What makes tape sound better than vinyl ?

You are welcome. If one day you do decide to get an open reel deck or a cassette player don’t do it before consulting with the Audiogon membership. There are very knowledgeable people here who use or used to use them. Tapeheads.com can be helpful too. If you keep looking at the decks on ebay, look at Studer, Otari, Technics. Also, Revox, Tascam, Teak, Sony pro. I could get some Otari or Revox right away, but I will wait. This should be a serious project for me so I would want to have extra funds for service, reels, maybe new cables. I spend about $100 per month on audio, not including records, and can tell that it is not very little if you don't make significant mistakes. 

" cool '" is an understatement - great !

Yes she is, appreciate the sentiments good people, long may she continue to "rock it out". 

The example I was thinking of is the way I put my reel to use; record vinyl to reel for convenience, this is constant with few variables, no matter how good the vinyl rig is, the reel playback will sound better.

I use 2 track recorded at 7 1/2 ips. The vinyl is recorded tape out on pre, to tape in on reel. As I explained, the reason the vinyl sounds better on playback, is because the sound is bigger because of the larger tape heads of a 2 track, not only does that mean more detail, but it also adds depth to the sound stage.

I know that's not the same situation as you might expect from the original statement, but I record my vinyl to reel for convenience, and that's what I get. When you compare different turntable setups to different reels, that's not valid because no constants have been stated.