Hey Tape Boy
Im not going to say that spring reverb sucks, cause i love it and use it. The cheesier the better i think. I like the ones that are just one fat spring so that its almost like a delay-ish sound as it "boings".
But anyways, if you like analog "echo" sounds you should save your money slowly even if it takes you a year and buy a Roland Space Echo (its a tape echo). You can save yourself a few bucks by getting the one without the reverb built in. A 101 or 150. It can make sounds that are pretty similar to a spring reverb if you set it to fast repeats and many repeats. It also sounds a little cleaner than a spring. Springs can get muddy quickly, which is unfortunate because i like the way spring sounds its just sometimes hard to set it to sound "right" when other instruments are mixed in. A Roland Space Echo will give you reverb-like sounds as well as echos, slap-back sounds, doubling, saturated tape sounds, oscillations and a ton of other tricks. Its all up to your creativity really.
You can flip the tape and record the echos on backwards then flip it back and the echo will precede the actual sound. You can also slow the recorder speed way down, then record really fast and numerous echos then speed the tape back to normal and get strange ring modulated/vocoder style sounds. And probably the most useful of all is to run a signal into it at high volumes then run it out of the echo only output (no dry) and also set it for instant single repeat. This way all youre getting is the what the tape is playing back, so essentially the harder you drive the tape the warmer your signal will be. It gets anywhere from clean to fuzzy but its just nice to be able to "analog"-up a signal if its too sterile and boring. Seriously man, there are a million creative uses even though there are just a few knobs. I highly recommend any fans of analog "echo" sounds to get one of these even if you have to start putting change in a jar slowly over time. Ive owned 3 and each one had its own presonality and sound even though they were all the same model. Each one self oscillates differently, sounds differently. I know this is off topic, but i thought id just mention it because you said you liked analog effects.