Less than top line reel-to-reel worth it?

Find a good rebuilt or refurbished Pioneer RT-909, good sound, easy to use and built like a tank.

J-corder has refurbished decks (Technics & Pioneer RT707) that are not as expensive as United Audio. Jeff does great work and is meticulous with the rebuilding of these decks.

Well said guys. As a long time R2R hobbyist, owning now over 10 decks and 3000 tapes, it is a lot of fun. Just diving into the whole recording process gives one a great in-depth understanding of all things audio. My recommended decks are the Technics 1500 series, Teac X1000r and last but not the least is the Akai gx-635d. Finding an experienced tech to do service is really a challenge, but well worth the effort. Here in New Jersey I've found the former manager of Teac's tape service facility. He does great work. My R2R interests lead me to the world of old broadcast tapes, especially the Drake and AFRTS stuff. The latter was produced by the government and they spent our taxpayer dollars well, high quality.

As you will find, YouTube is full of many R2R demo's, all of which make great 'eye candy'.

I'm sorta amazed at the renaissance of interest in open reel, having been a fan and active user of tape decks since the days of mono (early 50s). Some of my thoughts do run counter to those above, though. I bought a Teac X1000R brand new in 1984, had it serviced regularly, and was amazed at how a used (MUCH used) Otari MX5050 BII2 simply slaughtered it sonically and otherwise. 'Course I spent more money bringing it up to snuff than it cost originally . Which brings me to point #2.

You MUST have access to a tape tech who knows his way around these elderly electromechanical marvels. There is nothing more complex except maybe a Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. Yes you can get lucky and find a tape deck that doesn't need immediate service, but most of them do. And they must be used regularly. Please trust me on this :-)

Speaking of luck, you CAN find tapes on Ebay that sound great. Even 4-track pop-jazz and classical. Percentage-wise, maybe 20-30% of what you buy. For instance, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is almost worth the $hundreds in 4-track form (a 2-track Kind of Blue and a 2-track Dave Brubeck "Time Out" have gone for over $2K each and no, they're not worth that kind of money but it does speak to the sonic quality of these tapes).

I've always considered open reel tape the ultimate "hair shirt" medium. A recent buy of a great-looking Revox A77 Mk. IV Dolby deck simply confirmed it. First, some capacitors exploded (my tech refers to these as "firecracker caps"). Then it caught on fire. Then it developed other problems. But I haven't give up on it. Not entirely.

Everything fades in importance when you watch those reels revolve and hear the music they can bring to you.

Thanks for all the responses. I should mention I am not very interested in recording. So far, I've gathered that it takes at least 7 1/2 ips to be comparable to vinyl, and, of course, condition of the unit and tape is critical.