MCI 110B
The MCI 110B was a professional studio tape recorder from the early 1980s. It belonged to the JH-110 line, which MCI promoted heavily in the trade press. Independent documentation on this model is thin. Most of what survives is MCI speaking for itself in advertising, so the claims below are the company's own.
MCI built its pitch around transformerless electronics. A Studio Sound ad (Feb 1981, p.53) called MCI "the first company to offer the totally transformerless system." It put the JH-110B Series next to the JH-600 console and JH-24 multitrack, with no head transformers in the tape machines and electronically balanced inputs and outputs throughout. The same magazine later ran MCI's claim that those transformerless circuits, built around operational amplifier circuitry, gave improved frequency response, signal-to-noise ratio, transient response, and RF and hum rejection (Studio Sound, Oct 1981, p.65). In May 1981, MCI invited readers to compare the JH-110B's specifications against any other tape recorder, offering "no pretty pictures, no bright copy, just facts" (Studio Sound, May 1981, p.72).
The 110B was part of the JH-110 series built around MCI's "Total Servo Transport." DB Magazine (May 1982, p.13) described the transport as cool-running and designed from the ground up for synchronized use with video or other audio recorders. It featured quartz-locked speed accuracy and a digital spot timer/locator at no extra cost. The same ad called it "the most accepted line of studio recorders." A related series, the JH-110BX, appeared in Mix Magazine (May 1981, p.65) as immediately available. The X-80 and X-80A single-unit configurations were $25,000 and $27,000, and a spec line noted 16-bit serial PCM data input at 50.4 kHz sampling and SMPTE edit code. By late 1983, announcements in Mix Magazine (Nov 1983, p.27) described MCI as a division of Sony Corporation of America.
No independent test reports on the 110B itself have surfaced in the Archive's sources. Known specs from the period advertising:
- Totally transformerless electronics; no head transformers in tape machines
- Operational amplifier circuitry
- Total Servo Transport; quartz-locked speed accuracy
- Digital spot timer/locator included at no extra cost
- JH-110BX variant: X-80 $25,000; X-80A $27,000 (1981 listing)
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