There are really three different important reel to reel tape eras. The first one consists of the prerecorded stereo tapes from the 1950s and 60s. The best were the 7.5 inch per second (ips) two track tapes produced by RCA, Mercury and Capital and other lesser labels. They were expensive at the time costing as much as 5 times more than an LP. Some reel to reel machines at the time were made by German and Swiss companies. I remember that one audiophile machine was sold under the Fisher label. Of course Ampex was the gold standard, but it was really a commercial unit with tube electronics. Ampex machines were often used to produce 30ips master tapes, particularly the RCA Living Stereo line. Mercury modified a commercial movie projector and used 35mm film coated with magnetic particles to record masters for their prerecorded Living Presence tapes.
In the 1960s, the Swiss-German Revox brand became popular with its transistor electronics. However, early transistor products were rather harsh sounding compared to tubed ones. Later, when cheaper 4 track 3.75 ips tapes became the norm, solid state Japanese machines like Technics and Pioneer were in vogue. Still, I feel that Revox made some of the best sounding transistor decks with their A77 and B77 lineup. While they may have been among the best, none of these decks were really high end because I have bypassed their playback electronics with outboard tape head preamps. This elevates the sound of prerecorded tapes, in particular those old 2 track, 7.5 ips ones, to audiophile levels which rival or surpass LPs. A few commercial 15 ips prerecorded tapes were made which are particuarly spectacular.
The next revolution came when people realized that the studios sent what they called recording master tapes to their LP stamping plants. These were 15 ips, 2 track tapes which sometimes used Dolby A encoding and decoding to reduce tape hiss. While the studios wanted the LP plants to destroy these tapes after pressing the records, some did not and they started showing up for sale for more than $1000 per reel and an LP would usually require 2 reels per album. These tapes sounded their best on the vintage Ampex machines, but by that time in the 70s and 80s, the tube electronics in the Ampex units had deteriorated to the point where they had to be rebuilt or bypassed with outboard playback preamps and the tape heads needed to be replaced. David Manley was particularly involved in demonstrating these tapes at hifi shows using his own rebuilt Ampex tape deck.
The third revolution started a few years ago. There are now a few companies rebuilding Technics and other tape decks with state of the art heads and electronics. These decks are expensive, costing in the thousands. While they can play the best prerecorded tapes from the 50s and 60s, those tapes are rare and many have deteriorated by shedding their metal oxide coatings and they have weakened tape substrates which can stretch and break. So, a new industry has begun to make what would have been called LP recording masters. They are second generations of real time copies of the original recordings. Since the irreplaceable originals from 50s and 60s are so fragile and valuable, a copy is made to use for subsequent copies made in real time, usually at 15ips. This process is so time consuming and expensive that the tapes sell for $300 and up per reel. There are also some prerecorded commercial tapes of contemporary artists. So, the audiophile tape saga which began in the 1950s is being repeated with better solid state decks and higher quality prerecorded tapes. Try to hear some of these systems at hifi shows. I think you will be impressed.
