How many People own Working Reel to Reel Decks?

I run an Ampex AG-440 transport with 351 electronics.

I run two Sony 580's on a regular basis. No recording, just play original label pre-recorded tapes. Over the years I have built up a collection of about 500 tapes, some the famed Barclay & Crocker tapes. The latter are now going on e-bay for about $75 each. These B&C tapes were duplicated at 1 to 1 mastering, often from 60/30ips source, and also all have dolbyB, except some were done with dbx. B&C did business, sales and production out of the NYC financial district, which I visited once and was amazed at the passion these fellows had. Needless to say, sometimes the sound beats vinyl, other times it is a diaster, same quality issues vinyl always had. All payback is via tubes, pre and main. Tape has a lot of preservation issues, so current buys can be a crap shoot. One in every two I purchased is a throw away due to brittle and flaking of the tape or being too tightly pack on the reel. In summary, tape is part of the glory of the analogue days.

Great question Mark - I have a Nagra D that we have had for a few years and we are going to sell it, but just don't know what it will bring as there are fewer and fewer folks using reels now. That being said, those that use them, love them and know quite a bit about them.
They sell fairly often for good prices (for the buyer) on eBay, so congratulations on yours. Enjoy!

Dan

I have one in the attic, but haven't used it in years. A cousin has just offered us a collection of prerecorded reel tapes and we're wondering if we should take them.

Thanks for the responses so far. I have heard of the famed Barclay and Crocker tapes. I even bought a Teac outboard Dolby unit (cool looking VU meters on it too)for use with the Dolby encoded tapes. I haven't bought any dolby tapes yet, but I am sure I will.

My very limited experience with tapes so far has led me to rethink my belief system in LPs. I have collected records my whole life and I have always thought that they were the best source material a person could get at home. I have a VPI TNT MKIII with an ET 2 tonearm with surge tank and dual pumps, Denon 103R cartridge, Counterpoint SA-2 pre-preamp, and upgraded Counterpoint SA-5.1 preamp. As we all know, we are always at the mercy of the engineers who record the master tape. If the master tape sucks, no matter how good the cutting and pressing of the LP is, it will still sound terrible. Fortunately, most LPs sound really good and of course some are outstanding. I am now starting to think that given an equal quality job mastering to LP and mastering to tape, and given a good master tape to begin with, a 71/2ips tape will sound better than the LP. It just seems that the tape adds another dimension to the sound and the dimension that it adds is reality. Music just seems to snap to life in a way that escapes LP. My brother calls it the "wormhole" effect whereby you get transported back through time so you are there as the recording is unfolding in front of you. Mind you, not all tapes do this, just like not all LPs sound great as we already said. If you are lucky enough to own Blood, Sweat, and Tears greatest hits on 71/2ips tape, this is a wormhole tape. It will blow you down it is so good. I have two copies of this on LP, but both are noisy. Even through the noise, I have always loved this LP because of the music and how well it is recorded. The tape is even better, and not by a small bit. I am still scratching my head and thinking about the choices I made and wondering...