Reel to Reel Options

as long as we are discussing this:  i have a very nice reel to reel; been all fixed up to latest specs and such...not a $10K unit, but about $2K in it; worked nice 20 years ago and with the updates, expect it still will...HOWEVER...isnt a R2R only going to sounds as good as the source and the connections?  My older Yamaha receiver has tape 1/tape 2 loop in is, so i can record from sources such as a turntable, cd maybe, and fm stereo......but with those fairly crappy sources...and probably not the best line connections and noise galore...what is one to do?  I think i may have wasted $1200 on a dinosaur that wont bite....any ideas?

It would be great if a R2R resurgence happened, with both machines and tapes, similar to what has happened with vinyl. I remember being awe-struck at a Sansui deck my uncle had more than 50 years ago. Entry-level would probably not be possible, keeping people from testing the waters, and I'm sure that's a factor. Also not as much music already available like there was with vinyl. But if some company or consortium of companies decided to wake up that market I'm curious as to how it would fare. Vinyl is of no interest to me, I couldn't wait to move on from them when that was primarily what we had. But I get that there can be something special to high-quality analog recordings. I would definitely want to try R2R if some of the barriers noted in this thread were at least somewhat alleviated. 

Biggest problems with reel to reel decks are

1. they’re old and need to be restored 

2. lack of tapes - studio recordings are rare and expensive, buying used old tapes is risky. 
 

The decks are cool though. And if you get one that’s in excellent condition and you plan on recording your favorite vinyl onto tapes it could be awesome to listen to.

otherwise it’s the same concept as getting into vinyl - you end up dumping a $hit ton of money into it and it ends up sitting collecting dust because it’s a pain to use. 

Some 7.5 ips tapes that can be found are quite nice sounding and better than the vinyl issue.  Really great sounding tapes tend to be 15 ips tapes that are very small quantity copies of master tapes.  These tend to cost $500 and more.  The selection of \music is extremely limited.  As benchmarks of what can be accomplished with recorded music, it is hard to beat these tapes; they have a natural and lively sound that is hard to find from any other format.  But, there is too little available material for it to be an every day source of pleasure.

@zygat   I own an AKAI 635D and 747.  Both are very well built.  All caps in the signal path replaced in the 747.  Switch contacts cleaned, belts replaced, bias adjusted.  You never want to touch head alignment unless certain that is the source of a problem.  Made that mistake with a Sony deck thinking a small tweak was necessary.  A struggle to correct.

Nice thing about AKAI is the heads never wear out.  Other decks owned eventually exhibited a groove worn in the heads.  Never with an AKAI.

R2R sound quality is only as good as the source, so have realistic expectations.  Quality of the tape also makes a difference.