Open Reel Curious

Finding open reel pre-recorded tapes is the biggest challenge. Rare and expensive, and limited in available album titles. If you can score some blank tapes with which to make your own recordings, used Revox A77's can be had at a reasonable price (I have two, a Mk.III and Mk.IV, and a stash of Maxell 7" and 10" reels of blank tapes).

I was buying some records from a couple that asked if I would be interested in their TEAC reel-to-reel deck from the 1970’s. I heard it play and the price wasn’t bad.  I had been into reel-to-reel music during the 70’s, using a Sony deck.  I might have bought their deck, but in researching prices of tapes, the cost astounded me.  Open reel blank tapes that I used to buy for less than $10 are now about $50, and pre-recorded tapes were going for $150!  I just could not justify spending that kind of money when I can buy record albums and CD’s, or stream music, for a fraction of that.  I think R-to-R is a very niche market now.  

Flee while you can! Run far, far away!

I have a lot of fun with my open reel Teac.  I bought the deck refurbished for $400 and it has worked error free for years. I scour local auction sites and ebay for factory pre-recorded tapes (mainly 60’s and 70’s rock) and have ended up with a few dozen to play. I do zero home recording. Yes, it is interactive in that you need to keep the tape heads clean, and the rollers clean, but otherwise it is no harder than putting on an LP.  
 

Occasionally there is some splicing involved but I’ve been fortunate in that most of the tapes I’ve bought haven’t really needed the musical sections spliced in any way but I have spliced leader onto the beginning of the tape.

The Good:

The sound is close to unbeatable with the right machine and tape

A good tape deck isn't really expensive

The Bad:

After hearing it returning to a lesser medium is difficult

A great tape deck is expensive

Great prerecorded tapes are expensive ($300 ++)

I decided to not have a tape deck because of the expense of the software.