SOTA reel to reel players

Yes, you want to do 1/4".

There is an enormous difference between the way the pro decks are set up (especially for recording) and the prosumer decks.

I owned many TEAC, TASCAM and Otari decks for years. They were all pretty much bullet proof requiring routine cleaning and not much else. Clearly Otari decks are a cut above the TEAC and Technics product, though to my taste nothing is prettier then that big Technics.

The pro decks are generally set up as a self contained cart or table with the transport down for ease of use, and with the electonics above for ease of maintenance and visibility. Generally there was also a very chunky remote that lived on the console.

There is nothing petite or dainty about these units. The Ampexes and Studers were the standard and are pretty much bullet proof.

The big wear item on tape decks - which has not been mentioned here are the heads. Especially if you are looking at a machine that has seen regular studio use, that is the piece that needs inspecting. Heads can be rebuilt to a point (by a highly skilled tech) after which they have to be replaced. Guess what, they are not inexpensive...

Oh yeah - and you will need a splicing block, splicing tape, a razor blade and a grease pencil plus some leader...

Buc,

Ah heck I've got 6 decks and not close to 20K,guess I'm lucky so far, lol.

Not bad considering 30 to 100k turntables and no lights and meters to boot.

One of the last remaining manufactured R2R was the Tascam BR-20. Built like a tank and plenty of parts are still available. They pop up on ebay quite frequently, worth looking out for. A pro deck, but unlike a lot of the otaris/studers etc out there it has unbalanced I/O (as well as balanced). I'm no R2R expert, but the way that deck handles tape with such grace is a joy to behold.

My other deck is a consumer deck (akai gx747 dbx) used to play the few commercial tapes I have.

If you are looking to record vinyl / radio etc the quality of the pro decks out there, along with their increased parts availability is IMHO definately the way to go. Even the best consumer decks lag quite a way behind in many areas, will be hard to find parts for BUT are useful to play commercial titles. thats why I own one of both

Thanks for the responses.
I'm not sure if all the suggestions offered are considered sota in the audio reproduction area.
My main reason for venturing into this area of the hobby is because I heard that reel to reel is better than the best turntables, is this true and which ones will be beat tt by big margins?

Hi Pedrillo, that's a loaded question- the answer is that a table is better if you have direct-to disc. Otherwise, tapes **stomp** on LPs.

IMO, the best tape machines will have an all-tube signal path. You can set up almost any transport to work with tubes, using the signal directly off of the tape heads, although finding the tube preamp is a bit of a trick. The Bottlehead forum is a good source, and we have set up some of our preamps with tape EQ also.