Otari MX-80

Name: Otari MX-80
Brand: Otari

A two-inch multitrack that promised a real studio sound without the MTR-90 price tag - and, for a while, it delivered.

Overview

Otari's own advertising for the MX-80 leaned on the arithmetic of getting started. The company's DB (July 1988, p.2) and Recording Engineer (January 1987, p.37) campaigns both argued that launching a music career shouldn't require an MTR-90 in the first month. They pitched the MX-80 as "the next best thing" - room for the band, the backups, the strings and the horns, with money left over for a console. The target was the project or mid-tier room that needed genuine 24-track capability on two-inch tape without the flagship outlay. It came in several configurations. The BM/E new-equipment notice lists two-inch versions in 32-channel, 24-channel, and a 24-channel prewired for 32. Otari later showed the same machine at NAB in 32-, 24- and expandable 24-track form.

The transport is what owners tend to talk about first. The MX-80 uses a microprocessor-controlled constant tape tension transport with DC-servoed reel motors. The period press singled out the smooth punch-in and gapless punch-out as headline features. HX-Pro bias optimization is on board, and the whole deck is user-convertible between 30/15 and 15/7.5 ips. That lets the same machine cover music production and audio sweetening or post-production work without a service call. The built-in mini-autolocator carries three cuepoint memories, a repeat function, and return-to-zero. It is front-panel programmed and can be triggered on the fly. Otari's announcement noted it as the first of the company's machines to offer such an autolocator.

Pricing was the whole argument. List was $34,950 for the 32-channel version and $27,950 for the 24-channel, per the BM/E announcement. That put a two-inch Otari within reach of rooms that would otherwise have been renting time on someone else's MTR-90. Studio Sound (January 1988, p.77) ran the pitch almost verbatim to Otari's own copy, noting that the MX-80 was so keenly priced that a go-ahead studio could probably afford it right then, and that its performance could start to rival the digital boys. Treat that as advertising rather than a bench verdict. The same magazine's later spread (November 1987, p.67) repeated the accountant-friendly angle.

Independent evaluation was more measured but still warm. EQ (May 1990, p.68) put an MX-80 through its lab test and reported that what came off the tape sounded much like what was going onto it, with an occasional slight difference between the two. The same review praised the machine's serviceability. It noted pneumatic arms that let components be accessed effortlessly, clear labeling, immaculate wiring, and space for hands and elbows - a tech's dream, in their words.

Studios took the machine seriously as a working tool. Period studio listings show MX-80s sitting alongside serious company: a 24-track room advertised with a Sound Workshop 34C console and an Otari MX-80, and a Santa Monica facility listing the MX-80 next to a Trident 80C automated console and an MTR-12. Studio Sound (February 1991, p.9) even made the case for pairing two MX-80s with an Otari EC-102 synchronizer, turning a pair of budget decks into two tape facilities and all the extra tracks that come with them, for experimenting, for effects, for whatever the session demanded.

The MX-80 sits below the MTR-90 that the advertising explicitly invoked as the aspirational machine, but above the smaller-format decks in the Otari line. The constant-tension transport, the on-the-fly autolocator, and the speed convertibility are the features that keep these decks in service. The analog tape workflow they depend on is the reason many sit idle. Buyers should expect the usual two-inch realities: tape cost, head wear, and the maintenance any 1980s transport demands. In return they get a professional 24-track Otari at a fraction of the flagship price, the same bargain the brochures promised in 1987.