Guys - listened to some opera the other eve on the proms on BBC radio 3 and was absolutely blown away by the sound quality. It even had my 3 year old sitting quietly for a while. I was so impressed that I felt the need to write to the beeb to complement them.

my next idle thought was 'how could I tape that'. 2 issues spring to mind (i) length of the concerts and 2 sound quaity. My aged walkman pro hasn't really sounded great for ages and 45 mins is too short. Still have a 1gb minidisk which is OK but no great shakes re sound quality. There's something very appealing about a big reel to reel (in a 70s shag pile carpet sense), but size, cost, running cost, ongoing servicing/tinkering etc are a worry.

Anyone know if there are PC solutions which would stand a chance of capturing even some of the magic? preferbly not megabucks. I guess playback would the be the issue - tuner and ;@ are good (Nat01, LP12), CD is less so (old rega planet).

any thoughts?
cheers Phil

See thread below on Yamaha CDR HD1500 for some recorder suggestions (not just Yamaha).

Reel-to-reel is expensive and a labour of love today and struggles with recording time/quality issues compared to hard disc systems. Having said that, ultimate quality is supreme.

6reat, thanksfor the rapid replies, £200 level seems justifiable. cheers
Phil

I've been using DAT machines for over ten years for recording R3 concerts. For the last eight years or so it's been a Tascam DA20 MKII which replaced a Sony machine that had a failed transport system (twice). The Tascam has been pretty solid. I can't distinguish the recordings (16bit 48KHz)from the originals and you can get over 3 hours of music on a 90m data tape at normal speed (you can also run at half speed which gives 12bit 33KHz resolution for over 6 hours). The DDS data tapes are much cheaper than the so-called audio versions and work just as well (if not better due to more robust mechanisms). I listen to R3 and the tapes I make a lot more than my CD player as the concerts generally sound better, even when they're not live relays.