Studer A80 Mk II
The machine that tape-op rooms were built around, and the classifieds still price it like it.
Overview
The Studer A80 Mk II is the multitrack tape deck that keeps turning up in the back pages of the trade magazines, long after the studios that bought it new have closed. The surviving documentation is mostly about money: what it cost, what it sold for used, and where it sat in the pecking order of professional machines.
The pricing trail starts in the UK trade press. A 1983 classified listing in Studio-Sound (July 1983, p.128) advertised a Studer A80 Mk II 24-track with autolocator and remote at £23,500. The same ad had a Studer A800 24-track at £36,000 and a Lyrec TR532 at £10,500. It also paired the A80 Mk II with Dolby A360 noise reduction at £295. The gap between the A80 Mk II and the A800 is the interesting part. By 1983 the A80 Mk II was the older, cheaper machine in Studer's own lineup, but it was still priced above everything in the ad that wasn't a Studer. A near-identical listing ran in Studio-Sound (April 1983, p.26) at the same £23,500, which suggests the number was a stable market price and not a one-off ask.
By the early 1990s the used market had moved. An American broker ad in db magazine's classified pages, the "WE CAN'T FIND ENOUGH CLEAN USED 24 TRACKS" listing out of Boston, offered a Studer A80 MKII at $26,000. It sat between a Studer A800 at $40,000 and an Otari MTR-9011 at $30,000. A different broker ad from the same era of trade classifieds listed a Studer A80 MK II at $24,000 and a Studer A80 MK IV at $27,000, with an MCI JH-24 at $20,000 and an Otari MX-80 at $21,000. Put the two ads together and the A80 Mk II lands under the A800 and the MTR-9011, over the MCI JH-24, and just below its own Mk IV successor.
One wrinkle for anyone using old ads as a price guide. The same broker's ad reappears across multiple issues with the A80 MKII at $26,000, and the competing ad has it at $24,000. That is a $2,000 spread for what is nominally the same machine. Condition, head wear, and whether the autolocator and remote were included almost certainly account for most of it. The 1983 UK listing is explicit that its £23,500 machine came with autolocate and remote. The American classifieds don't say. Assume the accessories are the difference.
One more data point on longevity: a 2000 piece in Studio-Sound (August 2000, p.10) referenced aftermarket service and parts availability spanning "the Studer A80 Mk.II to Mk.IV, A800 Mk.I to Mk.III, A820 to the Studer A8r." So a service provider in 2000 was still supporting the A80 Mk II as a going concern, two decades after the machine's commercial peak. For a tape deck, a surviving parts chain is the difference between a working machine and a boat anchor.
The available documentation does not establish the A80 Mk II's production years, its track configurations beyond the 24-track examples that dominate the classifieds, its tape speeds, its head complement, or its physical dimensions. What it does show is a professional multitrack that commanded five figures in used currency across at least two decades and two continents. It also remained serviceable long enough for working engineers to keep buying parts for it into the 2000s.
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