Ampex machine's high price tag. Ampex sold only about 50 or 60 ATR-124 machines, and withdrew from the professional audio tape recorder market entirely in 1983. By the 1990s, Ampex focused more on video recorders, instrumentation recorders, and data recorders. In 1991, Ampex sold their professional audio recorder line to Sprague Magnetics. The Ampex Recording Media Corporation spun off in 1995 as Quantegy Inc.; that company has ceased producing recording tape. Starting in the early 1950s, RCA, Bing Crosby and others tried to record analog video on very fast-moving magnetic tape. As early as 1952, Ampex developed prototype video tape recorders
United Western Recorders recording equipment and custom-made Universal Audio mixing consoles, which were bought by major recording studios. After relocating to Hollywood in 1957, and with the backing of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Putnam first established the United Recording Corp. studio complex at 6050 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. In 1961, he purchased the neighboring Western Studio at 6000 Sunset, remodeling and incorporating the building into the complex. The buildings were then renamed United Western Recorders, and catered to some of the biggest artists of the era, including Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, and Elvis Presley. Putnam assembled a talented staff, some of