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Ampex files Chapter 11

Bob E.

Bob E.

Well-Known Member
It's sad to me when an icon and pioneer in an industry like this is on the skids, but I guess it happens to them all sooner or later...

Last week, the Ampex corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and its shares are hovering around 40 cents. At one time, they had around 12,000 employees, currently they are just over 100.

For those too young to remember the name, Ampex was a very early pioneer in the field of magnetic tape recording of all types (audio, video and data) and was responsible for a lot of advances in the field, and many firsts. Bing Crosby was an early adopter, investor and promoter, and appeared in some of their print ads in the 50's. Les Paul (one of the "fathers" of the electric guitar and inventor of over-dub recording as a studio technique) was an early innovator who was given a tape recorder by Bing and then proceeded to modify it with an extra playback/record head to experiment with his idea for playing guitar with himself. There was a great picture in today's San Jose Mercury News that showed one of the first efforts at a video recorder, it was larger than a washing machine! You can see a slightly different image here:

www.retrothing.com/2005/10/the_worlds_firs.html

The big "Ampex" sign is still prominently visible from 101 on the way up to San Francisco, but I'm sure I'll be viewing it with a nostalgic sigh next time I see it.

--Bob
 
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I thought they went out of business years ago! I wonder what would happen if Ampex came out with a home video recorder before Sony and JVC did? It seems like American companies invent the technology only not to go further with it.
 
They should have diversified. Buggy whip makers couldn't go on making buggy whips forever.

That being said, it is sad.
 
Wow.. that is actually sad news to me. I've been in broadcasting for 25+ years now.. and Ampex was it back then.. then Sony, JVC and Panasonic came along and changed everything. I had no idea Ampex was all but done today.
 
I wish them well as I greatly admire the courage and determination the company has exhibited in its ability to survive the age of electronics.

When I worked for them in the late 70's. I was employed in their audio/video broadcast division, which at the time was facing very stiff competition from the likes of Sony and Teac among many others. Matter of fact many of their broadcast audio r/r recorders at the time were re-badged Teac equipment. The eighty's and nineties were a little better because they'd found a niche market in the magnetic bubble memory applications - mostly high end computer and satellite memory applications

Ampex in the business world merged with Wheelabrater-frye inc. in the late 70's and which in turn merged with Allied signal in the 80's and almost lost its identity in a mish mash of corporate alliances.

Among the many engineering talent to come out of Ampex were Ray Dolby founder of Dolby labs and Nolan Bushnell founder of Atari inc. and I'm sure there have been many others along the way.
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It is sad to see the demise of pioneers in Technology.

Ampex commercialized the R2R decks based on the salvaged decks acquired in WWII from Germans.

Philips invented the Compact Cassette, the CD and contributed in the DVD. Never been succesful in selling any of it.

British car makers built fine cars but failed to sustain their existence against fierce competition.

Agfa, Ilford, Kodak have all suffered the coming of the digital photography era.

And,..., Dolby who invented and solely sold tape noise reduction systems, somehow seems to survive and grow when analog tapes are a thing of the past and the few.

Tascam, is still selling studio recording equipment, all digital now, all fancy and cheap and probably making more margins than R2R decks perhaps did.

So, it can be done. A company can grow and change and adopt to the times and changing technology. Can't say it's easy, as the examples of succesful transformation are few.
 
AnalogDigit said:
It seems like American companies invent the technology only not to go further with it.
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Sometime in the Sixties American manufacturers decided that advertising paid off better than new product development and quality control.

Well, it worked for a while. :thumbsdn:
 
I am the owner of an Ampex AG-440C tape deck, and it is the workhorse of my home system. I use it for all of my tape transfers of albums. It has been in reasonably constant use for the last 10 years, and has had no failures other than lamps, etc.

Of course, when I got it, I re-capped it. There are a couple of original caps in these machines that will short out and kill the erase head, and you wont find one of these cheap!

I worked in broadcasting in the late '70's, when Ampex introduced their 1" VTR's. Wow. They were fantastic.

I have some friends that have several old Ampex 2" VTR's that are still running just fine. Ampex was built like a tank, and often weighed as much as one!
 
AnalogDigit said:
I thought they went out of business years ago! I wonder what would happen if Ampex came out with a home video recorder before Sony and JVC did? It seems like American companies invent the technology only not to go further with it.
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IIRC, they DID! They had some RTR home video machines (very expensive) in the late 1960s, and developed a home video recorder using tape in a cartridge in 1970. But....as all too often seemed to be the case after the mid-1960s at Ampex, at least where their consumer range was concerned, they never got their act together with it. They ended up selling the patents to Toshiba.
 
You should all keep in mind that a Chapter 11 filing is far from death for a company. Chapter 11 is used as protection from creditors during a reorganization and many firms that file emerge an continue operations.

Ampex may have issues to overcome, but it isn't dead just yet.
 
Bring back the Ampex 350 mic preamps! How many of those could they sell to the pro market if they brought 'em back?! Look at the Joe Meek and Bill Putnam/Universal Audio reissues.
 
I recall seeing a history channel show on WW2 saying that Ampex aquired their magnetic tape technology from the germans in early occupation when everyone was looking for what they had invented during the war and brought it back to the states.
 
trwham said:
You should all keep in mind that a Chapter 11 filing is far from death for a company. Chapter 11 is used as protection from creditors during a reorganization and many firms that file emerge an continue operations.

Ampex may have issues to overcome, but it isn't dead just yet.
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You are right, I get my "chapters" confused sometimes...here's hoping that there is a sunny outcome.

--Bob
 
gobies said:
Last Ampex cassette tapes I saw were made in Korea.
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Absolutely right about their cassette tapes, they were assembled in Korea however the tape itself was manufactured at the Ampex tape division in Opelika Alabama - All ampex tape including their professional "GrandMaster Series" was made there. In 1995 the division was sold or spun-off under new ownership, can't remember exactly which under the "Quantegy" brand label.

Their tapes including metal and R/R is still sold under the "Quantegy" label. Quantegy declared chapter eleven in 2005 - From what I've read in the news media they were still taking orders for tape until april 2007.

Sadly, now its all history
 
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