Reel to Reel decks

Hi, I've owned a lot of reel to reel decks from Revox {had 4 of these]Sony's, Vikings, and Tandbergs. Am useing 3 decks in my system now, and have 2 Pioneer decks that I love,one is a mint 707 and the other is a 1011-L, they are built beautiful and sound great and are a lot less trouble than most of the Revox's I owned, parts are available and so are the machines.Of course have a slew of tapes from the past and present. Just remember you need to run these decks quite often no matter which one you decide on, they don't like sitting idle for long periods..

Yes, 15 and 30 ips tapes are the ne plus ultra of tapedom. But let's get real,
folks, a would-be tape newbie will be totally turned off by the prices of tapes
(Handyman, would you believe $500 per Tape Project performance?) and the
machines capable of playing them.

I would recommend visiting the Ebay sites, as well as Audiogon of course, to
get a fix on prices of tapes and equipment. Buying used tapes (there are
precious few new ones) is pretty much of a crapshoot, and buying used tape
decks -- there are essentially NO new ones -- is dicey as well. The decks
need regular service and finding competent tape techs is no picnic either. I
know I've painted a gloomy picture, but there IS a plus side in terms of fidelity
and just the fun of watching those reels spin. It can be addictive but you do
need to know what you're getting into.

As a starter deck, I'd recommend a Teac in the 2300 or 3300 series or a
Pioneer 700 or 900 series, and avoid brands like Akai (very hard to find parts
and Akai is not alone in this respect). I've been into tape since the 1950s, but
if I were starting out today I'd think long and hard about it. Good luck, Dave

Dopogue:

Actually the Tape Project tapes are $350 each for the series 2 if one gets a subscription for 6 or 10 tapes.

I know that, Myles. So you only have to invest $2000 or $3000 all at once, for music available at maybe $100 total, on CD. Figure it on a cost-per-music-minute some time. Yeah, I know the tapes sound better, but for a newbie starting out, I really can't justify that kind of expense. Glad you can :-)

Have many decks, technics, tascam, teac, sony. In addition to the commercial seven inch pre-recorded tapes, I have a large library of ten inch pre-recorded tapes that were used in radio stations. These latter tapes include Drake, Century, Media General, Radio Arts and AFRTS. The quality of the tapes are all over the lot. The AFRTS among the best, as the government spent big bucks to produce them, some of which have almost 55 cuts on a track, and with auto reverse cueing the tape can go for hours and hours. On the seven inch tapes the Barclay Crocker are the best. Analogue still lives.

I have heard the Tape Project tapes at the CES and they are truly great, sound wise but not value wise. So, to get started with a modified Technics 1500 and some software you are talking $5K plus.

I caution newbies that decks are expensive to maintain as parts are hard to find. My advice is skip reel to reel and invest in blu ray audio media, which I think is the future. The transfers from the original master tapes are being done by many labels now, including the soon to be release Miles/Blue which will be the original three track mono, without a mix. Given a listen to the latter blu ray and I think you will forget about reel to reel.