Back in the late 70's i had two R2R decks: A Sony TC-880-2 and an Akai GX-265D--i used both to record vinyl to tape on first play to keep the vinyl pristine until the tape degraded (and rthen ecord it again) but mainly to create long-playing party mixes--i used the Akai auto-reverse for that and could play up to 3 hours at 7.5ips-i even had a few tapes recorded at 3 3/4 that could play 6 hours! So it was a way to play a lot of music without the hassle of changing records and lasted longer than cassettes. The SQ of the Sony at 15ips was spectacular and i couldn't tell the difference between vinyl and the R2R recordings at that speed. BTW somebody said cassette was superior to 7.5ips R2R--don't know where that notion came from--perhaps some garbage pre-recorded R2Rs (which i've never owned) but no way can cassette compete--i have a Nakamichi CR4 cassette deck which is a very good deck but it can't compete with my 7.5ips R2R even using metal tape. Sadly my Sony machine (and many vinyl records) was destroyed in a flood but i still have the Akai and occasionally listen to my tapes b/c i no longer have those particular vinyl recordings but ultimately it's just in my system now because it looks cool--it's the first thing everyone comments on when they see my system--but i've moved on to streaming those lost records --and when i'm really picky i still play the surviving vinyl but don't record albums any more given streaming music sources that can play endlessly...so i guess that answers more the question of why we liked R2R back when vs today--if i didn't already own an R2R i wouldn't buy one...
Why do people like reel to reel players?
do They sound all that much better than the other stuff?
they look very cool and remind me of language class when I was younger which was the only place I saw them used. It’s like a record player mounted on the wall where you can watch something spin.
It seems a bit impractical to get the tapes and then to mount them all the time. Cassette players seem a lot better. Cassettes used to be a bit easier to get. Not sure they’re even available anymore. I remember they were double sided just flip them over.