Reel to reel

My mistake, both decks were 2 track.  Possibly the Revox handles tape better.

Is Revox, Studer-Revox, and they just leave the Studer off?

There are two parts to a deck; the mechanics and the electronics; hence "Studer Levinson" might be the best home deck made.

Some people think that buying a professional deck is best, but that's a big mistake because of the complexity of professional decks that makes them a mistake for home use.

I wont upgrade for two reason; I've recorded many reels of tape, and I know when you record and playback on the same machine, the speed is always perfect, and the new machine might not like these reels of tape.

The other reason is now that I've modified the electronics, I like the results; not that I don't always dream of a new reel; that's the way it is.

I don't know if anyone with open reel decks uses LAST tape head preservative but I do with my Nakamichi, before playing each cassette. I send my deck for service every three years or so, and despite having thousands of hours on it, the technician says that the head wear is negligible. This is of course not a substitute for head cleaning, though it cleans too. It also sounds a touch better. When recording I sure treat erase and record heads too with the LAST. It only takes a few seconds to apply, no hassle at all, great stuff. There is in addition LAST tape preservative, but I can't apply it with cassettes, with reels you can. Walter Davies of LAST, nice man by the way, said that he had used his own preservatives for all his reels and decks for many years.

geoffkait14,555 posts03-31-2019 2:39pm"The distortion one hears on CDs (mostly) comes directly from the playback CD player. They never really ironed out all the kinks. Let me put it another way. The distortion is not (rpt not) on the CD or the original recording. As the little mice in the movie Babe, say, “That’s just the way things are.”"

I hear ya geoffkait.  I have heard that theory as well.  However, I have a more realistic example:  After having collected several Beatles cd's, and not really having compared the relatively new format with my then-still fairly new LP's, I noticed something while playing "Tell Me Why" on the CD,..... it seemed as though something was missing... I couldn't put my finger on it, so I did an A/B comparison.  And there it was... on the LP, Ringo is tapping away on the ride cymbal.  On the cd, the ride cymbal was basically non-existent.  In this case, I think the omission can be contributed to the mixing engineer rather than any shortcoming of my gear.  It was then I realized that CDs are a very subjective format... if the mixing engineer decides he'd like to be "creative" and put his own spin on the artists work, he did so.  It was clear that was the case with the Beatles CD as I know the song very well, having grown up with Lp's and 45's.  Perhaps contemporary cd's are better, IMHO since most artists are more involved with how their CDs are mixed and processed.

A quick a/b comparison through my complete cd collection (which wasn't very big and still isn't') verified this discovery as being common.  It was then I wrote off cd's, for the most part, as the inferior format.  I do have some contemporary cd's that are absolutely stunning in their sound, so perhaps this lack of fidelity pertains mainly to the early days of CD production.

Hi-Resolution music files, in my experience, are more often better than the LP version I have, especially if played via a high-quality DAC.  Probably because a lot of those files have been edited (not by me) to remove pops, clicks and such from the original, high quality pressing to make, at least to my ears, a perfect, dynamic, noise-free recording in digital form.  

Right or wrong, Just my 2 cents.