In the past I've had quite a bit of fun dubbing older media onto new 10" reels....favorite 4-track tapes, vinyl etc, using 440/350 machines in the tape loop of an inexpensive preamp. Recently I've tried taping digital media, fairly easy from a CD player in previously mentioned fashion, more difficult from the PC as I own neither a decent soundcard or software to edit/manage audio files.
Transferring lossless digital files to open reel tape adds that magical analog 'something' to the final product. Studios still do it in final mixdown, creating two-track final tapes from their multitrack masters, or with fancy software plug-ins on their DAWs.
For dubbing analog media to tape, I'd get better quality transfers with some sort of mixer/fader in the line-level loop; something that would let me attenuate the source signal a bit or drop it out completely between songs. With so much equipment available from pro audio stores, I don't have a clue as to what piece of gear fits the bill.
The second option would be to outfit a PC with a good sound card and good audio editing software, and rip the analog media straight to lossless digital, and use the software to control what winds up on the tape. Again, without much experience in this field I am not sure in which direction to go to get started.
Where am I going with all this? No further than just making a few nice tape collections for my own enjoyment. The tapes I've made so far have been pretty good, even considered 'very good' when demoed to my non-audiophile buddies. I just feel there is a bit more improvement that could be had in the transfer process and I want to experiment.
Regards,
Tj Bassi