Can we finally put Reel to Reel out of its misery? Put it to rest people.

I agree that tape has a different sound than digital, but most of the difference between the two formats comes through when recording and not as much when playing back. A digital recording of a tape recording will very much sound like tape and you won’t notice the difference, but a digital recording transferred to tape will add some colorization but will still have the characteristics of a digital recording. It’s like trying to colorize a black and white photo. The "magic" of analog is the way that tape saturates and distorts in the recording studio compared with digital which can’t handle any amount distortion.

This isn't quite correct. A properly operating recorder will generate a bit of 3rd harmonic (which is innocuous to the human ear). The 3rd is often in enough amplitude that it will mask higher ordered harmonics, which to the ear will make tape sound smoother- particularly at or near saturation. This will be true regardless of the source of the recording. This 3rd harmonic makes tape good for taming the highs in digital systems, which like it or not have distortion called 'aliasing' (since the digital world does not like to admit to distortion). Aliasing is a form of distortion that is best described as a form of IMD in that the tones generated are in relation to the Nyquist frequency. Any harmonics that might exceed the Nyquist frequency are 'wrapped around' back down into the audio band and get interpreted by the ear as brightness.

The reason I bring up cassette is that it’s a lot more annoying to make adjustments than on reel to reel, mostly you can’t trust cassettes to give you reliable results because the azimuth is always changing.

Cassette alignment is very reliable. The real reason prerecorded stuff wasn’t that great was due to high speed replication. The replicators simply didn’t have the bandwidth. I’ve used pre-recorded tapes, listening to the high end, to align azimuth when replacing worn heads. The setting you get is the same as if you use a 10KHz tone on a calibration tape.

Ferrite heads can never really be relapped but they do fail.

Ferrite heads aren’t relapped because its not worth it. Relapping a head only works out if you have a more expensive part and nearly all ferrite cassette heads are inexpensive.

A 16 track VHS deck would have been awesome to see.

Trust me on this? They weren’t that awesome. The typical ’studio’ machines had the transport built into the mixer. They were considered semi-pro; the recording industry didn’t take VHS and Beta all that seriously even though they were a compact multichannel format. Their main downfall is they simply weren’t reliable for day in and day out 24/7 service, and when Something Bad happened the tape was often locked inside the transport; requiring a complete disassembly just to rescue a tape that might never play again. Thank goodness those days are past!!

So, many of the consumer reel to reel decks sold on the market like cassette decks were manufactured with heads that never wear down. For that reason ferrite heads for example cannot be relapped. They never develop a flat spot.

This statement is false. I've seen them worn first-hand.

Under normal circumstances VHS tape will never "wear out" or "fade".

They can shed though, causing them to lose output. And mess of the tape path at the same time.

A common myth is that azimuth is related to head alignment and that is not really the case.

Seriously?? Head azimuth **is** part of head alignment! Along with head height (on reel to reels). On a cassette deck azimuth is the only adjustment you get when aligning the heads. So on cassettes, azimuth and head alignment are exactly the same thing. I started my career in 1974 working on consumer electronics- I've performed many complete calibrations on reel to reel and cassette machines.

A good trick to know if you are getting the best out of your tape is to listen to the mono bass or leads vocals in stereo, or you can even force to mono. Make a headphone cable with the ground removed, and listen when the bass and lead vocals fade out completely. When you null that is when you azimuth is aligned with the tape. Playing a 1kHz tone should sound like baking frying. An oscilloscope won’t tell you this.

Hm. Better if you simply play a calibration tape with a 10KHz reference tone.

For that reason VHS tape had stricter quality control and surprisingly superior sound to all formats @ 1800 rpm. It’s too bad that format was never realized for audio but that is another rabbit hole topic all together.

There were audio machines for both Beta and VHS back in the 1980s.

We should also note that is a myth that reel to reel heads wear.

While I agree with a lot of what you posted, its a simple fact that heads wear- I've replaced many of them in my time, on cassette, consumer RTR and pro machines as well.

I have some 50s pre-recorded RRs that are amazingly good but transferred them to CD via the Alesis Masterlink.

I've used the Masterlink extensively. Its OK, but is really an artifact of the early 2000s and not up to snuff with modern digital recording gear, studio grade reel to reels or LP. I've compared it side by side plenty of times. Nice for what it is though. I've got one for sale cheap.

ATR Magnetics in York, PA is making tape in most formats- cassette, 7" 1/4" reel to reel, 10.5" in reels or pancakes, and also 1/2" and 1" for those with studio machines. Their tapes are made to match 456 Grand Master so no need with most reel to reel machines to re-calibrate.
https://www.atrtape.com/

Nortronics has long been a supplier of high quality replacement heads for a variety of consumer and studio machines:
http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/
Its easy enough to find new cassette tape heads on ebay. Finding rubber parts is a bit trickier, although Russell Industries has a large selection of belts, tires and idlers that fit a good number of machines:
http://russellind.com/