Ampex AVR-2
A modular quadruplex VTR that Ampex pitched as the first of its kind — and priced accordingly, from $69,000 to $92,000.
Overview
Two men. That's the entire moving crew Ampex designed for. The AVR-2 broke down into a tape deck and an associated time base correction unit, each light enough for a pair of hands, which meant a station could roll the whole machine through a 36-inch doorway without calling in the riggers. For a quadruplex recorder of the period, that portability was the headline, and Ampex built the sales pitch around it.
The company billed the AVR-2 as the world's first modular quadruplex recorder, and the word "modular" was doing real work. The basic machine was two pieces; more ambitious operators could stack on a lowboy console, then a monitor bridge, building up from simple to complex as budgets allowed. Ampex's own advertising leaned hard on the cost angle — the machine arrived in "many cost-saving configurations," and buyers saved by selecting only the features they actually needed rather than paying for a fully loaded deck up front. The company also claimed the AVR-2 was the first quad to break the "barrier of budget for true quad performance," producing a broadcast signal comparable to any recorder while keeping the entry price down.
That entry price started at $69,000 and climbed to $92,000 depending on "the number of bells and whistles you add," as Ampex vice president and general manager Charles Steinberg put it at the machine's NAB debut. The system ran at either 7½ or 15 IPS. Ampex considered the tape performance a rival to more elaborate machines, and the modular build was the mechanism for getting there without the usual quadruplex price tag.
Operation was deliberately simplified. Fewer controls were needed than on a conventional quad, all logically grouped and well lighted, and the setup controls could be run in unity with the door closed for normal operation or by inexperienced operators — open the door and switch into variable operation for unusual conditions. The switches were locking-type toggles specifically so a knee-bump couldn't change their position, and the machine was air-cooled whether the door was open or not. Editing was handled through a split-screen display: the operator pushed one button and set one control to line up vertical lines, and the program didn't even have to be synchronous with the system. Ampex pitched that as fast, easy, perfect edits, especially for operators who hadn't been at it for years.
The options list was the real story of the AVR-2, and Ampex was candid that it ran too long to print in full. A Dropout Compensator eliminated the effects of dropouts in color or monochrome playback. A Velocity Compensator improved dubs. Auto-Chroma handled high-speed automatic equalization of color saturation. Automatic Tracking Control let the machine play back every tape precisely. Éditec handled faultless editing — single-frame inserts, moving cue tones, verifying placement. And the Compatible Dual Track Audio System gave greater audio mixing and editing flexibility without sacrificing the cue track, enough to record a second language or add voice-overs. Ampex even noted the machine could be tailored for stereo if a buyer called for it.
The AVR-2 turns up in the trade press as a working tool rather than a showpiece. By 1984, used AVR-2s were trading at around $15,000 in the classifieds, a long fall from the original five-figure ceiling and a reminder of how quickly broadcast hardware depreciates once the next format arrives.
The machine's reputation rests on that modular design and the option list rather than on any single specification, and the period documentation is unusually clear about what Ampex thought it had built: a quad that a station could afford, configure, and move without a crew.
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