What should I be looking for when buying my 1st Reel To Reel ?

Expensive and very time consuming. PARTS at a reasonable price for one.  A lot of the heads interchange. There are a lot of RtR nuts out there. I'm one of sorts. I use a direct head playback unit. It's still a matter of good source material. 

You're almost better off making your own. The biggie is when you finally get to hear a great 15ips recording like Roy Orbison, or Old Blue Eyes and you wonder why they ever stopped producing it. I'm not a huge county western fan but the old "Opry", and the Outlaws had some really great tapes at one time. CCR, Carlos, Steppenwolf and one of my favorites on tape is Momma Cass. 2-600.00 is not uncommon.

Did I mention RtR is time consuming and VERY expensive.

Thanks for the input everyone, good information!

Best

Robert

@rbtstock: PS Audio "publishes" a great online magazine: Copper. It's free, and is delivered to your computer's in box. UK reviewer Ken Kessler (Hi-Fi News & Record Review) is up to Chapter 11 in his Copper column dedicated to all things reel-to-reel. Highly recommended.

You can also check Tapeheads.net for good info.

@rbtstock  before you buy anything you need to figure out what type of tapes you are going to play back. 1/4 track commercially released tapes, 1/2 track tapes, what speed (3 3/4 , 7 1/2, 15. 30), Etc. 

There are a few decks that will take care of the track configurations, but not all the speed configurations. once you determine what types of tapes you are going to playback, then you can narrow down what type of deck you are going to search for.