I vote for a pro-sumer six head auto-reverse 1/4" wide 4 track machine and 7-1/2 IPS pre-recorded tapes.
certainly not the ultimate tape size/head/speed like you are mentioning,
however, a lot of source material exists (up to the end of their era).
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=reel+to+reel+tape...
buy it, play it, EASILY enjoy it.
my factory tapes, readily available on eBay, many 60 years old, are still the best sounding source material I own.
I made my nephew, a musician, weep when I played him Sgt. Pepper’s on my Teac X2000R. Everyone picks LP over CD, then Tape over LP.
I bought over 500 tapes on eBay, wonderful content, then sold about 150 of them. I never returned any, and nobody returned any to me.
Don’t believe people who say they are too old, they surprise me every time I play them.
yes, my 2 track stereo tapes sound better still (on a real 2 track head) (as would the deck you mentioned)
however I only inherited a dozen of them, the pre-recorded 2 tracks stopped being made early, and the real 2 track heads don't play 4 track. You can play 2 track on a 4 track deck, turn one track down, the other one up, as there is only partial track/head overlap. They don't sound 'awesome', but I get to remember my uncle when I play them.
btw, I just gave my 1" wide studio master of a Louis Armstrong session at Regency Sound (Ramblin Rose ... session) to a friend who has a friend who, for a price, will transfer it from his 1" machine to digital. I offered it to the Louis Armstrong Museum, they didn’t bother to answer my email.
certainly not the ultimate tape size/head/speed like you are mentioning,
however, a lot of source material exists (up to the end of their era).
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=reel+to+reel+tape...
buy it, play it, EASILY enjoy it.
my factory tapes, readily available on eBay, many 60 years old, are still the best sounding source material I own.
I made my nephew, a musician, weep when I played him Sgt. Pepper’s on my Teac X2000R. Everyone picks LP over CD, then Tape over LP.
I bought over 500 tapes on eBay, wonderful content, then sold about 150 of them. I never returned any, and nobody returned any to me.
Don’t believe people who say they are too old, they surprise me every time I play them.
yes, my 2 track stereo tapes sound better still (on a real 2 track head) (as would the deck you mentioned)
however I only inherited a dozen of them, the pre-recorded 2 tracks stopped being made early, and the real 2 track heads don't play 4 track. You can play 2 track on a 4 track deck, turn one track down, the other one up, as there is only partial track/head overlap. They don't sound 'awesome', but I get to remember my uncle when I play them.
btw, I just gave my 1" wide studio master of a Louis Armstrong session at Regency Sound (Ramblin Rose ... session) to a friend who has a friend who, for a price, will transfer it from his 1" machine to digital. I offered it to the Louis Armstrong Museum, they didn’t bother to answer my email.