Custom Audio Electronics: Are they real?

Why does one need to have unique things? Why do special or limited editions sell very fast? Could be the FOMO (Fear of missing out)? Or can it be an actual need of particular products or features?
Referring to audio gear, not everything I desired was necessarily available on the market. Something I desired gear or features in gear which were not present on orderable items. But does custom or customizable gear makes sense for audiophiles?

Short answer: Yes!

Custom audio electronics is not a new thing. Since decades, professional musicians have transformed this indulgence into a product category of its own. But, are these products limited to only professional people activating in the music industry? The answer is: No!

Custom audio electronics for music lovers is not a new thing. It is well known by music collectors that the best audio quality is found on Reel-to-Reel master tape copies. Although a lot of choices for Reep-to-Reel players exist on the market, collectors want the best of the best performance when playback one of their master tapes from their collection. Enter the external tape head preamplifier.

For those which are not familiar with what an external tape head preamplifier does, it is the equivalent of a phono stage but for tape heads. The most common external tape head preamplifiers are for Reel-to-Reel machines, the most prolific of them being the Merrill Audio Master Trident, but there some others offers on the market, so people have from where to choose.

For cassette decks, there is only one model on the market, the Nereneas Cassius.

Decks, being Reel-to-reel or cassette, with direct tape head out are not so uncommon. There have been a few models here and there, but nothing that made an impact. This means that showcasing the best performance, by connecting an external tape head preamplifier to them, these machines have to be modified. Fortunately for Reel-to-reel machines there are plenty of mod kits available on the market, which make the adding of direct tape head output feature a sometimes easy process. One example is the Sepea Direct Out Upgrade Cards for Studer, amongst other.

Whenever someone operates changes to their stock gear, this means that said gear has been customised, and tada … custom audio gear is born. Of course, when doing this, the whole playback signal chain (the deck + external preamp) becomes non-standard audio reproduction gear. Nevertheless, vinyl heads are doing this constantly, when they attach external phono stages to their favourite turntable+cartrdige combination. For them it has become such common practice that turntables with integrated preamps have become very unpopular between audiophiles.

If in the vinyl world these are common practices, why are not things similar in the tape world?

One reason could be that due to the low demand, not enough R&D effort has been spent in order to increase the number of tape head preamps on the market and to decrease their prices. This is in direct conjunction with the fact that the number of albums offered as master tape copies which one can buy is very low.

Could it be that if there would be more offerings of high quality recordings, either in reel-to-reel or cassette format, maybe the market would offer us some more preamps for tape heads?

Nereneas Cassius

Photo credit: Nereneas