Fostex B-16D
Sixty-seven pounds of half-inch sixteen-track. It put a multitrack studio in the back seat of a car.
Overview
The B-16D is the 30 ips member of Fostex's B-16 family of half-inch sixteen-track reel-to-reel recorders. Modern Recording (November 1985, p.14) described the B-16 as a low-cost portable 16-track ideally suited to small studios, personal multitrack setups, and on-location recording. It also noted that the machine tips the scales at sixty-seven pounds. That's heavy on a bench and still portable in a trunk. The D variant is the one to know. The base B-16 ran 15 ips with a ±15% variable speed option, and the B-16D adds 30 ips, a speed that extends response out to 24 kHz and tightens the low end. That single change is the whole reason the "D" is on the badge.
Here's what the format costs you. Half-inch tape carrying sixteen tracks means narrow per-track width and real crosstalk compromise. Modern Recording (November 1984, p.60) measured adjacent-channel separation on a B-16 at just over 30 dB. The magazine judged that this would not meaningfully affect stereo imaging, because low-frequency content is essentially non-directional on playback. The trade at this price is plain: you give up channel isolation and headroom, and you cut tape cost dramatically. One owner quoted in Mix (January 1985, p.74) admitted initial skepticism about the half-inch 16-track format, then reported the bias vanished once he started working with the machine. He reckoned it sounded as good as the one-inch decks he'd used and had cut his tape cost by roughly seventy-five percent. That testimonial ran as Fostex advertising, so treat it as marketing rather than an independent verdict.
The model designations around the D get confused. According to Recording Engineer (August 1986, p.52), the line included the B-16DM, which adds a third head for tape reproduce and sixteen channels of independent Dolby encode and decode for off-tape monitoring. The D itself is the 30 ips machine. The DM layers sel-repro and per-channel Dolby on top. Anyone hunting a B-16D should confirm which head stack and noise-reduction configuration they're looking at before money changes hands. The badges are close enough to mislead.
The B-16D is not a forgiving machine. Recording Engineer (August 1986, p.52) traced a batch of problems on a related setup back to the fact that the 4030's servo adjustment LEDs did not function. The indicators were necessary to set up the system for dynamics and tape handling, and without them alignment becomes guesswork. That's the recurring theme with these decks. The transport is capable, but it lives or dies on setup, and the setup depends on indicators and adjustments that are now decades old. A B-16D that hasn't been professionally aligned in years will not sound like the machine in the reviews.
Period reception was warm. Studio Sound (July 1984, p.117) called the B-16 a simple, unique product, said no other 16-track got close to it for price, and judged it without doubt the best-engineered product yet from Fostex. That's a price-performance verdict more than an absolute one. Nothing else at the money did sixteen tracks on half-inch tape with 30 ips capability, and it didn't outclass the professional decks it sat beneath.
On the used market the B-16D shows up in dealer listings rather than as a collector's trophy. A 1990 Blevins Audio Exchange listing priced a B-16D with a 4050 remote at $4K, and a contemporaneous Digital Audio Source ad listed a B16D at 30 ips for $3.6K. Those figures put it in working-studio territory. Prices have softened since, and the machine's value now hinges almost entirely on head condition, transport health, and whether the alignment indicators still work. Parts and service are the real cost of ownership. The deck itself is the cheap part.
For anyone weighing one today, the calculus hasn't changed since 1984. The B-16D is a compact, genuinely portable sixteen-track that makes half-inch tape go a long way, and it rewards an owner who understands alignment and punishes one who doesn't. Mix (January 1985, p.74) ran a customer line about the B-16 handling tape beautifully — that's the machine at its best, set up right and fed good tape. Get one that's been maintained, budget for a proper alignment, and it will still do the job it was built for.
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