I don’t care what’s on paper, the TSR-8 is not “lower fidelity” than the Akai machine. Same track width. Tascam is double the transport speed. Plus onboard dbx. I’m getting really confused because you are all over the place with what you are looking at.
I think you need to step back and answer one question: what is your goal? What are you needing or wanting to accomplish? And then work forward with what equipment or gear addresses that goal.
I’d your goal is just to have fun and experience different gear then just buy something and have some fun. But trying to decide what tape machine based on YouTube videos is, IMHO, silly. Figure out what you are trying to accomplish and then clearly state it here. We can advise from there but you are all over the place.
BTW I appreciate and am enjoying the posts and comments…lots of good perspective and opinions. Maybe mine can be considered among them.
I´m all over the place because since I´m newbie to tape, and since I got some advices and feedback from you, my potential uses change. I mean.
1- I started the thread asking about the 488 for "tape sound" or "analog mix" tittle, because I found near me a cheap 488 unit.
You told me about the cassette limitations, and also it used the same head for recording and reproducing.
2- Thank I found a guy selling 4000 Akai series, better quality, reel to reel 7ips and 3 heads. I didn´t notice that the reproducing head should have a delay that should must be corrected on each recording. Since I tend to use Aw4416 instead DAW, go editing track positions all the time is not the best idea. So at this point I go considering the Akai for live "tracking". One solution should be use sync, so that I should record "in time" on the tape, and then could record on the Aw4416 with no time adjust, but that means only 1 mono channel for recording, and the other one for smpte.
3- That sent me to the Tascam Tsr-8, could sync with a reel to reel 15 ips. The problem, is money, is not that cheap. One guy is selling one in very good conditions at 1200 , revised and with two tape included. Does it worth the money? I don´t know.
4- What´s my goal? Well, as posted on the first post, regarding preamps, I like to have hardware ones, I have a 1272 neve clone that sounds pretty clear and big, a Great River, and a Millennia 2 channel. I found them very useful and real compared to UAD preamp emulations.
I thought about tape, as a way to add that palette of "sound color units" like the preamps, but in hardware. In case of preamps, for me there is a quite big difference between emulations and the real thing. Regarding compressors, I really don´t know because I don´t have a real La2a, or 1176 to compare, bu I suspect the hardware can me pushed more than the plugin.
Regarding tape emulations and tape machines? I don´t know, I´m trying to figure out here.
So in the end, for practical use, if go for any of the options, I should need to sync. And that means:
488, posible but lower quality
Akai, posible but only 1 mono channel left
Tascam Tsr-8, good, but more money than I expected at the begining, and not sure if will worth like preamps worth, regarding the "real thing" compared to plugins.
As with the preamps, you will not use the neve clone on all tracks, maybe on a vocal, or guitar , or overheads, or it depends you want to get this presence.
Same applies for the tape. I have discarded the 488 for quality limitations, and the Akai for the sync limitations, now just guessing if its worth the Tsr-8 investment for my studio.
Hope I could be more clear now.
Thank you very much.