they started to produce stereo heads for consumer tape recorders it wasn't so easy to place two tracks so close, so they opted for the alternate sequence (1-3 / 2-4). Make technological sense.
Same for Muntz 4-track and lear-jet 8-track. The first truly mono-stereo compatible were the compact cassette, which in the stereo version should be around 1968-1969.
 
We sold nearly every Q4 reel in my store and I don't ever remember a CTI title on Q4. Yes, they did list them in print. We bought them through a distributor that was a wholly owned subsidiary of London records, regardless of the label they were on. Columbia was pressing CTI then and I'm sure they didn't want CTI Q4's, just like they didn't want Columbia & Epic Q4's.

I have many 2ch reels from Columbia. Even some of their more obscure titles were available. I have one by Illinois Speed Press from '69. All the 7 1/2 ips titles sounded fantastic. In fact, my 7 1/2 ips of Miles' Filles De Kilamanjaro sounds better than my Japanese SACD. In order to maximize their profit, they switched to 3 3/4 ips in the early 70's and they sounded awful. No different than a stereo 8 track, except less wow & flutter. Add high speed duplication and you could make a better tape off your LP, even at 3 3/4 ips. Half the blank tape = twice the profit. Fortunately, Q4's from RCA, WEA, London, etc. sound fantastic at 7 1/2 ips.

My homebrew dbx reels made some killer party tapes, even at 3 3/4 ips. A 10 1/2" reel at 3 3/4 ips is like an all day sucker.

Linda
Reel Good Fidelity
 
A few more thoughts after rereading this thread:

1- Columbia tapes. including reels were numerically the same as LP's. The alpha prefix is the format designation. CR is for reel. C, KC, PC, JC were for LP's, and the letter preceding the C was the list price designation. Many SQ LP's had a sticker and a new prefix given later to increase the price by $1. The only exceptions to these rules were that the few Quad titles that predated the five digit numbers, like Super Session which used the previous four digits, were renumbered with five digits. The other exceptions are later CD issues. If remastered and/or bonus tracks added, titles were given a new number.

2- Most early Columbia reels were of easy listening, jazz, and classical because that was nearly their entire output until the late '60's. Any title that sold reasonably well on Columbia/Epic was released on reel, along with a few they expected to sell well, but didn't. I have a reel of Illinois Speed Press, which didn't exactly fly off the shelves.

3- Yes, the CTI (Creed Taylor Inc.) reels, including the Quads were custom pressed by Columbia. At that point, all CTI/Kudu product was pressed by CBS. In '74, CTI/Kudu switched to Motown. Although Quad was dead at that point, the SQ masters were used for all Motown CTI/Kudu titles that had been previously released as Quad. Matrix #'s in the grooves say SQ. In '78 when departing from Motown, Taylor settled by turning over Grover Washington's contract and Kudu masters to Motown. Later, Bob James acquired the masters for his CTI albums. In 1978, CTI went into bankruptcy and has been distributed and owned by Epic (today Sony) ever since. In '89, Creed Taylor tried unsuccessfully to reacquire his masters from CBS.
 
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