Reel to Reel Machine for 15 ips playback

You really gotta get with the tape heads, with Myles Astor, Mike Lavigne, and others who are plugged in. One thing is sound. Another is tape handling.

Also your location is possibly important. There are people who supply heads or will relap yours; and others who will work on the decks. If it were me, I’d prefer to keep all that local.

Mike is good to start with since he owns several different machines and could tell you the strengths and weaknesses of each.

I got to hear Albert Porter’s almost virgin A820 with refurbished stock internals and it was wonderful. But he was playing legit old jazz safeties. To me that’s the bottleneck with tape- quality source material that isn’t simply audiophile pap that doesn’t cost a fortune, or involve mystery sources how many generations down.

@mikelavigne

@albertporter

@mylesbastor

I’d add Greg Beron, but he’s a manufacturer as well as a remanufacturer of machines, you can reach out to him on your own. https://unitedhomeaudio.com/greg-beron-designer-uha-hq-tape-decks/

@chauncey

give me a ballpark idea of your budget, your general location, and i will see if i can give you a relevant answer.

if you want the top level of performance, and are willing to pursue high quality tapes, there are some very fine choices that will give you outstanding results.

@whart

thanks Bill.

Thank you both for your help and recommendations.  

I'm really just starting to think about this so I haven't thought of a budget.  I've bought a few tapes from Acoustic Sounds as I do like the idea of the tape format and was worried about the buy now or cry later.  

The Mara machines at Acoustic Sounds are $10-$14k.  Is that a good budget or does it need to be $20-25k?  

I'm in the rocky mountains of Colorado.  

I see some Otari MTR10 1/4" for sale on craigslist in Denver.  Not sure if this would work in the home environment?  $3500