Reel to reel deck directly to power amp ?

Next step could be asking Ralph to custom make playback head tube preamp or maybe playback head/phono stage unit, and match it precisely to his amps, and match the amps to speakers. Now that would be high end.

I have an Atma-Sphere MP-3 that has switchable RIAA and IEC (15ips) EQ settings. While the linestage has the standard gain, Ralph has mentioned a number of times that this can be configured as a unity gain tube buffered output. Seems like this would meet your needs. I have used mine for a number of years now with the transport section of an Otari MX-5050, the signal taken directly off the tape heads. I also have the pro-sumer version of the deck that has the integrated preamp circuit with volume control. I can’t recall if I ever ran that directly into an amp, but guess I can check and report back here if anyone is interested.

Sure, I am interested, if it is not too much of a bother that would be great. What is your amp ?

I have several amps here. Atma-Sphere M60s, Music Reference OTL and RM-10, Electra-Fidelity A3-500, Acoustat servos. Give me a bit of time, I will try it on the existing set up first with the Acoustat servos. If that doesn't work I'll swap in my box speakers and try the other amps.

Ralph hasn’t responded yet about the dbm question I raised, so I did some further research and it appears that what I said was correct. dbm in this context represents decibels above 1 milliwatt into 600 ohms. So the voltage numbers I calculated were correct.

It also happens that the 0.775 volt maximum output of the Technics deck that was referred to corresponds to 0 dbm, since 0.775 volts into 600 ohms corresponds to 1 milliwatt.

So the bottom line is that with some combinations of tape decks and power amps it will be possible for the power amp to be driven to full power, and with some combinations it will not be possible. Generally speaking a problem is likeliest to arise in cases in which the amp is high powered (and most or all of its power capability is actually required by the user, at least occasionally), since there tends to be a **loose** correlation between the power capability of various amplifiers and the input voltages required to drive them to full power. Although there are many exceptions to that, of course, where a higher powered amp may require less input voltage to be driven to full power than a lower powered amp.

Regards,
-- Al

Ralph will probably respond tomorrow.
Right now it appears that all this would require a careful match, which is not bad but can be complicated. Would you spend $5k more on deck or on power amp ? Studer A810 is at least that much more expensive. But it should be more versatile in terms of match
They are both toys compared to this, I guess.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/EAR-Yoshino-STUDER-C37-One-Inch-Two-Track-Tube-Master-Reel-Recorder-SUPERB/...