Why do people like reel to reel players?

I have a box of RtR tapes (Couple hundred on various high-quality Maxell, BASF and other reels) my brother made from vinyl in the early-mid 1970’s. From LP’s I couldn’t afford now in mint condition. But that’s what the tapes sound like now, 50 years on. Mint. The machine I use is a Revox B77 4-track I rebuilt, added upgrades to (digital counter, new input and reproduction boards from Belgium), calibrated it, it’s historic, and brings good memories for me. Fun. What a hobby should be.

That’s what seems to be completely lost on this thread! You don’t have to go for state-of-the-art gear with $500 tapes 15 IPS half track. A good maintained vintage deck, with quality needledrop recordings (yes that’s vinyl recorded to tape) on good tape (Maxell is very good), at least 7.5 IPS 1/4" quarter track - it’s FUN and it sounds like analog should. It’s a different sound from a high quality vinyl setup, but not inferior from an enjoyment perspective.

I had an R2R machine in my studio but one thing that would have really bothered me for playback in a hi fi system is the noise tape makes banging off the reels as it  spools from one to the other.

If tape is banging against the reels, that's really bad for the tape, and the machine's reel holders need to be adjusted (easy adjustment on the RT707 at least). 

My Mom bought me a Realistic RtR back in the late 60s it was so cool and sound so much better .I was hooked i now have 3 RTR .I mean back then everything was recorded on RTR in the Recording Studios. Master Tapes ruled analog....

Back in the late 70's i had two R2R decks:  A Sony TC-880-2 and an Akai GX-265D--i used both to record vinyl to tape on first play to keep the vinyl pristine until the tape degraded (and rthen ecord it again) but mainly to create long-playing party mixes--i used the Akai auto-reverse for that and could play up to 3 hours at 7.5ips-i even had a few tapes recorded at 3 3/4 that could play 6 hours!  So it was a way to play a lot of music without the hassle of changing records and lasted longer than cassettes.  The SQ of the Sony at 15ips was spectacular and i couldn't tell the difference between vinyl and the R2R recordings at that speed.  BTW somebody said cassette was superior to 7.5ips R2R--don't know where that notion came from--perhaps some garbage pre-recorded R2Rs (which i've never owned) but no way can cassette compete--i have a Nakamichi CR4 cassette deck which is a very good deck but it can't compete with my 7.5ips R2R even using metal tape.  Sadly my Sony machine (and many vinyl records) was destroyed in a flood but i still have the Akai and occasionally listen to my tapes b/c i no longer have those particular vinyl recordings but ultimately it's just in my system now because it looks cool--it's the first thing everyone comments on when they see my system--but i've moved on to streaming those lost records --and when i'm really picky i still play the surviving vinyl but don't record albums any more given streaming music sources that can play endlessly...so i guess that answers more the question of why we liked R2R back when vs today--if i didn't already own an R2R i wouldn't buy one...

 I own two RT-909s and two RT-707s.  Never owned any other RtR decks.

I bought my first 707 around 1980.  IIRC, this was prior to - or near to - the invention of cassettes, so if you wanted to record, tape was the option.

Why do I keep them all these years?  I bought all of my current decks before consumer ADCs were affordable and widely available.  So again, if you wanted to record, tape was it.

And once you had the decks in those days it made sense to pick up some pre-recorded tapes.  Theoretically less wear and tear vs. repeated plays of an LP, and the pioneers are fine sounding.

Anyway, that's my story about RtR.

Nowadays I record on a Sony or Korg to high res pcm or DSD...

I would sell the tape decks but the chances of shipping them without damage is basically nill.

I like reel to reel because of the expense and inconvenience of the format.