Reel to reel

Bottlehead on Bainbridge Island makes some nice preamps just for your intended purpose....and they know great sound being the guys behind the Tape Project Tapes...

Uber IMO a nice Revox A-77 is the perfect low end deck you are talking about..they can be had in working shape for $200 ( or less as I recall Ralph just gave one away ).... nice carry handle built in, gentle tape handling, great sound..good enough for the Band and Dylan re The Basement Tapes....
what would you like to talk about ? I use one when scouting a new acoustic space on visit #2, after the Zoom6

just seeing your update uber.....you will greatly enjoy the B77

IF you get around to it, the Bottlehead guys are worth looking into....

Tomic.

I will check Bottlehead out as well.
But will be opening up the Sony today to see if possible to crank up the output on the board pots.

Definitely hope I can tweak the output pots as $800 for a Bottlehead is not going to work for a $100 deck ... Lol.
Looks nice but......

as far as output level, as several posters already noted, the consumer output level was established as -10db, while the pro level was established at +4 db. so considerable difference. if you plug a pro level deck into a consumer level pre amp, will have to lower the output a tad to make sure you don't overload the input stage. 

and yes, 1.0volt into a phono input is way too hot for most preamp phono stages.....

but if you side step the playback electronics on the deck, you can come off the tape head and go into a phono stage. The eq willl need to be changed from RIAA or NAB or IEC, but the gain will be similar. 

happy reeling.