Shai Drori:

> after years of using BASF tapes I never ran across a bad batch.

Agreed 100%

> There were obviously better and worse tapes but after working
> with them 10-30 years ago and now digitizing them, not a single
> tape that needed baking or treatment.

Agreed 100%

Swedish Radio is at the moment transferring about 300 000 tapes, mostly
BASF, to digital and so far after 2 years of doing transfers there has not
been one single case of any BASF tapes needing baking.

The work is supposed to end in summer 2013 with 25 people working two shifts
each day for total 16 hours work each day.

All tape machines are Studer. A807, A812 and A820.

> Weird.

Not so.

Dipl.-Ing = Msc EE Günther Dreher of the BASF Applications Engineering Dept.
Audio-Tape pointed out to me that BASF is the biggest Chemical Company in
the word with more than 150 000 people employed wordwide in the mid 80´s.

The magnetic tape department was like an almost nonexistent drop in the
ocean that is BASF.

That the magnetic tape division went belly up meant nothing to the colossus
that is BASF.

Günther Dreher told me that BASF was the only company in the world that made
ALL the chemical parts contained in the slurry that was coated onto the
polyester backing.

No other company in the world had this advantage and had to relay on buying
what they needed from external sources.

This meant that BASF had total control on every single part in the slurry.
Which was NOT the case for the competition as the external sources would not
reveal in exact detail what was being sold.

And the condition that led up to the sticky shed debacle was well known and
understood by the chemical engineers at the magnetic tape division according
to Günther Dreher.

His claim was that "You will never see any BASF magnetic tape go sticky shed
ever"

So far his claims appear totally true to me.

--
Best regards,

Goran Finnberg
The Mastering Room AB
Goteborg
Sweden

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Learn from the mistakes of others, you can never live long enough to
make them all yourself. - John Luther