Reel to Reel and General Tapes Questions

I have a DBX 224 as well it doesnt do any good on my Akai GX 635D reel to reel for hiss , since the pinch roller seems to nip that in the bud, but my Pioneer 900 cassette player really gets help removing audible hiss, no pinch roller to help the cassette deck, there is a catch with the DBX 224 you have to encode the tape so it can be decoded during playback, meaning those tapes  cass/rtr  only play decoded on the deck that has the DBX connected and on , if you play the tapes w/o the DBX in loop and or off in the loop you wont like what you hear. So if you want to have a single dedicated deck /stereo system to listen to all your DBX encoded tapes it is a worth while investment, my encoded/decoded cassette tapes sound identical to cd/lp  or what ever source , wonderful little device, and it does no audible damage to rest of sources not using the device while the DBX 224 is still on , it has a bypass button for the ocd crowds too.

I was figuring the Otari would be better then home units, I might sell the Pioneer after I get the Otari up to snuff. How would you rate the sound of the sony vs the Otari? My thoughts on the VCR audio heads were that they are newer than reel to reel tech,

The Otari is a much better machine than the Pioneer.

The Sony is an excellent machine; we use it because of the easily exchanged head stacks. It is overall a better machine than the Otari, but the Otari is no slouch and there are close trade-offs in the sound. I think the Sony might be a bit drier, if anything, but its pretty slight.

Don't worry about the VCR heads. Reel to reel heads are already highly optimized and VCR heads are not in the same league.

VCR Hi Fi audio was among the very best consumer magnetic audio formats ever, but the magic was a lot more than the VCR heads alone.