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.
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Showing 1 response by likeanice1903

I make party tapes from LPs played on my Technics SL-1200G using modern blank tape on an Otari MX-5050B2-II (1/2track, 1/4") and Teac A3300-SX (1/4 track, 1/4"), both at 7.5 ips.  The decks were refurbished by Reel Pro Sound Guys, both had light use and great head life left.  

The sound is fantastic, and my friends think they look cool.  The dynamic range and S/N seems excellent with modern tape.  True, the rec/play amps are decades old, but both machines use discreet transistors.  I think the tape sounds better than dubs to my Tascam DA-3000 in 192/24 mode.