Ease of use. Excellent sound . Ease of Maintenance. Good correct capstan belt and pinch rollers and clean the reel motor commutators if you get tape lag on play back with poor tape tension, and slow winds its easy to do. No need for Dbx nowadays with the RMG or ATR new tapes. You can get a wireless remote for it on Ebay. If your heads are in good shape clean and not wore down it produces exactly what you feed into it. Keep line in recording sources to around 0 on the volume meters. No need to use EQ or bias on the newer tapes.keep them buttons in the out position.

Pinch roller maintenance a must. Cleaning the heads every 10-20 hours a must. Lubrication a must of the capstan and rollers Assembly. Cleaning the commutators on the reel motors when years of usage and tape drops from heads. All dual capstan units use backtension on the reel motors to keep tape against the heads. Cleaning the commutators in the reel motors will resolve this if it happens. Be sure to use marker and place a line all down one side of the motors before taking apart to clean otherwise if you get magnet portion backwards it will spin in wrong direction. I learned it the hard way.

I am a new owner of a TEAC X 10-R reel to reel tape deck, however I have had access to one for over 25 years.My father has owned his for that long, so I kind of grew up with it if you will.The Teac X-10R was my first experience with a reel to reel tape-deck, however it is not my only one. When I took Studio Recording Technology in College, I had the privilege of learning on a Studer A827 24 track 2 inch 30.ips machine and an Otari 2 track 1/2 inch 15 ips machine(might have been the MX-5050). Both were superb of course. The X-10R may have its short coming but hen what doesn't. Personally, I think its a damn good deck. When cared for and used properly it is capable of truly stellar recordings,(even without any form of in-line noise reduction), no it isn't a Studer A827 or Otari MX5050, we know that, but for a bi-directional 6 head 7 1/2 ips 1/4"x10.5" machine, it is very good. It sickens me to see that some audiophiles look down upon it.If anyone is dissatisfied with theirs sound wise, clean the heads, demagnetize and then have the heads aligned. If your heads are severely worn, do not compare a warn machine to a newer one. That is just plane ludicrous. Bollocks! as the English say.Audiophiles need to quit being so jaded and stuck up, and give credit where it is due.

Yes i had the Teac X10R with DBX 2 compression, what a beautiful machines, sadly don't have it any more, did not know you could get spare parts for it, now after a turntable again, digital is great, as long as sampling is high enough but looking towards analogue in some areas.

It is a total annacryonism to talk about this format. The dreaded,inconvient reel to reel. Only Pros' like these pain to thread,expensive to get tapes,space hogs. With Mini-disc,cd-wr,and DAT,DTRS,why bother? Well call me old fashioned. There still nothing like a machine that will give all that nice sound on 90 minutes a side (that is with the 10 1/2" nab size reels and 3600' of tape.)that will give you all that warmth and headroom up high. When incorporated with the "dbx-2" noise reduction system,this machine pushes 90db plus signal to noise. Not bad for '70s technology. I have recorded a number of direct to disc pressings on to it with great satisfaction. The Sheffield labs great female vocalist Amanda Mcbroom,just sounds great. Throw in some Gershwin,some other cool stuff,wow! 180 minutes sheer joy. The only caveat with the X-10,and true with most Teac reel to reels,is the softish bottom end. 40hz lowest usable response here. Other than that,no complaints. The dual capstan,3 motor transport do a great job keeping the wow and flutter down to .03% wrms,and the easy use controls make recording a joy. You can't find any mic inputs on any cassette these days. And forget about minidisc on that one too. I use this deck on mulitmedia projects too. It never lets me down. That Teac bullet proof reliability. Hard to kill this one. Keep fresh rubber,and clean power in its diet and go..go...go. I have owned many reel to reels,this is one of my favorites. Alot of cool used machines out there. Try one,they are cheap now. I got mine used and real cheap. $50.00 to buy and $35.00 for pinch roller and capstan belt direct from Teac. This deck was a great deal. Most decks around will sell for about $200.00 on up. So,if you are willing to put up with all that threading,tape hunting,(hey,most record stores don't even know what reel to reel is anymore.)get into one of the funnest and still coolest formats invented. Remember the reel to reel came 1st. It started all this revolution in sound and later,convience. Pros still use them. Happy taping.

My how a few days can change things. The X-10R has improved in some areas and about the same in others. I hadn’t purchased the new pinch rollers yet but intend to. I want to get the last bit of excess wow and flutter out of its’ system. The new capstan belt made a huge difference here. The sound is now closer to the X-10 I have. The auto reverse function seems to look for a difference in the color of the leader,or tail. On some of my tapes, the X-10r will reverse without the aid of sensing foil tape. On others like my Maxell “UD”, it justs runs to the end. I will hopefully get a clarification once I get the backordered owners manual from Teac. The more I use these decks,the more I appreciate there functionality over style here. The mode changes are without event,the “real time pause” (moves the pinch station closer to the capstan for a nearly lag free start) is a joy,makes me wonder why more decks didn’t have this feature. So for a long time to come,it looks like my quest for a good sounding long play/record deck is over. My other choice was an Akai 747. However,everybody wants that one,and it seems to command quite a premium most of the time. So I am more than content with the X-10R.. A very good choice for those long recording chores that won’t afford you the luxury of swapping and flipping reels.. You get all the warm sound of analog,and the convience of the bi-directional play/record feature. Another winner from Teac, and a welcome addition to my studio.

want yo know more and see some pictures of the TEAC X-10

I want to buy this tape deck.

To all of those paying attention,yes I know that this the X-10 segment of the Teac open reels,however,with the addition of 3 more heads and auto reverse record and playback. The X-10R adds more versitility to an otherwise great workhorse of a deck. Just recently I found that the TASCAM 32-2b appears to be one and the same with the X-10,but with the 15 ips/38cm sec record speed and is a 1/2 track . So it appears that the X-10 is a “sound” platform. Well,what do you get? You get 3 hours of uninteruped recording time without having to flip reels over for the other side. A biggy for those long events where you just don’t have time for reel flipping. Usually if time was a concern,then I would use 2 decks. My X-10 and 3300s TEAC would be called into duty. But with the X-10R I really don’t need to do that. A big savings in gear lugging. I possibly would still have the X-10 as backup. Just good practice to use a spare just in case of the that unexpected problem. I just finished refurbing the X-10R to proper running order. The capstan belt was stretched,the reel tables out of alignment,but for the most part,everything was as I expected from a deck that is almost 20 years old. The heads had some wear,but the wear is even. The sound is similar to my X-10 but I think the X-10 has bit more high frequency extention. I have to compare the 2 more closely to be sure. When connected to my dbx-2 noise reduction system,the X-10R makes a fine recording. All recording I do is always at the decks highest speed. This case,7 1/2 ips/19cm sec. the X-10Rs’ wow and flutter are very low. I like to use long sustained notes of a piano for my test and I use David Benoits’ albums allot because they have good recording quality and because a piano is one of the most demanding instruments to record I think. Grp does a good job with Davids’ tunes. I will record more over the weekend to further get more on the sound of the X-10R. Up to this point,the transport controls operate quickly and treat the tape quite gently. The dual capstan design with dual tension arms and inertia idlers insure that the tape never gets stretched. I like how this deck handles my tapes better than my Technics RS-1500us. The controls are well maked and easy to read. The backlit,large “VU” meters are a snap to see. While I won’t confuse the fit and finish with the finest gear out there,the X-10Rs’ controls and fit and finish strongly demonstrate that functionality was its main goal. I will give an update when the X-10Rs’ “shakedown” is done. V.C.
The numbers: frequency response : 40hz-20khz overall at -10db,signal to noise ratio @3%
THD is 63 weighted. Wow and flutter at 7 1/2 ips/19cm sec is 0.03% (NAB weighted). Channel separation is 50db at 1khz. More specs on the next report. V.C.