A recording head assembly that includes two side-by-side and separately actuated heads. To increase tape capacity while controlling tape mis-registration, write elements are provided in two subsets with a first subset provided on a first of the two heads and a second subset provided on the second of the two heads. The two subsets are offset a distance along the direction of travel for a tape (or horizontal offset) while the two subsets of write elements are also offset along the longitudinal axes of the heads (or bumps on the heads) such that a first subset acts as the upper half of the write element set and a second subset acts as the lower half of the write element set. The subsets of write elements simultaneously writes data, and a similar arrangement can be provided for two subsets of read elements that are aligned with the write elements.