NATIONAL AUDIO COMPANY
September 6th, 2024, 4:30 pm
Last week, my wife and I accompanied Bette Spitz to Springfield Missouri to visit the National Audio Company (NAC). Bette, whom some of you met, and who owns ATR Magnetics, the reel-to-reel tape manufacturer in York, PA, asked me to come along to see the setup some guy had to make cassettes.
Bette and I had a misunderstanding. I THOUGHT this was a startup company, probably run by a young guy with a hair bun, who was seeking to revive a long lost format for nostalgic reasons. We were quite surprised to see the company name emblazoned on the side of a five story warehouse, probably 50,000 square feet. That was attached to a nine story building with who knows how much more square footage. A couple of the floors are occupied by other tenants in the taller building, but NAC owns it all and occupies the vast majority.
The operation is staggering. What they have in storage is virtually all of the tape duplication equipment in the country. They make their own tape (as does Bette), but they have a formula which reduces tape hiss by 10dB! Steve, 76 years old, is the son of the founder. His son, Phil, used to be a professor and has a couple of graduate degrees including chemistry, which has come in handy.
In our 2+ hour tour we met with at least a couple dozen employees and were treated graciously. Bette was introduced as "the world famous Bette". They all seemed to know who she is. Everything from raw tape manufacturing, a recording studio, a playback control room, machine shops, engineering labs, production machines that package, label and fill the cassettes are there in droves. One floor is nothing but archives, stacked high, of every project they've ever done. The duplication machines were a site to behold. Their recorded tapes are allegedly flat to 20kHz. According to Steve, playback machines are done at 18kHz. They duplicate at 150X. Wow and flutter just aren't an issue at that speed. The Ampex machines creating the pancakes which will be loaded into the cassettes are vacuum tube machines.
They don't sell to the public. Their customer's are companies like Warner Brothers. At the other extreme, small bands have them produce tapes to be sold or passed out at gigs, since their minimum order is only 50 tapes. Some of their equipment is World War II US Navy surplus.
This place is amazing. I took a lot of pictures and videos (some projects are off limits due to pre-release secrecy), too many to post here. I've uploaded them to my Google Drive. I'll insert the link below. Let me know if it doesn't work.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Stuart
Bette and I had a misunderstanding. I THOUGHT this was a startup company, probably run by a young guy with a hair bun, who was seeking to revive a long lost format for nostalgic reasons. We were quite surprised to see the company name emblazoned on the side of a five story warehouse, probably 50,000 square feet. That was attached to a nine story building with who knows how much more square footage. A couple of the floors are occupied by other tenants in the taller building, but NAC owns it all and occupies the vast majority.
The operation is staggering. What they have in storage is virtually all of the tape duplication equipment in the country. They make their own tape (as does Bette), but they have a formula which reduces tape hiss by 10dB! Steve, 76 years old, is the son of the founder. His son, Phil, used to be a professor and has a couple of graduate degrees including chemistry, which has come in handy.
In our 2+ hour tour we met with at least a couple dozen employees and were treated graciously. Bette was introduced as "the world famous Bette". They all seemed to know who she is. Everything from raw tape manufacturing, a recording studio, a playback control room, machine shops, engineering labs, production machines that package, label and fill the cassettes are there in droves. One floor is nothing but archives, stacked high, of every project they've ever done. The duplication machines were a site to behold. Their recorded tapes are allegedly flat to 20kHz. According to Steve, playback machines are done at 18kHz. They duplicate at 150X. Wow and flutter just aren't an issue at that speed. The Ampex machines creating the pancakes which will be loaded into the cassettes are vacuum tube machines.
They don't sell to the public. Their customer's are companies like Warner Brothers. At the other extreme, small bands have them produce tapes to be sold or passed out at gigs, since their minimum order is only 50 tapes. Some of their equipment is World War II US Navy surplus.
This place is amazing. I took a lot of pictures and videos (some projects are off limits due to pre-release secrecy), too many to post here. I've uploaded them to my Google Drive. I'll insert the link below. Let me know if it doesn't work.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Stuart
Re: NATIONAL AUDIO COMPANY
September 6th, 2024, 4:36 pm
[quote="Stuart Polansky"]Last week, my wife and I accompanied Bette Spitz to Springfield Missouri to visit the National Audio Company (NAC). Bette, whom some of you met, and who owns ATR Magnetics, the reel-to-reel tape manufacturer in York, PA, asked me to come along to see the setup some guy had to make cassettes.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Stuart
I am totally jealous beyond words!
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing
Stuart
I am totally jealous beyond words!
Re: NATIONAL AUDIO COMPANY
September 6th, 2024, 8:44 pm
Some neat pics, in case you can't see the Drive folder
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Re: NATIONAL AUDIO COMPANY
September 6th, 2024, 9:13 pm
You could write a book..... "Travels with Bettie".
Some very interesting stuff.
That Hallicrafters radio looks like one of the last to leave the factory, the styling is very modern.
Same goes for the Ampex R-R.
I know the Teac deck well, it's a reliable performer.
Some very interesting stuff.
That Hallicrafters radio looks like one of the last to leave the factory, the styling is very modern.
Same goes for the Ampex R-R.
I know the Teac deck well, it's a reliable performer.
Re: NATIONAL AUDIO COMPANY
September 10th, 2024, 4:13 pm
How about these: one of the first TV cameras; tube amplification in the copying equipment; cassette filling machine, cuts the leader, splices in from the pancake, stops at the 6Hz tone, then attaches the other end of the leader. Then it's off to a machine that uses UV (I think) light to apply ink to the cassettes, one per second, per machine (at least 6 machines are in service right now. Several more in storage. Then the re-purposed cassettes are put into the plastic cases with the J & C cards. Off to the repurposed cigarette wrapping machine to be wrapped in "cellophane". You guessed it, one per second. Seriously, check out the Google Drive folder I linked to; lots of video there also.
Stuart
Stuart
Re: NATIONAL AUDIO COMPANY
September 10th, 2024, 4:23 pm
Cassette loaders (from pancake). Lots more loading machines not in this picture.
Testing.
Tape split in up to 48 1/8" strips
Stuart
Testing.
Tape split in up to 48 1/8" strips
Stuart
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Re: NATIONAL AUDIO COMPANY
September 11th, 2024, 10:38 am
AWESOME !! 