Have you got your treasures on a reel to reel audio tape. Maybe your grandparents used reel to reel audio tapes to record “letters” to send back to the old country. I’ve seen many reel to reel audio recordings with precious audio of relatives that have long since passed away. Do you have reels of tape like these?

Physical Description

Typical Reel Diameters: 7.6, 10, 12.7, 18, 27 cm (3, 4, 5, 7, 10.5 inches)

Width of tape: 6.35mm (0.25 inches)

Reel-to-reel audio tape or open reel audio tape is a form of magnetic audio recording media that is held on an open reel rather than being contained in a cassette. These tapes were popular from around the mid 1950′s into the mid 1980′s. Most reel-to-reel tapes have either one or two stereo tracks recorded on them. This means that the tapes typically have four tracks (a left and right for each stereo pair). One stereo track was recorded on the tape and when the end of the tape was reached, the tape was flipped around and the second stereo track was recorded. This results in the two stereo tracks being recorded in opposite directions.