How many People own Working Reel to Reel Decks?

For $131.00 for a Revox A-77, I would be doubtful of the working condition. Please let us know how it works out. Is this the 1/4 track 3 3/4 ips-7 1/2ips version?

Please keep us informed of your findings. I would love to know what you think of the Otari decks vs. the Studers and what you think of tape vice LP. I find all of this highly exciting.
Mark

Thanks for the responses so far. I have heard of the famed Barclay and Crocker tapes. I even bought a Teac outboard Dolby unit (cool looking VU meters on it too)for use with the Dolby encoded tapes. I haven't bought any dolby tapes yet, but I am sure I will.

My very limited experience with tapes so far has led me to rethink my belief system in LPs. I have collected records my whole life and I have always thought that they were the best source material a person could get at home. I have a VPI TNT MKIII with an ET 2 tonearm with surge tank and dual pumps, Denon 103R cartridge, Counterpoint SA-2 pre-preamp, and upgraded Counterpoint SA-5.1 preamp. As we all know, we are always at the mercy of the engineers who record the master tape. If the master tape sucks, no matter how good the cutting and pressing of the LP is, it will still sound terrible. Fortunately, most LPs sound really good and of course some are outstanding. I am now starting to think that given an equal quality job mastering to LP and mastering to tape, and given a good master tape to begin with, a 71/2ips tape will sound better than the LP. It just seems that the tape adds another dimension to the sound and the dimension that it adds is reality. Music just seems to snap to life in a way that escapes LP. My brother calls it the "wormhole" effect whereby you get transported back through time so you are there as the recording is unfolding in front of you. Mind you, not all tapes do this, just like not all LPs sound great as we already said. If you are lucky enough to own Blood, Sweat, and Tears greatest hits on 71/2ips tape, this is a wormhole tape. It will blow you down it is so good. I have two copies of this on LP, but both are noisy. Even through the noise, I have always loved this LP because of the music and how well it is recorded. The tape is even better, and not by a small bit. I am still scratching my head and thinking about the choices I made and wondering...

Les-I was reading your mind! You need to be very careful when buying a reel to reel. Any ad that states the seller has no way to test it can be translated to say that the deck is broken. In fact, unless the deck is coming from someone who has just gone through it and cleaned it, lubed it, put on new belts, adjusted the brakes, etc., it probably won't work correctly (if at all) when you get it. Better to pay more for a deck that is in good shape and ready to roll than a "bargain" that needs a bunch of money dumped into it.
And Tiger, you are correct, there are many chances to make a bad master tape. I have the Sony ES-9000 SACD/DVD player and I could never get worked up over the sound of SACD. In fact, I have hundreds of CDs and I basically never listen to them. I guess I am just an analog/tubes kind of guy because that is what sounds the most real for me. I have two copies of Miles Davis Kind of Blue. One is the original mono and the other is stereo pressing from Canada. They both sound real good other than the speed issue. The master tape was a 30ips tape I do believe.

Kmulkey-we have all been through the "wish I never got rid of that piece of gear" remorse. And you did have some really good decks. The Akai GX-747 is a really cool looking deck and brings big bucks on Ebay. Lots of people love the Pioneer RT-909 and they usually bring over $600 on Ebay. Did you make all of your own tapes or did you also collect prerecorded reel to reel tapes? I am really curious to know what people who are buying RTR decks now are doing with them. I know some people like to copy CDs over to tape because they swear they sound better and others like to copy their LPs over to tape. Looking at auctions of prerecorded tapes on Ebay, it is obvious that people are willing to pay high prices for tapes they want. I know that my brother has spent over $2000 in the last couple of months since he bought his Revox buying tapes on Ebay. The 71/2ips Beatles reel to reel tapes all seem to bring big bucks and he is collecting those. I have two copies of the EMI/Parlaphone BC-13 Beatles collection on LP and I think they are great. Having said that, when I heard "Fixing a Hole" from Sgt. Pepper at my brother's house on reel to reel, I heard things from a new perspective. I have heard that song and that album a thousand times if I have heard it once and it was a new experience on tape-and one for the better.

Casey-You bring up an interesting point. One of the things that tape also has going it for in comparison to LPs is that LPs can't sustain the same level of bass and treble information across the entire disc. You start off with a 12" diameter at 33 1/3 rpm and after the second song on the LP, the diamter has shrunk and continues to shrink. Kevin Gray wrote a good article on how mastering engineers have to take these physics into account when they are mastering LPs. They always try and cut the most dynamic songs at the beginnings of both sides of the LPs. Tapes don't suffer from that problem. The last song on the tape can and will sound as good as the first song on the tape. RCA engineers knew back in 1958 that two track stereo 71/2ips tapes were better than their LP counterpoints. In fact, it is too bad that 2 track tapes lost out to 4 track tapes as they don't have the problem of two tracks always going backwards over the playback head while the two tracks you are listening to are going forwards. Sometimes you can hear this. Also, with two track tapes, the two tracks are wider than they are on 1/4 track tapes as are the gaps on the tape head which should translate into more information in a given space on the tape. 2 track tapes lost out to convienance which is how so many things were dumbed down in audio. Consumers choose convienance over sound quality or at least the marketeers tell us so. Now people want 1 million songs crammed onto a device the size of a matchbook and they don't care what it really sounds like as long as it is digital.

Jsman, which tape deck do you like the best? How does the Revox sound compared to the Otari?

Mike-Wow!! You own some awesome decks! If your Technics RS-1500 deck is stock, which deck are you using to play back the tape project tapes? The technics doesn't have the IEC playback equalization that was used to make the tape projects's tapes. Please tell us how the tape project tapes sound, specially compared to commerical 71/2ips reel to reel tapes.

Kichoi just made me think of something I could do if anyone is interested. I have Cat Stevens Teaser and the Firecat on LP, CD, and 71/2ips 4 track tapes. We could select a couple of cuts and I could record all 3 formats to a Sony CD recorder that is connected to my Counterpoint SA-5.1 and burn a CD and make it available to those on this thread that would be interested to hear the differences of the 3 formats. I am not going to make a copy of the entire album because this is for educational purposes only and I don't want to get into any type of copy right B.S. If you are interested, send me an email at markpearson@insightbb.com. Let me know what two songs you would prefer to compare from Teaser and the Firecat.