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Is There Any Reason To Buy A Reel-To-Reel Machine Nowadays??

I bought my first reel-to-reel machine in 1977 as a convenience in order to record and play back multiple albums in high fidelity.without having to fool around with my manual turntable.  I was surprised to find out that I preferred the sound of the reel to the turntable.  Along came cd and I could play both sides of an album with the fuss of having to flip it over every 15 minutes.  Now with high a high quality DAC and a computer, you can have uninterrupted high fidelity music for days on end.

No one is making new recordings on reel-to-reel.  The cost of blank tape is exorbitant.  The cost of a good open-reel deck is stratospheric.  So pretty much you're left with recording an LP or a cd to your reel for playback.....what's that??

Please chime in for reasons to buy an open-reel deck today.
128x128mitch4t

Showing 2 responses by fuzztone

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,508 posts
 
Silly answers above. Taping adds a generation.
Veil. If you think THAT is euphonic you got on the wrong boat. Unless you own original recordings there is no reason for one except nostalgia. The "tape" sound is readily replicated with a transfer function. Kinda like a software tube buffer.
I have a wall of tapes I don’t listen to because I have better copies of all the tracks.Like the original LP. Anyone who thinks the tape sounds better is hypnotized by the spinning reels.
I have better things to do than calibrate via MRL to make inferior copies that I don’t need..
I’ve worn out 8 R2Rs. Their time has passed.

The long answer being hell no.
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,508 posts
 
224’s are a great compromise but they used really cheap ass switches that drop contact. Like Otari.  And its motors need to be rebuilt before they self destruct. No replacements are available except from a boneyard. Like I said if you think nostalgia is fun, have at it.
Been there, done that.
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