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Advice for buying long term Reel to Reel

I agree with the others.....your budget is a bit low for a working deck. You may want to expand your budget, otherwise be prepared for some sort of maintenance/repairs required for additional costs of spare parts and labor if you don't do the work yourself. I would look at parts availability as the main criteria here.......decks aren't much good if you can't get them. Sony decks are ok, but are over complicated as most are single motor models. Best to stay away from single motor models for reasons others have stated, such as failing or failed idler drives. Viking/Telex used to make a decent two motor transport which was part belt driven, part direct drive. They are easy to work on and parts availability is better than one would think. Plus they were built like tanks. I had a couple of these in the past, as well as a couple of Sonys and a couple of Nakamichi made KLH decks. Stay far away from the KLH decks if you want something that actually works and is reliable. They are cool looking and rare, but as a usable deck.......ah, no. The best deck I've seen as far as reliability and spare parts availability is the Teac A4010 series. These are three motor models, with only two belts in them (capstan drive and tape counter) and are built like tanks. They do have a couple of quirks, but they are easily addressed. Parts availability is the best I've ever encountered on a vintage deck, and they have an elegant look to them as well. Be aware that some of the other "A" series Teac decks are idler drive and parts availability is nowhere near as good as the 4010 series. You should be able to find a decent 4010 near your price range.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
Pass. 1 motor transport, aging idlers to rebuild, pinch rollers to rebuild, and the weak pot metal cams. Wow/flutter not quite up to what you want. And not suited to be biased for modern tapes if you record. Hold out for a better machine with 3 motors/3 heads, and direct drive (capstan belt OK) Make sure those motors are also AC motors. Teac A series classics still good options and doable for around or slightly over your budget.
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While I agree with Kent that I'd take a pass on this deck I just wanted to point out that this is actually a three motor belt driven deck with a fully automatic mechanism, it's not one of the lower end single motor decks with idlers to drive the reel tables. This transport doesn't suffer from the crumbling pot metal control cams either, probably because it doesn't have to shift the torque load that the single mother transports do.

M-10 is an older machine (1969) and will require a lot of work as the electronics don't age well (I've got two of them plus a number of other Akai decks using the same transport mechanism). Also as mentioned above it has an internal amplifier and speakers which aren't necessary if you only need a deck. I like them but I've been working on them for years, I wouldn't recommend one to a new user unless it has been fully overhauled.

So personally I'd pass on that one (and probably most older Akai decks in general) but maybe keep your eyes out for a TEAC A series deck. If you can skip the auto reverse feature I'd recommend an A-2300SX, but if auto-reverse is a must then as I mentioned before maybe try for an A-4300SX.
 
I have owned or used many consumer grade RTR brands. The reason I have kept the ones I have, is quality of the heads, ease of repair, availability of parts and stability of unit after alignment (how long it will hold alignment). The Akais, Sonys and TEAC/Tascam are the ones I've kept. I'm sure there are others that are of similar quality. The Akai units with the glass/crystal ferrite heads hold up very well.

I agree with the post just above... stay away from the auto-reverse decks - too much to go wrong and get aligned properly.
 
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Pioneer 707 has a pretty good reputation. We sold a ton of them. But sound quality wise. I would choose Revox. My first choice would be a B-77, they just hold up physically better than the A-77. That said the MK IV A-77 with dolby noise reduction is special. Because I was using 2 track 7 1/2 and 15 its for so many years . My prof Ampexs and Revox B-77 were all 2 trk record with 2 trk 1/4 trk play back . The one few exceptions over the years we're my 300-4 multi channel Ampex and AG350-2 . If I were going to be using tape again and I wanted low maintenance and price weren't an issue. I'd go back to professional Ampex, either tube or SS. They are both obsolete, but they will run run and run for ever once restored. Just keep them clean and lubed periodically. MY B-77 is almost 40 years old, but I could have it running with in an hour if necessary. The Ampex AG 500-2 would take a couple of hours as I would need to replace 3 belts. The Ampex F-4460 would take some major work, Belts brake pads and tubes, etc. But once running was a fantastic old tube deck from the early 60's. If I won the lottery, I'd be looking for a Studier 80 model or an Ampex ATR 102 or 104. Just because I got to play with one a few minutes, I would also want a MR-70-4 I/2 inch 30/15 ips.
 
audiojones said:
While I agree with Kent that I'd take a pass on this deck I just wanted to point out that this is actually a three motor belt driven deck with a fully automatic mechanism, it's not one of the lower end single motor decks with idlers to drive the reel tables. This transport doesn't suffer from the crumbling pot metal control cams either, probably because it doesn't have to shift the torque load that the single mother transports do.

M-10 is an older machine (1969) and will require a lot of work as the electronics don't age well (I've got two of them plus a number of other Akai decks using the same transport mechanism). Also as mentioned above it has an internal amplifier and speakers which aren't necessary if you only need a deck. I like them but I've been working on them for years, I wouldn't recommend one to a new user unless it has been fully overhauled.

So personally I'd pass on that one (and probably most older Akai decks in general) but maybe keep your eyes out for a TEAC A series deck. If you can skip the auto reverse feature I'd recommend an A-2300SX, but if auto-reverse is a must then as I mentioned before maybe try for an A-4300SX.
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And even though better than the single motor mechanisms, the electronics on the M 10 is going to require major work. Transistors and electrolytic capacitors especially. And make sure the heads are good, these machines heads aren't available. This Akai sounded good in good order. But they usually need good amounts of work to get there. Thanks for pointing out my error on this being a single motor machine. And not having the pot metal issue. But this is still a pass. For mainly electronics related issues.
 
If non-working, it will be a project for sure. I would not part with $100 unless you don't mind a gamble and are prepared to dedicated a considerable amount of time to troubleshooting. I gave the parts list a quick look and there are at least ten 2SC458 transistors in that deck. If there are record/play problems, those transistors are a likeluy culprit as they are one of the most failure prone transistors you can encounter. In an earlier post I mentioned finding 14 of them in a GX-4000 that would not record on one channel. Researching that problem brought to light that it is common practice to replace any and all of those whenever encountered in what ever make/model of anything they are in. That same transistor proved faulty in an Akai CR-83D 8 track recorder I have.

I actually had a look inside a 280D SS belonging to an acquaintance. It is part of the quad system bought in the 1970's which he still has. It sat unused for a good number years and he wished to get it working again. He knew I had an interest in such things and asked me to take a look. He equated interest with skill but I emphasized that was not the case. A technician I am not - not even close. I took that GX-280D SS home first and freed up the mechanism which was my main objective. It seemed to play OK but I did not try recording with it. At that time I had no knowledge of the so called "bad Akai transistor"

You did realize that a GX-280D SS is quadraphonic, right? Twice the amount of everything a two channel deck has? Stereo iterations of that deck are crowded enough but quadraphonic - doubly so.
 
These are very nice performing decks when they are working properly but if you’ve never worked on an open reel tape deck this is not the one you want to learn on. Also the SS version is a four channel model, though it will still work fine in two channel mode it’s just more stuff to work around. Even though it’s a four channel deck it doesn’t have head synchronization so you can’t really use it like a true multitrack deck to lay down multiple tracks properly.
 
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