Why do people like reel to reel players?

The top end is rolled off, and of course the noise floor is much higher

@mulveling That Pioneer is pretty nice- and has bandwidth to 28KHz. It shouldn't sound rolled off! If it does, you might want to look at the heads and see if they are worn. If not too badly worn, they can be lapped, restoring both bandwidth and noise floor.

If the heads have not been degaussed the machine can sound noisy and rolled off as well- at the cost of slowly erasing the high end of your tapes! So degauss the heads if you've not already done so.

If it still sounds rolled off, your tapes aren't up to snuff or the machine might need the electronics refurbished (new filter caps and the like).

Tape is the source of many LPs so LPs shouldn't sound like they have any more bandwidth (although the LP media does- typically to 40KHz).

Nostalgia.

Consumer R2R with 7.5 ips speed is inferior to a cassette playback. The real sound comes from 15ips tapes, but these are not sold for ordinary consumer.

But what about all those older original Masters that exist? Isn't there a better way to transfer that good quality to newer age media to make things sound better.

But what about all those older original Masters that exist? Isn't there a better way to transfer that good quality to newer age media to make things sound better.

I have few 15IPS releases on 1/2" tape. Wider tracks, higher speed is where the best of analogue sound even better than with LPs, but how many of those I can potentially get? I have Otari MX5050 RTR machine + kit to convert it to 1/4" that I'm about to sell...

RTR isn't for me due to the lack of possible volume of music I'd like to listen to instead of sound testing.