Can my old reel to reel compete with SOTA?

after adding my teac tape deck to a second system i put together (sf guarneris, sf musica int.amp, ml 390s cdp), i was curious to see how some old tapes i made sounded. they were sourced from lp's played on a thorens turntable with an at-0c9 cartridge. while not as good as my main rig (which i just spent a ton of money on new (balanced) transparent cabling, and a new preamp), i was still "drawn into" the music just as much. either i have a forgiving set of ears, or the unique pleasure of listening to tapes I MADE MYSELF, or being able to monitor time via the amount of tape going from one side to the other, or monitoring the sound levels by watching the VU meters, or just pure nostalgia, i can't say. but i really enjoyed what i was hearing A LOT (haydn symphonies, corelli/telemann concertos, etc.). now i should re-record some of those alblums on my vpi turntable, which should do a much better job than the thorens did. still and in all, i just want to get out more tapes in the next few days/weeks and not only re-familiarize myself with the workings of my beloved teac, but also try to determine if the guarneris REALLY NEED A SUBWOOFER OR NOT, a question which has been bothering me for some time. i know a sub should improve the soundstage, but the sf-g's are in a 10x12 room(!), and from what i've been hearing, already sound very satisfying (i know, 10x12 feet is not enough space for them). one friend/advisor says they're sota speakers by themselves, and too many people want to extend the bass (me), but lose the purity and uncluttered nature of the speaker- so, is bass down to 46hz enough in a small bedroom??
i'll have to spend more time, and try different genre's of music to determine what i'm going to do. but the system sure sounds beautiful playing haydn... this is so cool imho.