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Is There Any Reason To Buy A Reel-To-Reel Machine Nowadays??

I bought my first reel-to-reel machine in 1977 as a convenience in order to record and play back multiple albums in high fidelity.without having to fool around with my manual turntable.  I was surprised to find out that I preferred the sound of the reel to the turntable.  Along came cd and I could play both sides of an album with the fuss of having to flip it over every 15 minutes.  Now with high a high quality DAC and a computer, you can have uninterrupted high fidelity music for days on end.

No one is making new recordings on reel-to-reel.  The cost of blank tape is exorbitant.  The cost of a good open-reel deck is stratospheric.  So pretty much you're left with recording an LP or a cd to your reel for playback.....what's that??

Please chime in for reasons to buy an open-reel deck today.
128x128mitch4t
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,633 posts
 
224’s are a great compromise but they used really cheap ass switches that drop contact. Like Otari.  And its motors need to be rebuilt before they self destruct. No replacements are available except from a boneyard. Like I said if you think nostalgia is fun, have at it.
Been there, done that.
asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,708 posts
 
HO....R2R tape still has this romance about it.  I used to own a Revox A77 & the 10.5 reels....
( I believe ) Mid to later '80's, was using a VHS to record audio...touted at the time to have 'near digital' quality....
...and it actually Worked....*L*

Cheap seats, J ;)
dill
2,539 posts
 
Well, looks like a few others are doing it.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=reel+to+reel+tape+recorder&_sacat=0&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1&_sop=16
dwmaggie
222 posts
 
I miss 2 of my R2R tapes, East West by Paul Butterfield Blues Band, prerecorded 3.75 ips.  The second was a recording I made while working in an audio store, a never released preview of Fever by Bruce Springsteen with the original E St Band.  It was in acapella, via FM radio.  A fellow employee borrowed and never returned it.  The store was Audio Lab on 20th Ave and Indian School Rd.  The radio station was KDKB  a Dwight Karma Broadcasting affiliate, downtown Phoenix.  Those were the days.
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jallan
317 posts
 
I sold Revox in the 70’s, played around with both the A77 and A700. Great sound, but…tape wears, loses oxide, it’s mechanical, wildly impractical. It does sound better than lp’s, at least the direct recordings I made were. But what a pain in the ass to store the tapes.
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