Quantegy Inc. was a manufacturer of magnetic tape and professional external hard drives based in

Opelika, Alabama Opelika (pronounced ) is a city in and the county seat of Lee County in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 census, the population of Opelika is ...

. Their tape products were primarily used in analog audio and video recording studios, but they also have some use with digital data storage devices and instrumentation recorders along with some audiophile home hobbyists. The company was created at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

by Major John Herbert Orr as Orradio Industries. This was a result of the US Army requiring an American supplier of magnetic tape. Magnetic tape was a German invention and after the war, the German manufacturing ability was destroyed. * In 1959,

Ampex Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...

acquired Orradio Industries and it became the Ampex Magnetic Tape Division. * In 1995, Ampex divested this division, then called the Ampex Recording Media Corporation. At the same time, 3M was also spinning off its magnetic media division. Equitable Life Insurance acquired these combined entitie

which became Quantegy Inc., and later changed its name to the current Quantegy Recording Solutions, with the Ampex product line being the nominal survivor, although much use of the 3M technologies later found their way into Quantegy products including the high end GP9 tape. * In January 2005, having previously filed for bankruptcy protection, Quantegy closed its manufacturing facility in Opelika. This event received substantial media attention. * On April 18, 2005, Quantegy resumed operations under new ownershi

* In January 2007, Quantegy announced that it will cease production of magnetic tape in April 2007 and is taking orders up until February 22

The only remaining manufacturers of new magnetic tape for sound recording are RMGI and ATR Magnetics. * In April 2007, Reel Deal Pro Audio purchased the majority of Quantegy's reel to reel audio tape and accessories and began to sell it on their web site

* In June 2007, Quantegy ceased sales of the FHD and Black Diamond FHD3 series of

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

products to the professional audio recording industry. , Quantegy was working on reviving Quantegy 456 Studio Mastering Tape, Quantegy 499 Gold Studio Mastering Tape, GP9 Platinum Studio Mastering Tape, as well as the Black Diamond Series of products. But {{As of, 2012, lc=on, no progress had been made. Most of the tape production facilities, located in Opelika, Alabama, were sold in 2008 and few years later demolished.

External links

Corporate Homepage
- From Internet Archive (Warning: mostly FLASH)
Quantegy History Page

NPR story on 2005 plant closing/bankruptcy

Rolling Stone story on 2005 plant closing/bankruptcy

More info on new ownership
* An ol
advertisement
for Irish brand ferro-sheen tape.
Reel Deal Offers Last Quantegy Tapes
Video storage Audio storage

See also

External links