Otari MX5050/2
A half-track quarter-inch workhorse that studios bought by the pair - and kept buying for a decade.
Overview
The MX5050/2 turns up in studio gear lists the way a good soldering iron turns up on a bench: constantly, and usually without comment. In the studio directories in the back of the trade magazines, the Otari MX5050 appears again and again, often two or three to a room, listed right alongside the big multitracks. Nobody buys a pair of something as an afterthought.
The machine was a two-channel quarter-inch recorder, and Otari built the line to cover a lot of ground. In a 1978 dealer listing in DB-Magazine (July 1978, p.9), the MX5050 was advertised in 2, 4, and 8-channel versions, with the two-track at the bottom of that range - the stereo mixdown and mastering deck of the family. A separate 1978 listing in the same publication describes the MX5050 2/4-channel version as offering XLR connectors, sync replay, and ±20 dB level control, and pitches the 8SD variant as a portable half-inch eight-track. The two-track was the one studios bought in bulk.
By the late '70s Otari was advertising the MX5050-2S as "popular worldwide," and the ad copy lays out the operating speeds plainly: 15 and 7½ ips, or 7½ and 3¾ ips depending on the version, with an optional dc capstan servo and the ability to reproduce quarter-track tapes as well as half-track (DB-Magazine, January 1978, p.9). That last detail is handy. A mastering deck that can also play back a quarter-track reference without a second machine saves a studio some trouble. The same ad line lists the Mark II-2 as a quarter-inch two-track that carries all the MX5050 features plus separate transport and electronics, 15 and 7½ ips operation, and a variable-speed ±7% dc capstan servo. That puts the MX5050 as the workhorse in Otari's lineup, with the Mark II as the step up.
The studio listings show what the MX5050/2 did for a living. In a 1983 Mix directory, a Toronto facility lists an Otari MTR-90 II for multitrack alongside "Otari MX5050 2 and full track" - the two-track and full-track machines handling mixdown and mastering while the 24-track did the tracking. A 1986 Mix listing for a New York studio shows the same pattern in duplicate: "(2) Otari MX5050, 2-track; (2) Otari MX5050 full-track." A Vermont studio in the same issue pairs an "Otari MX5050, 2 track" with a Revox A77 and an Ampex 300 for its two-track duties. A UK control room runs an Otari MX5050 2-track next to a Revox A77 behind an Amek console. The pattern is consistent: this was the second machine, the mixdown deck.
The used market shows how long these stayed in service. By 1993 a UK dealer was listing an "Otari MX5050 2 track" at £595, marked down to £495. The 1994 listing from the same dealer repeats the £595/£495 pricing. Go back to 1977 and a shop-soiled MX5050 two-track was advertised at £550. So the asking price stayed fairly flat across a decade and a half.
That's the honest read on the MX5050/2. It isn't a collector's fetish object the way a Studer or an Ampex is; the trade listings treat it as equipment, not treasure. But it earned its place by being the deck a studio could afford to run hard, and the fact that facilities kept two of them — one for stereo, one for full-track — says more about its reputation than any spec sheet could. The MX5050/2 is the sound of a lot of records getting finished, and it did that job without asking for attention.
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