Why not magnetic tapes in stead of vinyl records?

Practical, flexible and easy does not
equate to best sound

To get absolutely best sound I could hire Symphony Orchestra
to play in my home, but it would be expensive and
impractical.

^^ Kijanki, tape is a lot more practical than a Symphony Orchestra in the home. I think you knew that prior to posting though...

You may not care to 'go back' to tape but its not a step backwards in the opinion of many. To them, digital was a step backwards. This being the analog section of the website and specifically about LP vs tape, the digital stuff seems better suited for another thread.

Performance is often traded off for convenience in our world. We see it all the time in cars, cameras and many other technologies. It should not be any surprise that tape is one of the best-sounding formats that can be played in the home. And while I am keenly aware of how much better the LP can be, I also know that such performance on the LP is rarely realized.

"To them, digital was a step backwards."

It was at first, but no technical reason why it must be that anymore.

I would much rather move forward to the extent needed with very high resolution and quality digital gear than go back to analog tape. Even if studios producing music did, I would not feel the needed. Good digital conveys artifacts of good analog sound quite well, even at mere CD resolution, I have found to-date.

If the potential of 331/3 lp was fully realized with many vinyl recordings, I would then have to consider a move back to analog tape or digital in that the cost and work involved to keep a phono rig capable of delivering maximum results doing that would prevent me from ever going there. Tape would be much easier in comparison.

One of the reasons most lps are as limited as they are is because few have the phono rig needed to play the best possible at all. The whole analog record format is inherently flawed from this perspective in terms of reliability, which matters to most. Most people lived with abysmal sound off records with their cheap home players for years for this reason, ie getting good sound our of even an average recording was beyond their abilities or desire.

Ralph, where one gets analog recordings? Where to store thousands of tapes in proper temperature and humidity? How often to rewind them to avoid print-through copying? Ampex recommends rewinding within 3 years of storage (and to keep track of it). Bart Simpson said "Don't have a cow, man!".

On the other hand if R2R is only supplemental source isn't better to spend money to improve the system (amplifier, speakers etc) instead?

Kijanki, I'm not having a cow- its pretty apparent you jumped in without reading the rest of this thread:

This thread is not about analog vs digital.

If you can store LPs you can store tape. FWIW though, tapes store a lot better in the attic than the basement.

You get analog recordings (as mentioned earlier on this thread) from places like the Tape Project http://www.tapeproject.com/

It has been projects like this one that has had a good number of audiophiles scouring the countryside for high end tape machines and a number of people make a business refurbishing them. There is even one manufacturer in Germany that makes a new machine (saw it at the Munich show in May).

We have had to respond to this because a number of our customers have requested that we set up switchable tape EQ in our preamps. The last one is using an Otari transport and the tape head outputs run directly into the phono/tape section of one of our MP-3s.

I've run Ampex tube machines for decades. Its pretty spectacular playing even pre-recorded (1/2 track) tapes from the 1950s.