Reel to Reel Tape

Digital is the only "affordable" high end. Once digital has been recorded on a high quality reel, it is no longer digital; the playback is pure "analog".

Dear @johnss : As I posted several times in this forum I attend at least one time a week to live MUSIC event.

Unfortunatelly for all of us ( digital or analog ) during the whole recording proccess exist a little or to much signal manipulation that degrades the signal it self and you and me can't do nothing about.

At the end of the day learned to enjoy MUSIC, it does not matters the kind of medium to listen it.

R.

@johnss...appreciate the content of your posts -- thanks!

three items I forgot to mention,

1. the heads make a huge difference. If JRF has heads for your deck, send him the head block and get at least their top end playback head.

http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/
2. Athan ball bearing rollers and guides.

https://www.athan.com/
will lower the wow and flutter and give smoother running of the tape acorss the heads.  They also sell on ebay for more common units.

Head load resistors - Use Vishay VSR foil resistors to load the head. Also works wonders on MM/MC cartridge loading positions too. You will never hear your MC cart be so quiet.

best to all.

I’ve been using a dbx 224 and dbx 3bx with a Teac X-10R for about 35 years.  I love the sound.  I’ve had the heads replaced twice and have tried to maintain it in near mint condition.

Unfortunately, I had about 30 Ampex reels go bad from age before I new to convert them to digital.  I lost years of 70’s and 80’s era album recordings and custom mixed songs. I still have about 15 Maxell reels of that era so all was not lost.