Magnetic Reference Laboratory
Magnetic Reference Laboratory (MRL) is an American company founded in 1972 that makes and sells Calibration Tapes[1] for analog audio magnetic tape reproducers in the Open Reel format.
Origins
According John G. McKnight, president of MRL:
I had survived goodness knows how many layoffs at Ampex since I started there in 1952, but I didn't survive the one in 1972. In the US, there was originally Ampex, and several people had run the Ampex Standard Tape Lab over the years. By the 1960s, Tony Bardakos was the fellow who actually made the calibration tapes at Ampex. Tony continued making the tapes until they laid him off in 1972. Tony said, "We can do this on our own as well as Ampex does it, and we can compete with Ampex and do it better and make the money instead of Ampex making the money." So he got together with Ed Seaman, another ex-Ampexer. Ed contacted me to be the engineer. We started Magnetic Reference Lab (MRL) in 1972.[2]