The Sound Quality Of Commercially Pre-Recorded Reel-To-Reel Albums

I’ve had a Teac X-10R since 1981.  During the 80’s and very early 90’s, I recorded about thirty 10.5” reels of old school soul/R&B and contemporary jazz albums.  Each tape is dbx encoded.  I don’t know how, but my dbx tapes sound better than the original vinyl album.  My 15ips reels sound the best.

I have had numerous pre recorded R2R tapes back in he day. Some good, some not so good. Unfortunately, back in the 60's and 70's and probably 80's, many tape editions were afterthoughts. Although some name Mastering Engineers did do a "Tape Duplicating house" master, many times it was left to staff underlings for such. Probably much less so for classical. I'm not certain if RVG mastered the tape editions. RVG did do many 45rpm single masters. 

Generally, the higher the tape speed, the better the sound. Also, two-track machines have more head space to work with so usually, better sound.

Pre-recorded tapes from 50 years ago were good if they were 7.5 ips and barely better than a Dolby-encoded cassette at 3.75. 

Working with R2R tape is a lot like having a turntable. There's something very satisfying about looping the tape around the pressure guide, past the heads an over the capstan, etc. The TEAC decks mentioned are among the best you can find. According to the guy who restored my Akai GX-620, ReVox A77's aren't all that reliable and when they break, they're a bear to work on, thus, expensive. However, they sound really good when they work. 

These $10k play-only 15ips decks are grossly overpriced IMHO. If you want to go that route, find a used Otari 5050 or Tascam 32 and save yourself several thousand dollars. Both are reliable, sturdily built and sound fabulous.