As I have said earlier, 38 is jus fine...for the price and is very reliable.
On the other hand 48's never did catch up since their balancing was not so good.I don't know that for a fact, but I heard it several times...
Your ears should be the only judge!
Good luck!

I found the Tascam 38 to be a very reliable machine. Wasn't it was a workhorse in the A/V post sector before MDMs arrived? The one I used was in a music college- it got a lot of abuse but always worked, ands sounded good with Bel NR. It had a useful colour to the sound. It was also a good machine to teach/ learn alignment on.

I also used a well maintained Brenell "mini 8" which was a lovely sounding machine without NR.

I've also heard that Revox 8 track (the last one they made) with dbx, and that sounded nice too, maybe a tad less "sweet" than the Brenell.

All these machines ran Ampex 456 (the Revox still does).

No point in getting snobby about it. If you can't afford an Otari, it doesn't matter.

And if you cant afford STUDER, that's O.K. too!
Last Revox was all metal, had all sync options and remote as standard and was one hell of machine...as far as I know it was limited edition and I tried to buy one two days after release....it was already gone!
...

I had an Otari 50/50, it was awesome. Unfortunately I sold it to buy a sampler, as i thought my guitaring days were over due to an injury. I'd picked it up for 500 pounds sterling ($750?). I hope I see one again, I want it back. The sound of tape saturated organs I got using it was amazing.

gravenhurst wrote: tape saturated organs

You should see a doctor about that.

Love hurts.

hello, And what about the TEAC/TASCAM 80-8?

Regards

You can get real pro machines these days for little money. A friend of mine just bought an Ampex 1" 8-track for 550$.He knows how to repair it and made sure that it was in good condition. Keep in mind that you don't want to pay for repairs and spare parts. If you don't have much experience with tape machines and if you just want to use it in addition to your computer, I'd advise you to buy something that's simple and cheap.
The Tascam TSR 8 is a reliable, extremely userfriendly 1/2" 8-track recorder. It's cheaper than the Otari MX 5050 and Tascam still provides replacement parts for it - at least in 2003.
It's a two head deck, -10 dB unbalanced I/O and a bit better built than the 38. I've bought one a couple of years ago and still use it occasionally because it sounds ok and is portable.
It's really a shame how cheap they've become.