THE ART OF ANALOG MASTERY
Brief History
Akai is certainly one of the most prominent heavyweights and legends when it comes to manufacturing of reel-to-reel tape decks. Over the years Akai introduced to markets more than 100 different models of reel-to-reels.
On 15th July 1929, Masukichi Akai and his son Saburo founded in the backyard of their Tokyo home Akai Electric Company Ltd. as a manufacturer of radio components, sockets and other electrical parts.
Through the 20's and 30's Akai’s business rapidly expanded. Masukichi's eldest son who made the Akai factory his home enrolled himself for night studies at the Tokyo Institute of Technology to study electrical machinery. This turned out to be one of the most important steps in the development of the company. Due largely to Saburo's new expertise in electrical engineering Akai expanded into the production of electric motors.
Saburo designed a motor that caught the attention of a company which was making 16mm film projectors.
The new business generated by the production of electrical motors allowed AKAI in 1933to move their facilities from the backyard premises to a factory in Kamata, a district within Ota City in Tokyo's southeaster side famous for housing the Shochiku film studio. Unfortunately, at the onset of the Second World War the Akai company floundered. In less than two weeks after getting married Saburo Akai was enlisted into the Imperial Japanese Army.
Masukichi Akai had sold all of his premises and equipment to Tokyo based Sawafuji Electric Co., which was producing electric equipment for vehicles such as starters, generators and magnetos. After the war Saburo took up employment at Sawafuji Electric Co as an engineer.
In 1947 Saburo raised investment and bought back the Kamata plant from Sawafuji and changed the name of the concern to Akai Electric Company.
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In 1948, Akai started producing and selling motors for phonographs. Recording technology was changing quite rapidly and there was a demand for higher precision record players. Akai responded to this demand by continually upgrading the technology of their phono motors.
By 1951, AKAI developed the C-5 Variable Speed Motor, which produced minimal noise and vibration and proved extremely popular with audio enthusiasts of that time.
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The C-5 motor aroused an interest in the US by a small producer of educational audio-visual equipment, Roberts Electronics, which founded owned by Robert Metzner.
Robert Metzner's relationship with Akai first started around 1953 with a turntable that was brought in for repair to Califone. Robert Metzner founded Califone Corporation in 1947 which later became the educational products division of Roberts Recorders. Robert's brother-in-law, who was working for him at the time said there was a very unusual motor in the record player. Robert Metzner noted the numbers of the motor and found they were registered to Saburo Akai. Mr. Metzner contacted Akai and said he would like to know if they were making these motors and if not, could he have the tooling to make them. If they were making them, could he get their distributorship? Akai sent Robert Metzner a brochure about the motors they
were manufacturing. A relationship has
developed and Akai provided motors for some of the Califone products.
In 1954 Akai made its first foray into the tape recorder field by bringing out the AT-1 model, a tape recorder kit. In 1956 Akai developed their first own tape recorder, the 900.
When Akai sent first tape recorder to Roberts Electronics it was a relatively simple laid-down unit of poor design and quality based on old solid magnets technology. Metzner recommended that AKAI should aspire for the quality of Ampex. He sent an Ampex 600 to Akai. The company copied the basic design. The early Akai and Roberts Recorders had a similar look, however not the electronics and mechanics of Ampex.
Saburo travelled to the U.S. to further study the market. He was completely taken aback by the immense market opportunity he found there. He returned home to Japan with determination to improve quality and technology as this was key to selling in America. From then on the firm focused on expanding their facilities and gearing their production towards improving quality.
In 1957 Akai unveiled a deluxe version of its high-grade tape recorder. With the deluxe stereo model which was brought out the following year, Akai had acquired a firm position in the domestic market. In the same year, Saburo took over from his father as president.
Saburo believed that the tape recorder was not a simple machine for the production of sound; the tape recorder was to be refined as a device for the pursuit of sound quality.
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While most public listened to live performances or music played on record players, AKAI was promoting the superiority of tape recordings.
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While costs would rise with the pursuit of the quality of sound, Akai was firmly committed to the belief that the tape recorder should be an instrument of sonic excellence and set out to make products that demonstrated this conviction.
Throughout the early '60's Akai produced models that made their reputation as a premier producer of audio tape recorders.
Roberts Electronics, Inc. negotiated an arrangement with Akai wherein Akai would build the machines to Roberts specs, they would be shipped from Japan to the US where Roberts would inspect every unit before it went out to sales. Further, Robert Metzner negotiated a contract that enabled Roberts Electronics to be the sole North American distributor for the recorders. Akai sold the same, or similar models to the rest of the world under the Akai name and paid royalties to Metzner. This lasted until 1972 when Akai entered the US market.
In the US, Akai products were being marketed under the Roberts brand name. Despite the wide range of tape recorders available from US manufacturers, Akai sales were exceptionally high.
Akai introduced the M-7 model reel to reel recorder in 1962 and its successor the M-8 in 1964. Equipped with the then-new X'Field magnetic recording system, which was licensed to Akai by Tandberg, these two models gave superior frequency response which resulted in a vast improvement in tape economy. During the late 1960s, Akai adopted Tandberg's cross-field recording technologies (using an extra tape head) to enhance high-frequency recording and switched to the increasingly reliable Glass and crystal (X'tal) (GX) ferrite heads a few years later
Together the M-7 and M-8 (Roberts 770X) recorded sales of more than 160,000 units in four years and thus established Akai as a producer of premium quality reel to reel recorders. The X'Field Head development brought Akai world recognition, and the company went on to produce many top selling models.
The company's most popular products were the GX-400D-SS, GX-747 and GX-77 open-reel recorders (featuring an auto-loading function), the three-head, closed-loop GX-F95, GX-90, GX-F91, GX-R99 and CS-702DII cassette decks.
​The company set up Akai America, Ltd. in California in 1970, with the intention of selling products under its own brand name, rather than the hitherto used name of Roberts.
​Under terms of the agreement, Roberts was going to continue to market the major part of the Akai made products under the Roberts label on an exclusive basis.
​In 1973 Saburo Akai died during a New Year's trip to the ski resort of Shiga Kogen.
Akai manufactured and badged most of its imported hi-fi products with the Tensai brand (named after the Swiss audio and electronics distributor Tensai International. Tensai International was Akai's exclusive distributor for the Swiss and Western European markets until 1988.
