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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.
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Showing 1 response by mgattmch

mgattmch
556 posts
 
Ever notice at HiFi/AV shows today, most high end manufacturers use R2R tape to demonstrate their equipment. Wonder why? All I can say is I just got back into R2R and purchased a fully refurbished Revox B77 MK2, HS 2T machine. First tape (15ips, NAB) I purchased to go with it was Lyn Stanley London With A Twist, Live at Bernies ( https://lynstanley.com/product/reel-to-reel-london-with-a-twist-live-sampler/ ). As close to live music I have ever heard in my home, staggeringly realistic. Absurdly expensive, but, if you want the very best SQ format available, R2R is probably it. Of course, not all pre-recorded tapes are this good; some are OK, some are awful.

SQ aside, R2R running at 15ips on 10.5" NAB reels looks stunning to me, guaranteed to get visitors attentions. Not so streaming or CDs.
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