Reel to Reel for play back

With RtR I always thought the best advice if your serious is to find a good tech that rebuilds pro decks. Ampex and studer. For about 2k you can get a machine that is perfect and will last a long time with some PM.

On the other hand you can buy the crap du jour on ebay and take your chances.

IME, your best bet is an Otari MX-5050 BII2. Plenty of them available for well under $1,000. This model will have 2-track record/play and SHOULD have 4-track playback. It plays small and large tapes at 3 3/4, 7 1/2 and 15 inches per second. It is a professional deck used by the thousands in radio stations and studios. It is rugged and sounds better than consumer decks. A brand new one (Model BIII) is available at something like $5,500 but will not play 4-track tapes unless specially equipped with a 4-track head. Otari makes an outstanding machine. I had a well-respected Teac X1000R and it couldn't hold a sonic candle to my Otari.

HOWEVER.

Many or most of these decks have been played to death, and look it. Replacement heads are not cheap. Repairs are not inexpensive. Finding a great one is not easy. But they're out there. Good luck, Dave

Note: Otari called many of their models the MX-5050. The nomenclature is confusing, but the one I cite is the most commonly available and your best bet. Again, though, you must be sure it has a 4-track playback head. Most of them do, but not all.

playback only must mean you already can get tapes? the nice thing about a r-to-r is IF you can get some good vinyl to record, the results are very good even with a teac. or you can have some fun with microphones and a guitar et.al. teacs are not the best machines, but parts are still available (or you can buy 2 and use the second one for parts). or you need to find a 1st class repair/refurbish facility and fine-tune an otari or a studer/revox.

Otari MX-5050 BII2 is the way to go. The only thing it lacks is a reverse play feature, which is a must for 4 track use. I second the idea of an extra deck, after you have one that is completely overhauled and reconditioned including having the heads 'relapped'. Yes, some parts for the Otari are avaialble but very expensive. If you will only be playing commerically available pre-recorded tapes, a Teac x700 should be considered.

I thought I would miss the bidirectional play of my Teac, but I really don't. It's more than offset by the superior sound quality of the Otari.