Reel to Reel decks

I know what you mean.

I used to love to watch the VU meters jerk around to teh music back in the day when most tape units had VUs for playback as well as record.

My Denon CD recorder has LED meters but it just ain't the same.

Also my Roku Soundbridges have a VU like display mode, but I generally prefer to have the source track info show instead of jumping bars.

Assuming one's source is vinyl, or CD, or cassette, or 8-track, or me playing the piano... will the tape (recorded with the speakers off) playback sound better than the original source did when it was played back by itself (or played)?

Maybe. My comments only apply to previously recorded sources like LP, that can be affected by vibration. So a tape will never sound better as a copy of another tape, although it can sound better than a CD because it can filter the digital noise that a CD player cannot.

Sorry for my tardy response...

Okay, I understand that what I'm hearing is impossible. But the explanations aren't cutting it either. The most dramatic example of what I laid out above is a Gerry Mulligan tape, "Feelin' Good" on the Limelight label, a 3 3/4 ips "mistake" (I didn't know it was recorded at the slow speed before I bought it on Ebay.

Now, this is Mulligan with strings, and at 3 3/4 ips, the strings define "shrill" and "wiry" and have made the tape mostly unlistenable. Yet the 2-track 7 1/2 ips dub (from one Otari to the other) simply transformed it. And the 2-track dub of Miles' "Sketches of Spain" has transfixed everyone who has heard it. Cue the Twilight Zone theme.

One always uses headphones when making a tape. Vibration degrades all analog. If you are playing a record, and listening at the same time, the sound is degraded to a minute degree. If you record in silence, this does not occur.

Since bumblebees were told they can't fly, they could explain this phenomenon better than anybody.