How many People own Working Reel to Reel Decks?

I run two Sony 580's on a regular basis. No recording, just play original label pre-recorded tapes. Over the years I have built up a collection of about 500 tapes, some the famed Barclay & Crocker tapes. The latter are now going on e-bay for about $75 each. These B&C tapes were duplicated at 1 to 1 mastering, often from 60/30ips source, and also all have dolbyB, except some were done with dbx. B&C did business, sales and production out of the NYC financial district, which I visited once and was amazed at the passion these fellows had. Needless to say, sometimes the sound beats vinyl, other times it is a diaster, same quality issues vinyl always had. All payback is via tubes, pre and main. Tape has a lot of preservation issues, so current buys can be a crap shoot. One in every two I purchased is a throw away due to brittle and flaking of the tape or being too tightly pack on the reel. In summary, tape is part of the glory of the analogue days.

mercy of the engineers? Add to that the mercy of all others in the production chain. I have Miles/Blue in all media, reel, lp, cassette, cd, sacd, sacd hybird. I know no eight track, but hey some has to be missing.

It never amazes me that all can sound so different. I give the edge to the sacd hybrid since it is not mixed, but rather a three channel production from the original mono, not mixed but corrected for the original tape speed problem. Here is an instance of a great master which leaves any short comings in the final product to others.