Reel to Reel Machine for 15 ips playback

The MTR 10 was a great machine. If you can do the work or know a great tech, the Ampex 440 is also great. Stay away from their ATR 700 and ATR 100 series.

@chauncey 

hi welcome to this world of r2r.

step 1 , get a great mentor … I had one ..

step 2, do not get consumer 4 track decks , my point is why bother , you can stream good music that may sound better than a 4 track deck.

About an yr ago I got the atr 102 with the mr70 preamp with flux magnetic heads modded by Andrew kosobutsky, for my 1/2” tapes , ( same machine linked to in what’s best forum) . Was listening to Louis Armstrong 30 ips earlier thru the deck it’s unbeatable , fantastic.

For 1/4” 2 track I have an otari mtr 10 modded by Soren in chicago , totally refurbished with flux magnetic heads playing with a nick doshi evo head amp ( latest version) . Phenomenal.

Nothing can beat a good tape played backed in a good machine .

my advice do it right the first time .😀. Pay the xtra $ and you will be a happy listener .

In my personal experience, I suggest you look at a Revox B77 2 track 7.5/15ips, at the minimum. If you’ve got the budget, then go for Revox PR99 MKII (or MKIII), and then look at the more expensive (but much better) Studer A810 (which I currently have). All of these are easy to find parts for, and there are a number of good techs around (and they are not too expensive to ship to a tech). The Technics has a parts problem if you should need one of the transport logic chips (no longer available). The Ampex ATRs and Studer 820s are great, but very expensive and so big and heavy, that if you can’t fix them yourself, you’ve got a big problem. The Otari 5050 series machines are also very reliable, have parts availability, and not too expensive. In other words,  you should seriously consider parts and technician availability for your purchase; not how cool or esoteric the recorder might be. And if you buy from a private party, my experience is to expect some initial service costs right after your purchase if you really want the recorder to perform correctly. The statement “All functions work” is NO guarantee of its actual performance. If you want to play vintage tapes, then you need to look for one of these machines in ¼ track format (all the above mentioned recorders can have their heads changed for this, and some Otaris offer both track formats). Someone has already suggested the TapeHeads forum, and if you want to pursue vintage tapes, then check out Ken Kessler’s articles in Copper Magazine. And yes, ½” track at 15ips is a beautiful “sonic thing.”

I owned a Revox A77 recorder for about ten years. Got it brand new for $500. It had built in Dolby processing and at 7.5 IPS it did a credible job on the system I had at the time. It fell apart and I gave it away.  I can record anything including albums in 24/192 digital much more reliably. 

The Ballfinger M 063 H2 goes for $29,000. Beautiful machine. Not for me and I can afford it. I raid the record collections of my friends and copy rare limited editions like the 45 rpm complete LZ collection. You can not tell the difference between the copy and the original. All you need is an Apple computer, and a certain program called Pure Vinyl. You can have both for $2500.00. Why would you ever spend $29K on a complicated machine that is going to need expensive maintenance down the road and be worth close to nothing in the end when you can do better for much less money. Yes, prerecorded tapes sound great, all 5 of them, all audiophile tripe as mentioned by professor @whart above, not to mention the price tag. For one tape I could buy about 15 records or 30 HiRes digital files.

The Tascam BR20 is another machine worth considering. It has good heads, and is extremely well build, though I'm not sure about spares availability.

As regards the whole analogue tape thing, I really struggle with the economics of it. A small collection of say 100 tapes is knocking on the door of $40,000.

That buys one heck of a turntable and access to vastly more software.