Reel to Reel Audiophile Tape Deck: Buyers Guide 

That is my fun deck of choice. It’s a great a reliable unit and has really great sound given its price. The pre-amp boards are also discrete components and can be rebuilt with modern transistors if desired or needed. Should be able to keep it going for the long haul

Love reel to reels, I got three of them,but I like the solenoid control ones,had Sony switch modes ones and they seemed to drift more. Also make sure the the the reel spindles are not bent from being dropped on there face,and old tapes seem to shed alot of iron oxide so frequentic cleaning for some brands of old tapes.

I use to work in my states government archives. We had a couple of R2R tapes of early state assembly meetings recorded in 1989 but no machine to play them on. I then found our Heritage Library had a R2R machine only to discover that their machine had recording/playback speed options different to what our tapes were recorded at. Never did get to hear them, they would likely have been the cure to insomnia.

akai had a great reputation for tape machines

Things are getting reel! Akai is nice and good, but if you're keen on taking it to the next level and can afford it, try Technics RS-1500 series. It's a real thing of beauty and a joy for ever.

I remember recording LP records on tape decks and it would sound better afterwards. It is not only the tape saturation that does magic but it also seems to be more dynamic. BTW, tape speed only improves the upper frequency range. It has to do with the resolution of the tape head in relation with the analog magnetic signal on the tape, i.e the tape quality and recording quality on that tape. Cassette decks came very close to tape decks for the frequency because of all the R&D that went in the tape heads. They got ever narrower gabs in the iron, that is where the head picks up the signal. The dynamic range depends on the height of the tape. That is why cassette decks can never match a reel to reel deck. Regarding the pricing, a serviced deck, ready to go, should easily cost $500,- more than a "Garage sale" one. I buy unrestored automatic turntables and service them because I like them as a (electro) mechanical puzzle. Getting one unit serviced and adjusted will take me easily 10 hours. And that is without the parts. So in my view if the price of an unrestored unit is anywhere from $0,- to $200,- that is almost irrelevant. At that point the cosmetic state of the equipment becomes far more decisive. If you do this as a business (I am not) someone has to pay for that effort. A tape deck is not going to be different.

Another brief idea. I just got hold of the Parks Audio Waxwing phono DSP. The Waxwing allows you to digitise your turntable output and in real time manipulate it in multiple ways to get the sound precisely how you want and, crucially, almost completely eliminate clicks, pops and surface noise without losing anything in terms of sound quality (yep, I didn't believe it either but it works). You can then output analogue to your Reel to reel, or digitally via a DAC first. This potentially allows you to make noise free recordings from vinyl to reel to reel, manipulated to get the perfect sound you want. The Waxwing is, I think, $499 in the US from Parks Audio or Amazon and, believe me, it's worth every penny. I haven't used it to make recordings yet, but as a listener it works flawlessly.

I have a basic Sony TC 377 deck from the early 70s and it sounds fantastic. I make recordings from hi res files fed through a Denafrips Terminator Plus Dac and the results are lovely. I do lust after a 10.5 inch 15ips deck, but that gets very pricy and there are few people who can calibrate and service them. My deck, serviced, cost just under £300 in the UK and was a great way of getting into the format. Also, a slight correction. Not all 10.5 inch machines do 15 ips, many are still limited to 7.5. 15ips tend to be the prosumer decks. You need to carefully check all the specs before you buy.

17:03 There was just such a GX-636 last week on ebay that sold for about 800$ with exactly this issue. What a shame! I wonder/hope how mechanically adept (and deep pocketed) the buyer is or (more likely) whether it was bought for the value of its parts only.

Excellent review of a reel-to-reel deck! I admit this is the first review I've come across that highlights and goes over the mechanical aspects of the design rather than simply go over specs and electronics. This has been very elucidating as I never knew of the advantages of a purely mechanical operation nor that the GX-4000D was of this breed. I was always partial to this deck as it is the most budget deck of the later (but not last) range of decks made by AKAI - and I am partial to AKAI for both design and sentimental reasons as well as the fact that they were big on the consumer tape deck market in many ways but mainly because the robustness of the glass heads. I also appreciated the points about Dolby Noise Reduction. Of course, I would like to have the option to run a noise reduction unit as a separate external device since these ancient decks usually come with either no Dolby or a really early, inferior version of it. The analysis given about tape speed, tape thicknesses and head wear is very useful as it highlights some very important aspects of owning such decks, maybe the most important aspects in my opinion as owning such a deck without having tapes is tantamount to owning an industrial ornament. I wonder with all these retrophile items getting popularity in the consumer world, how long it will take until we have affordable open reel tapes again. Then the real question will be of course whether these new tapes will last as long as the old ones. Having watched this, I wonder whether the earlier, older looking 4000 series is of the same calibre. I also wonder whether the similarly budget range GX-215D, with slightly more features, is similarly robust. I'd like to look into that. But the GX-4000D is both neat, gets tucked away into the system without taking up a huge amount of space, and has reasonably good specs.

Now you need a good degausser/tape cleaning machine.

Have fun with that tape deck. Hope you can find some pre recorded reels for a good price.

I have a akai 4000ds mk2 I have had for the last twenty years I’ve found it yo be pretty reliable. The only downside that they have cams which operates the play, rewind ,fast forward,. They are made for a very cheap metal which breaks down over the years. However, there is a seller out there that is remanufacturing 3d printing those parts so they are available as are the capstone roller rubbers. The sound reproduction is very good I will not be parting with it any time ever 😂😂

This is too much for me....

Fun video ! Thank you

looks very fancy 👍

15:57 550$ for a 7" 7.5ips and 1200$ for a 10.5" deck! Boy have prices picked up!