Characters like Jeffrey at Slipperyskip Computers have started cramming tiny motherboards into some very cool cases.
The Tape Project was founded to bring "master tape sound" into the living room. Each release is recorded onto 1/4" half track analog reel-to-reel tape at 15 inches per second. They claim, "You just aren't going to get any closer to the original master, short of buying a record label or two."
The current catalog consists of 10 hand-picked albums, including Sonny Rollins' seminal Saxophone Colossus (1956), Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby (1961), along The Robert Cray Band and Malcolm Arnold conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra. There's even a brand new album by Jacqui Naylor that was mastered exclusively for The Tape Project.
The process starts by creating a 1" duplication master from the original analog master tape, which is then dubbed to a bank of finely tweaked Ampex ATR-100 decks. The result is the highest-quality "home format" analog copy possible.
The Tape Project is the brainchild of Dan Schmalle, who is also the driving force behind Bottlehead Corp, who manufacture a range of well respected tube amplifiers and modifies tape decks with the CCIR/IEC1 playback equalization required to play these tapes.
I'll let them explain: "We ended up choosing the Technics RS-1500 as our starting point. They are attractive looking machines, they offer the versatility of both 1/4 track and 1/2 track playback heads and three tape speeds, and most importantly they have what we feel is a superior tape transport path, the isolated loop. The RS1500 uses a servo reel control system combined with dual pinch rollers on a single capstan to maintain constant tension on the tape. This results in very stable, low flutter playback.
The one possible shortcoming of the RS 1500 is its lack of IEC playback equalization. In actual practice this is not such a big issue, because the quality of the playback electronics in all of these late 20th century prosumer grade machines is dismal. The only way to get the full benefit of the sonic quality of Tape Project Tapes is to use better outboard playback (repro) electronics anyway."
The project gurus suggest twinning your modified RS-1500 tape deck with the $4000 Bottlehead Repro tape preamplifier, along with whatever high-end audiophile amplifier and speakers you have lurking in your mansion's listening room. A charter subscription includes all 10 albums from the 2007 catalog and retails for $2000, including shipping within the USA and Canada. They also offer a Selective Subscription that allows you to choose any six of the ten titles for $1200.
There's no word on the titles lined up for the 2008 catalog, since the team is still working hard to fulfill their current order backlog.
related:
Bottlehead S.E.X. Amplifier - Get Your Tubes Glowing [possibly nsfw]
For starters, it features manual focus adjustment from 80 cm to infinity, and three mechanically linked lenses, which could make spontaneous photography a challenge. The two bottom lenses capture the image, while the third functions as an adjustable viewfinder with split-image focusing and a fresnel screen. The lenses are optically identical, with a minimum /2.8 aperture and 80mm focal length. 
It's capsule was tantalizingly perched atop the pile - many, many quarters away. After weeks of watching the pile of prizes go down, my quarter at the ready, something clicked and I finally took a good look at the watch. It wasn't a real timepiece, it was only a toy! I finally saw it for what it was... a cheap come-on, and a dirty trick.
Sony's Trinitron brand dates back 40 years, earning the reputation of having the best contrast, brightest colors, and consistent focus across the picture (check out some older non-Sony TV's to see what I mean...). "Trinitron" TV's combine a unique CRT gun system and metal aperture grill to deliver quality video. Other companies licensed Trinitron tech, also bringing it to computer monitors. 
There is a good chance that CRT's will stick around for a few years as a low cost HD display alternative (lots of folks don't seem to realize that CRT can do HD even better than LCD). LCD price cuts are slowing, so perhaps CRT's will keep their pricing edge for a while longer.
The Volkswagen Kübelwagen Type 82 was one of Ferdinand Porsche's cleverest designs. It was also about as attractive as a motorized washing machine, thanks to its spartan exterior. Dr. Porsche was tasked in early 1938 with the development of an extremely rugged and lightweight vehicle capable of carrying four fully equipped soldiers, and it took two years of development and field testing before the final Type 82 entered production in 1940.
The DS-10 includes a pair of patchable virtual analog monosynths that are loosely based on the classic Korg MS-10. There's also a 4 part drum machine, a six track 16-step sequencer, audio effects (delay, chorus and flanger) and three note entry modes. Sadly, there's no MIDI I/O so you're restricted to creating music with the DS Stylus. One very cool feature is that multiple units can be wirelessly linked to share sounds and form your very own Nintendo orchestra. 
Guitar Hero copy (a free download called Shredz64) on the Commodore, but also use the popular guitar-shaped controller too! The C64's SID audio chip is famously popular among chiptune enthusiasts, and now you can actually play along to your favorite 8-bit SID songs.
I don't know if Retro Thing reader Glen Feibich was scanning Craigslist for a fireplace or an 8 track player - but he found both in a unique all-in-on-solution. Airline was a house brand for department store Montgomery Ward, and I've seen countless old turntables & reel to reel recorders released under that flag, but never anything remotely like this!
It's interesting to see just how many bad ideas are in this single piece of furniture. It eats up a lot of floorspace, doesn't actually heat the room, you can't display anything on the mantle and still have access to the hi-fi inside, the list goes on and on...
It should come as no surprise that Douglas was an alpha technology addict. After earning a daft sum from his books in the early 1980s, he eagerly embraced the Macintosh along with a respectable collection of then state-of-the-art MIDI synthesizers including a Sequential Prophet VS. His favorite feature of the VS was the random patch generator, which seems somehow fitting given his love of Infinite Improbability. Of course, the secret purpose of his music rig could be summed up in a single word: Procrastination. As he famously remarked, "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
With the re-imagined Doctor Who ready to return for a fourth season next month, I can't help but think of one of the series' enduring hallmarks; the Doctor's ludicrously long scarf. The scarf became a symbol not only of Tom Baker, the fourth actor to play the role, but also an icon of the quirky series. 
I have a Who scarf that I hoodwinked my mother into making for me. Mind you, she's positively a knitting machine and somehow knit the mammoth project in an evening. I still wear it today, not only as a badge of my love of the classic BBC show, but as a really effective shield against the cruel cold of March in Chicago. I remember wearing it on a high school winter field trip, and despite being very unpopular I had two girls wrapped up with me in all that surplus scarf-dom. It's good to be the Doctor...
