What makes tape sound better than vinyl ?

nmps, i think you have to accept that we all hear differently. There are characteristics of analog reproduction are a more pleasing to people, just as there are characteristics of digital reproduction that are pleasing to others.

I am also in a business that overlaps with the sound business and did an analog v. digital test on a feature film mixing stage. We did a mix and recording of the final sound of a film (of which the music score is a separate element) to hard drive as is the norm now.... this on the finest equipment available, directly from a Pro Tools session. We also simultaneously recorded to 6-track magnetic film which is analogous to reel to reel and the way film sound used to be mastered . We did a playback of both units so we were able to A/B and there wasn't a person in the room that didn't think the analog master sounded way better. More real. More human. With the music especially, the analog master showed way better accuracy of tone and reproduced the sense of the room the music was recorded in way better than the digital master. I think there's just something about analog that reproduces ambient space and it makes tone and space feel more real.

 "We also simultaneously recorded to 6-track magnetic film which is analogous to reel to reel"

This is not cassette and in no way reflects the inherent problems with cassette.

The point isn't about whether analog or digital is better but, rather, whether cassette or high rez digital is better. And, on that note, IMO, there is no contest. High rez digital wins out by far.

"Cost factor and maintainability are not necessarily convincing arguments when dealing with audiophiles. You know..... "

For ultimate sound, you are right. But, for the cost you would need to spend on cassettes you would be better off going with reel to reel. 

Further, to demonstrate the issues with cassette compare 1st generation through 5th generation copies of a cassette duplication. All the glaring problems and distortion associated with cassettes are laid bare! Couple that with not using noise reduction, as some have advocated, and the problem is even greater.

I've owned many of the best cassette decks and still own a Nak 700 mkII and Kyocera D811. I have even better decks in the past. My experience on location, in the studio have easily led me away from cassettes many, many years ago. However, I still have hundreds of hours of masters that I keep for archival purposes. All of which have also been transfered to 96/24 using the best digital equipment!

Back home and able to hook up the Nak 582 for the first time.
To start with I had no idea it was so LARGE!
I have it connected in my second system as it is too wide to fit in the rack of my main system.
Impressions so far are very positive, first few tapes spun through sound very lively and airy.
Quite impressive for $100......serviced 5 years ago and then put away. My steal of the month.

Ive heard recordings made from vinyl to an Akai GX something? Reel to reel. I know this isn't a Tandberg or Revox, but I didn't think it sounded better than vinyl. I noticed losses, increased hiss, loss of top end, and less bass. 
But I know what the OP is talking about. Tape has a certain sound.
I take objection to his assertion that tape sounds "better". I agree it sounds different, but don't agree it's better. Back in the days of tape and before CD, I didn't hear anyone saying a recording of vinyl on tape sounds better than vinyl. To me this assertion is weird. I can understand the OP having his personal preference, as we all do, but I don't agree with it.  If he simply asserted that he enjoys the sound of tape, I'd be OK with that. 

But, to somewhat answer his question. "What makes tape sound like tape", in my experience from recording live music on it, and recording records and CDs on it, I'd say it's the losses and technical limitations that make it sound like that. Those losses and limitations round off transients and blur sounds together, and this gives a certain sort of sound. I know a guy who has a studio who has on occasion mixed down his multi track digital recordings to tape to get "that" sound as an effect. I agree that it can be a pleasing effect when used artistically. All formats to my ears have a intrinsic sound of thier own. To my ears digital has the most detail and least colourations. Vinyl though pleasant has a lot of resonance and noise when played back - listen on headphones if you want to hear it easily. Tape, is second best to digital, it has a dragging smeared and grainy sound compared to digital. On its own, tape can sound nice.

Any unremasterd CD of tape recorded music (meaning any music recorded from 50's to late 70's)  reveals the characteristic sound of tape. 

Compare those recordings to any music digitally recorded and the absence of smear, noise, grain and colourations is immediately apparent when hearing the digital recording.

Alot of discussion here on this topic, i got reel and cassette and cd and lp, to make a point? All i can say with certainty is  at chicago axpona 2017 show, i went to alot of rooms and listened to some uber expensive turntables , but one small room i visited had the best sound ive ever heard in my life, Frank Zappa was playing on a seriously good sounding/looking Technics 10" reel playing 15" p.s. probably a master tape, my God! i could close my eyes and reached out and touched the man! All those 30-100k turntables sounded pretty mundane compared to that, so in my mind and ears the RTR tape @ 15 ips cannot be beat providing the deck and tape are 1st rate in this life or the next to come,imho.

Ez answer
recording on tape makes sound better than recording on vinyl
quality of player is also contributing factor 
I remember having first original cassette Ride the lighting that I always preferred listening to over CD and wasn’t impressed of vinyl either 
I’m sure i or anyone else can share more instances or already shared in this giant solitaire 

I certainly have quite a few recording on cassette that sound better than CD or streamed tidal versions.
However I also have a fair number that are god awful too! Lol

I am still without Studer, too many things distract me from this project.

I can’t remember who posted about the 1/2 track, but I agree.  What made it so good was running at high speeds and the width of the tape, made for the best reproduced sound I’ve ever heard.  There simply isn’t enough room on a cassette tape and they run so slow, it’s too easy to get saturation.  There are a number of older LP’s that sound awful.  I had a friend come over last week and they brought a cd of the group Stained.  It was very dynamic, well produced and sounded awesome.  I’m really not “in to” that type of music anymore, but it sounded great. I proceeded to put on the album “Aqualung.”  It Sounded like an am radio, compared to the Stained cd.  What a shame, the producer/engineer rolled so much of it off.  Really like that album, but can’t hardly listen to the cd or lp.  Some albums just weren’t very well recorded or mixed down.

My recollection of the tape vs vinyl comparisons stemmed largely from comparing open reel to reel tapes at 30ips vs 33rpm vinyl. Under only those circumstances did tape even come close to besting vinyl. Now if one talks about open mic recordings on reel to reel 30ips tapes, then the outcome is different. 

Doshi V3.0 Tape Stage

I don't understand why someone with a Studer (A820?) would even waste time owning cassette?  I mean: cassette was shoe-horned into being passable "HiFi" only after Henry Kloss' exploits with Advent in the early '70s; before then: it was an office memo machine and something competing with 8-track cartridge for portable convenience.  The technicalities of it, in my opinion, are akin to the premise of trying to turn a sow's ear into a golden purse: no matter even if you've got a Nak 1000ZXL.  Reel to Reel, from the vantage of 7 1/2ips-ONWARD (even as "dumbed-down" as commercial quarter track made from a copy less than 8x dubbing speed) IS where any serious entry point into the world of tape should always start; as you're (now) at least dealing with a format remotely close to what a studio mixdown master was made on.  

RE: vinyl vs. tape comparison.  There's NO WAY I've ever thought vinyl won based on anything which DIDN'T involve something related to vinyl's peculiarities influencing its character or, something which DIDN'T have to do with a record collector (already) having a special interest bias toward it.  In other words; limiting the argument to always: vinyl vs. (bad and often audibly watermarked) digital clones/mid-life crisis trying to harken back to youth(YES!)/or: the gobbs of vinyl's RIAA-eq midrange boost being (mis)understood as having "more presence" to ageing ears (which: is as sonically INaccurate as, suggesting....that JBL 100´s can magically recreate studio sound connected to a 40 y.o. Kenwood receiver, aarrgghh).

THE most immediate difference between the sound of a record and, for example, a (good) 7 1/2ips reel (and, once you take that to 15: the purity of tape combined-with now the absolute silky black background just achieves a whole 'nother level) to me is: records have this upper bass/lower mid "bloat" (because of a 500Hz boost) which often sounds like a phasey and hollow "fishbowl" sound and, it just suddenly smacks into this over-trebly/2k-4k region with a VERY ARTIFICIAL sheen smothering it.  TAPE HAS NONE OF THAT.  The entire dynamic spectrum of tape just gels together naturally without the sense of thinking a mastering engineer was fiddling with the signal.

I've noticed in these debates, that, a common denominator among vinyl types seems to be: always a distaste of (10khz+) treble, bass, and wide stereo(?).  Ironic, isn't it(?): three things vinyl cannot reproduce to the fullest extent.

4trackmind

RE: vinyl vs. tape comparison. There's NO WAY I've ever thought vinyl won based on anything which DIDN'T involve something related to vinyl's peculiarities ...  the gobbs of vinyl's RIAA-eq midrange boost being (mis)understood as having "more presence" to ageing ears ...

You sound confused. The RIAA curve is complementary - what is applied to the LP is inverted on playback. Good RIAA stages easily achieve accuracy to the curve within fractions of a dB.

THE most immediate difference between the sound of a record and, for example, a (good) 7 1/2ips reel ... records have this upper bass/lower mid "bloat" (because of a 500Hz boost) which often sounds like a phasey and hollow "fishbowl" sound and, it just suddenly smacks into this over-trebly/2k-4k region with a VERY ARTIFICIAL sheen smothering it. TAPE HAS NONE OF THAT.

What 500Hz "boost" are you talking about? What phono stage are you using that suffers this issue?

... a common denominator among vinyl types seems to be: always a distaste of (10khz+) treble, bass, and wide stereo(?). Ironic, isn't it(?): three things vinyl cannot reproduce to the fullest extent.

Actually, LP can have an edge over tape when it comes to HF, because it's not subject to saturation the way tape is. I'm not sure why you think LP can't produce the full frequency range in wide stereo, but it sounds like you're not using a good phono stage, so that may be your problem.

Actually, LP can have an edge over tape when it comes to HF, because it's not subject to saturation the way tape is. I'm not sure why you think LP can't produce the full frequency range in wide stereo, but it sounds like you're not using a good phono stage, so that may be your problem.

+1  The LP has much wider bandwidth than any audio tape format. Lower distortion and noise too.