Can you get great analog sound from analog tape?

Soundstage? Sure. Speaker/room interaction (along with the original recording) is the key factor in soundstage, so the key question is, how well does the recorder preserve the locational information on the original recording? Good reel-to-reel certainly will. Cassette's a bit dicier, since you certainly lose something with the inevitable dynamic compression.

If you're thinking more generally about "that vinyl sound," yes, a good recorder will capture that--just as it captures all the pops and clicks. :)

I get great sound daily from analog tape, playing back anything from production master dubs to factory pre-recorded reels. There are various factors that determine sonics with reel tape, such as: head gap, head quality, tape speed (of course), electronics mods (such as mentioned previously, by-passing coupling transformers, etc.), tape quality, mechanical modifications, and even the quality of the recording. Now some of the drawbacks: 1)Back coated reels require occasional "baking" in special ovens which cost $400 to $500 new, though I found one for $275 used. 2) Real production master dubs are quite expensive, as you can imagine, and are nearly impossible to find. 3) you have to play through an entire reel to hear the last song, otherwise you risk stretching the tape. 4) Good heads are expensive, great ones are worse. The best Saki heads run around $1500. 5) it takes several minutes to reel the tape onto the machine, prior to play. 6) Many of the Ampex ATR models are mechanical nightmares, and require constant maintenance. (I have 2 for sale now, want one?). I'm not trying to discourage anyone, just inform them of what they will experience, as I have already. Is all of this worth it? Hell yes!

cassette decks don't cut it?

I make some pretty nice tapes with my Nakamichi 3 head deck
Granted reel to reel can be better but you would be surprised at the results of a good cassette deck and the taps are very cheap these days ($1.25 per tape at sams for Maxell XLII). I play cassettes in the car, don't want to deal with a cheap car cd player or ruining my disks

I would love to have a 4 or 8 track reel to reel to record my own music tracks, but the players I've seen are pricey, and you can get an 8 track BOSS digital setup for $500

I must agree with the posts above. One caveat: tapes are expensive and not always easy to find. BUT, recording from vinyl with care (i.e. paying attention to wires of all sorts as Detlof notes) you would need a VERY revealing system to gauge sonic differences -- esp. if you're well calibrated &, I've heard (i.e. hadn't tried), if you use dolby.

Since I don't own a reel-to-reel, I cannot attest to this, but I'd be a bit surprised if an analogue tape copy were truly sonically indistinguishable from the vinyl original. Whatever wires you used.