I'm listening to the B-C release of the Schumann symphonies, led by Masur, as I write. I have roughly 25 B-C tapes, mostly acquired directly from B-C quite a few years ago, augmented by a few other sources over the years. In fact, most of my prerecorded tapes were purchased from B-C, starting when they were a distributor for others. The quality of the B-C releases is, by and large, simply higher than most of the other tapes I own, and none have been afflicted with sticky shed syndrome.
So The Tape Project has kicked off new interest in RTR tapes, but it is not for everyone (well, for that matter, neither is RTR). The tapes are high end, meaning expensive, and require for most the acquisition of a new deck. Furthermore, while I have no insight, I can't imagine the release schedule is going to support more than a few a year, and probably not of things like opera.
Does anyone think there would be interest in high quality 4 track 7.5 ips prerecorded tapes (with NAB equalization), which just about every owner of RTR decks can play? If so, would noise reduction be required? To me, the latter is problematic. My first deck, a Tandberg, had an on board Dolby circuit, but those are pretty rare, and I wasn't able to replace it when it died. I have owned two off board Dolby units, and have not gotten either to work. I would prefer to pay more for closer to real time replication, if that would help the noise issue, as that is a more universal solution, and I believe Dolby and other noise reduction products may be adding distortions to the sound as well.
OK, I am not taking anything away from The Tape Project....in fact, increased availability of other software is going to help The Tape Project. But I am just curious to hear from others.