Reel to Reel

My experience so far with my Studer A80 (OK, it's not a C-37 but it's not bad and I bet it lasts longer!) and prerecorded tapes is quite satisfying--however, while very good, the 7.5 ips tapes Dertonarm refers to do not hold a candle to 15 ips material, IMHO.

C1ferrari--I'm doing, fine, thanks! It looks like you are really enjoying your R2R, too.

Mepearson--All the prerecorded 7.5 ips tapes I own are from the early days (1950s) and are 2-track only. As I said, they are very, very nice, but not as nice as either the TP tapes or other 15 ips tapes I have lucked into. Sadly (and no doubt in part because of the resurgence in interest in R2R that forums like Audiogon have ignited), the "large library" of these early 2-track prerecorded tapes are soaring in price. Some I have tracked on ebay recently have fetched over $300 each, a huge increase from six months ago. My original post had this "value" issue in mind--I think a newly released, 15 ips / IEC tape from the Tape Project is a far better value at $300 than a lovely RCA 7.5 ips 2-track from the 1950s that costs nearly the same. But, as you said, our opinions are debatable!