George Blood LP Acquires Sonicraft A2DX Lab

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

George Blood LP Acquires Sonicraft A2DX Lab, Adding MasterTape Audio Restoration to Its Preservation Services

The acquisition brings the renowned analog multitrack transfer lab, and its record-label and recording-studio client base, in-house at George Blood's Philadelphia area facility.

FORT WASHINGTON, Pa., June 30th, 2026 -- George Blood LP, a nationally recognized audio and video preservation and digitization company, today announced that it has acquired Sonicraft A2DX Lab, the specialized analog audio lab known for rescuing and digitizing analog  open-reel master tapes for record labels, recording studios, and artists.

The acquisition adds Sonicraft's master tape restoration capability to George Blood's existing preservation services, including tape baking, analog-to-digital transfer, and the recovery of reels damaged by mold, flood, and contamination. Sonicraft's equipment, including its fleet of Ampex MM1200 and restored Ampex 440C machines, had already relocated from New Jersey to George Blood's headquarters in the greater Philadelphia area in March of 2024, continuing operations up until the acquisition.

For more than two decades, Sonicraft A2DX Lab has built its reputation on high-stakes analog transfers, handling everything from quarter-inch full-track mono to time-code-synchronized two-inch 24-track multitrack multi-tape transfers. The Lab reports that it has migrated  and restored more than 2,500 tapes and preserved over 50,000 hours of audio, with a 99 percent success rate on at-risk reels. Its clients have included Warner Records, ASCAP, and Trinity Recording Studio.

“Sonicraft has spent more than two decades doing some of the most demanding analog tape work in the business,” said George Blood, founder of George Blood LP. “Bringing that capability and that craftsmanship under our roof lets us serve musicians, labels, and studios with the same rigor we bring to the world's great archives.”

“Kevin and Sonicraft have been part of our professional network for years. Since they moved in with us the opportunity to collaborate has grown. We’ve worked on multiple projects, such as 40 years of Farm Aid concerts, the Grateful Dead concert recordings for nugs.net, and transfers for the Plangent Process which requires capturing the high frequency bias signal from tapes. In just two years the distinction between our two companies has melted away, with our complimentary services, and strong working relationship. Sonicraft’s world leading 1:1, fully monitored transfers on carefully curated and maintained machines captures the essence of analog recordings, which are a  joy to hear.”

“Joining Geroge Blood was a move that benefitted both entities,” said Kevin Przybylowski, owner of Sonicraft A2DX Lab. “We were able to add our vast experience with restoring and digitizing just about every format of open-reel-analog tape to their already comprehensive knowledge, and with George Blood’s ability to restore, digitize, and recover just about any format of analog or digital audio, video, or data we have exponentially expanded what we can offer.”

The acquisition extends the preservation practice George Blood began in 1992 into the high end of music master tape work, including recording studio masters and multitrack sessions. It complements the company's longstanding archival, spoken-word, and audiovisual preservation services for libraries, museums, cultural institutions, and corporations.

About George Blood LP

For more than three decades, George Blood LP has delivered professional audio and video preservation services to musicians, composers, universities, libraries, corporations, and individual clients, both nationally and internationally. The company supports playback of over 210 audio and video formats, employs engineers with more than 55 Grammy nominations, and was an early contributor to the Library of Congress FADGI best practices for video preservation specification, and the SMPTE RDD48 MXF specification for preservation.. Learn more at www.georgeblood.com.

About Sonicraft A2DX Lab

Sonicraft A2DX Lab specializes in the restoration and digitization of open-reel analog audio tape, including tape baking, analog-to-digital transfer, and the rescue of reels damaged by mold, flood, and contamination. The Lab serves record labels, recording studios, and artists. Learn more at sonicraft.com.

Media Contact

Stefan Grycz
Director of Commercial and M&E Sales, George Blood LP
Stefan.Grycz@GeorgeBlood.com
215.248.2100

AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ wins Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film

AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ directed by David Alvarado has won the 7th Annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. We were lucky enough to digitize some film for this documentary! Congratulations David and his team! Read more about the film here.

Join us for an Open House October 17!

We invite librarians, archivists, engineers, movie buffs, collectors, scholars, and anyone interested to tour our 41,000 square foot facility and learn how we transfer audio, video, film and data to digital files. The event runs from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Register here!

In addition to the tour, the Open House will include buffet lunch, discussions with our knowledgeable staff, and the opportunity to discover more about a time-based item from your collection.

Register by October 13 and email preservation@georgeblood.com with any questions!

The Arrival of our Endpoint Audio Cylinder Player

This week we welcome the arrival of our Endpoint Audio Cylinder player. Our fully equipped machine includes both stylus and optical playback of cylinders and Dictabelts, playback of Magnabelts, the anti-wow software, and the special dark field microscope for examination of media.

Nick Bergh delivered, installed and trained our staff on his precision equipment. It is the most significant advancement in real time playback of cylinders and Dictabelts in a generation, and the ONLY advance in Magnabelt reproduction since IBM stopped manufacturing the product.

A special delight was a visit from Ward Marston, one of the founders of the audio preservation profession. Ward brought two cylinders to test the machine’s limits- a 1965 cylinder of Birgit Nielsen, produced for the Metropolitan Opera Quiz, and a 6”, 150tpi cylinder in an unusual brown wax. We all delighted on the range of sonic qualities the Endpoint cylinder machine produces with different styli, the real time optical playback, and the quick and easy adjustments of centering, tracking angle, speed, and new possibilities with optical settings.

We join the Library of Congress, the National Library of the Czech Republic, the Swiss National Sound Archive and private collectors as the only facility in the world offering advanced, precision stylus and real time optical playback to individuals and institutions.

5 Reasons Why Web-Accessible Archives are Important

We are living in a digital world, we all know it and there is no escaping it. As archivists, we can either get on board with the digital revolution or resist it. But where’s the fun in that? Online archival work has existed since the dawn of the internet, and it is the job of some archivists out there to help create web-accessible platforms for archival materials. Through online archival projects, archivists and curators can push the boundaries of what it means to preserve cultural artifacts and how the public interacts with them. While this process can seem daunting, here are a few reasons why web-accessible archives are excellent for archivists.

1. STORAGE SPACE: Who Needs It?

When we create web-accessible archives, folks do not need to have tons of available physical space in order to have tons of access to information. Through online platforms like the National Archives’ digital exhibitions, people can interact with the information and formats available to cultural institutions without the fuss of finding the actual room for all the physical materials.

2. Reduce Wear and Tear on Archival Objects

Can you imagine if the thousands of folks who interact with online materials were actually using the physical object? One of the drawbacks of non-digital media is that every time you play it, there is wear and tear. When the public has access to digital, public domain copies of media, they can enjoy the media without destroying it.

3. More Contributions to Archival Projects

With projects like The Internet Archive, people from across the world can contribute to this online space. While other cultural institutions are limited by storage space, distance, and scope of projects, iArchive allows for a potentially endless stream of contributions, and thus more of human history can be saved to the archive.

4. Materials Will Not Be Lost to Time

In endeavors like The Great 78 Project, materials that may have been lost or forgotten to time have a second chance at surviving with the internet. Although the original 78 may not be a viable option for replaying or storage, the online accessible 78 can be played on countless times.

5. More People Get to See and Learn From Materials

Archives, special collections, and museums have traditionally been accessible only to academics, students, or folks with enough money to get in. Online archives and special collections make it possible for more people to learn from materials and databases without the limitations of time and money. When we make it possible for more folks to interact with materials, we create an opportunity for more folks to get educated.