Why not magnetic tapes in stead of vinyl records?

As I said before - attic is possibly the worst place for storage of tapes with excessive temperatures, big temperature swings between day and night and uncontrolled humidity. I would rather store them in my basement that has pretty much the same temperature thru the year and pretty low humidity. It is just my opinion, nothing else. If attic works for you - fine. Semiconductors are also baked in high temperature before assembly but it does not mean high temperature is good for their operation or storage.

I would rather have them in a more consistent temp/humidity basement than an attic. That said, newer tape like RMG SM 900 is not hygroscopic so can easily handle some humidity unlike the tape of old that can get sticky. I have a few older tapes and store them with silica gel.

The reason I have not added tape playback to my system is not the cost of the hardware, it's the cost of the source material. I suppose if I had access to high quality transfers from master tapes, I'd jump right in.

Kijanki, If your basement is controlled humidity then I would agree with you. Most basements though have much greater humidity (at least in this part of the world they do...) than the attic.

So what we are disagreeing about is whether the basement or attic is best. I don't think we disagree about the fact that lower humidity is better, or that baking a tape can often restore a sticky tape's functionality.

So let me put this another way. If you were to stumble across a box of tapes made in the 1970s at a garage sale, if they were stored in the basement its likely that the box is junk. If stored in the attic, its likely that many of the tapes in the box will still be usable.

The simple fact is though that all recorded media (LP, tape, magnetic disk drive and CD) are better off stored in a temperature controlled low humidity environment.

Ralph, I agree. I was thinking of my air conditioned basement while others
have finished attic. Humidity is perhaps the worst followed by
temperature changes.