I got into R2R seriously about 6-7 years ago, after lots of help from a good friend Stewart Emmings, who sadly passed away from cancer at 49. Stew was the chief archivist and serviced all the vintage video tape and audio tape machines at the British Film Institute (BFI).
He taught me how to line up and calibrate a machine and the equipment I needed. I don’t think you can truly get into R2R without learning this. The bare minimum you can get away with is at least 1 MRL test tape, a set of decent meters (I have a pair of PPM meters with mono-sum function for checking azimuth), test tones (wither a generator or a set of calibrated tones), as well as a demagnetiser, isopropyl alcohol (plus a different cleaner for the rubber) and swabs for cleaning heads and guides. An oscilloscope is helpful, and a proper testing unit (I have a Sound Technologies 1510A and an older Ferrograph RTS2/AU1 units) is a bonus.
IMO, if you are seriously into tape i.e 15 IPS 2 track, then having 2 machines is almost a must - why? Every vintage 2 track master I buy has been around for at least 30+ years. Every tape I purchase is archived during its first play onto a) 24/192 digital using my Prism Sound Lyra 2, and b) new 15 IPS RTM SM900 or LPR90 tape stock with Dolby SR. The original is then stored and I use the next generation Dolby SR copy as my standard play tape. There is no way that I would consider using a vintage production master tape as my regular play tape.
Finally I think that every tape should have test tones at the head of the tape - a 15/16 kHz tone to check azimuth (a 10 kHz will also be ok, although not quite as accurate), as well as something like 1k, 500 & 100 Hz. Every time I play a tape (either a newly purchased production master) or one of my own duplicates, I check that the levels and freq response are correct before I play the music.
Charlie
PS The importance of a high quality tape transport is also more important than the repro electronics IMO. Take a look at the chassis plates for a Studer A820 or A80 and see how rigid they are. Add in the precision guidance transport on the A820 or A80, as opposed to forced tape guidance on almost everything else, and you can see why the top Studers were so good. Remember you have to keep the tape running at precise speed with no deviation across the head, whilst minimising other problems like scrape flutter caused by all the surfaces the tape has to run over. The mechanical engineering on a high quality R2R is way more complex and expensive to manufacture than any turntable system.
