My post from earlier:
Howard, up early, or late?
Let's see... dragging up my memories of selling audio gear in the 60s and 70s...
7.5 ips is enough for very good reproduction of an LP. If you were making live recordings I'd suggest 15 ips. IIRC, 1800' rolls are good for an album per side. Aim at at least 30 minutes for an album. I think 1800' rolls are 45 minutes at 7.5 ips. That fits well on a 7" reel but the 10" reels just look so cool!
All tape has noise so a properly set up Dolby can reduce the noise. All master recordings from back then used a professional Dolby for noise reduction. If you can get a nice, four circuit Dolby that can be properly calibrated use it. The Dolby process is a record and playback function, you probably know that. The calibration adjustments are absolutely necessary for a linear response. Not to mention your RTR should be biased for the tape being used.
I am not familiar with tape formulations available today. I used a lot of top of the line Scotch and Maxell UD (in gold box) tape on my RTR machines. (there is the picture of the Maxell man in my listening room)
The Akai have good response at high frequencies because of the Crossfield heads, like Tandberg. I owned one Sony then two Teacs; liked the Sony loved the Teacs. I also used and sold Revox, Tandberg and Crown. I prefer the Revox over the Tandberg which had odd problems but get a Crown if you can find one.
You can find a lot of information for this on tapeheads.net, AudioKarma.org and if you want to dive off the deep end go to whatsbestforum.com.
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