I know little about R2R machines. But in late 1978, my fiancée and I hosted a party in a flat in Putney that was my girlfriend’s parents’ pied-à-terre, using my (later, but now deceased) father-in-law’s tape deck. A compilation tape made goodness knows how by my wife to be (she hasn’t the faintest idea these days about connecting devices) and a giant beef curry made by my mother-in-law-to-be (also now deceased). I think Jethro Tull and Wishbone Ash were involved. And the only present day effect is that I still have to send Christmas cards to some attendees, who I met for the first time that evening, and have not seen since.
But to be on topic, I think it was a Grundig. And it sat on a shelf above a Thorens turntable and a Sansui receiver. I had only ever handled R2R tapes in my school’s language lab, as we were supposed to be learning French, but actually recorded our burps and played them back to each other. Shameful, I know.