Reel to Reel

Quality wise, I am surprised so few friends/members here have R2R.

My Reel to Reel is the best sounding source I have. Same content/different formats: Everyone here picks tubes over solid state; lps over cd's; r2r tape over lp.

In my case, I have two of Teac's last Prosumer 4 track 6 head auto-reverse model x2000r. same as x1000r except 2000 has colbalt heads, Big and small reels, but 7-1/2" speed. It isn't as good as 15 ips, or 2 track, but it still beats anything else I have. Tape hiss, yes, and yet it's better! I've made two nephews involved with music industry cry while listening to Sgt. Pepper's.

My friend has two Otari's, 2 track, 15 ips. Incredible, he played Led Zeppelin's 1st album among others. Holy smokes, now you know what they were hearing in the studio, so much more listenable than 7-1/2" 4 track. He pays a lot of money from certain sources for tapes, primarily Jazz (some sources are not great). Most sound amazing, a few, not outstanding

I had early 2 track stereo tapes, 7-1/2 ips, definitely sounded better than my 4 track.

A problem is that pre-recorded content is age related, and simply stopped being made/released. The early 2 tracks are mostly classical. The 4 tracks have all the wonderful 50's, 60's; 70's, I think into earlt 80's.

If you are younger, none of your favorite artists exist pre-recorded R2R.

Maintanence:

Mr. Fixit. If you have some tools (nothing special), some fixit experience, you can do most or all of it yourself.

I haven’t needed to work on one of mine or my sons (4 total) in years (except normal head/capstan rollers clean/oil). I can do anything physical to them, but nothing electronic. These Teacs are built like tanks, the old grease and old belts turn to glue. 6 screws the case is off. Remove all the junk, new lithium grease, new belt, the brakes need to be adjusted, the height of the reel decks need to be raised/lowered to align the tape with the heads and avoid the tape rubbing on the reel edges.

Not always needed, but when apart I take the motors out, apart, clean moving parts and electrical contact points, lube, back together. Mark their screw positions and pay attention before removal and disassembly, just careful common sense.

resistor adjustors for ff and rewind speeds, tape tension for fwd and rev play speeds, ..... like an old carburetor idle speed and fuel mixture: one effects the other, take your time, wait, tiny adjust, wait ..... you will get it. also, like a carb, you make the adjustments while it is running.

I find heads stay aligned, and I have even replaced the entire plate with pre-mounted heads with success. Alignment perfection needs a professional. Worn heads can be found or re-conditioned.

Tempted by R2R?

I'f you are loaded, go the Otari (other pro deck), 15 IPS 2 Track, with a professional lined up to maintain it. The sound is far far better than any cable tweak, or batch of tweaks you could make. 

For me and my 'well off' but not loaded crowd: Modest ProSumer deck to play 7-1/2" IPS, primarily pre-recorded tapes.

I went thru each era of Teacs:

1st. the early Stainless Steel face-plates with real wood end panels. Variations: Two 4 channel forward decks I restored and gave to musician friends. 2 Track to play my historic 2 Track Stereo Pre-Recorded Tapes from 1956-1958. After a while gave the deck to a musician and just gave the 2 track tapes to my friend with the pair of 2 Track Otari's.

btw, he can play the 'in-line' stereo tapes on his Otari, but not the 'staggared' stereo tapes (take a mono deck, add an adjacent head to make it 2 channel, now the left and right signals are physically separated by something like 1.25" distance between the heads/tracks. My Inherited Viking 2 track stereo deck (came in the Fisher President II I inherited from my uncle Johnny, along with the 2 track tapes) has an extra head, to select in-line or staggered. I have it downstairs with hard to find new belts waiting. Needs a new case, it was mounted in a drawer.

2nd. Next the beige plastic front panels, with plastic cases.

3rd. Finally the aluminum face plates, silver or mine anodized black. Plastic cases with optional 'wood look' surrounds (chip-board, wrapped with paper printed to look like wood). That is the end of the line X1000r and my X2000r's.

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I went thru: Single play, then reverse play, then 6 heads auto-reverse, start with that!

Many years back, I bought over 500 pre-recorded R2R tapes, 7"/7-1/2 IPS. Let's say the shipping cost more than the tape often, they were not expensive like today.

Mine have been stored in conditioned space, slightly slanted shelves: boxes edge to edge, and they still sound amazing, no bleed thru, strong signal strength, not stretching, bad edges. Except the 1st few feet each end, the tape is often brittle, a snap will break there, perhaps beat up edges. I add new polyester leaders to both ends, using a simple manual tape splicer. I add metal reverse strips, (the auto-reverse decks have sensors).

I sold about 150 of them, eBay, unconditional return/refund. Only 1 refund, seemed like USPS had a destructo challenge that day.

Many are over 60 years old, mine still sound better than my Vinyl, everyone here agrees.

ltmandella

"But vintage prerecorded tapes often have the shedding problem due to age deterioration."

I suspect you are referring to home-made pre-recorded, on tape formulations that sadly shed. Definitely a problem to be aware of and avoid. Buying old stock, be aware:

sticky shed syndrome

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I refer to pre-recorded commercial releases from the majors: CBS, RCA, London, Capital, Decca, Reprise ......

Not a single one of my 7" pre-recorded reels (around 500 of them) from these various makers has ever shed. Surprisingly, bleed thru is extremely rare.

I inherited some opera tapes from my uncle that he had home-recorded, on ..... blank tape. Those sadly had some bleed-thru. They also had become more brittle than the commercially produced ones.

r2r tape bleed through

I/you should never use Fast Forward or Fast Rewind prior to putting a tape back in the box, the tape will be packed too tightly. Wind them at normal speed.

some store them tails-out, I store them tail’s in, as they finish after auto-reverse play.

tails out; tails in