Frankly, given the size and the mechanical complexity of a reel-to-reel deck, I don’t think that’ll ever happen. Plus, no-one is going to build a facility to produce pre-recorded reels, and who in his sane mind is going to use a reel-to-reel recorder to record radio programmes? BTW, I used my deck to make copies of my LPs (play them once and then never take them out their sleeves again
) and to record live broadcasts, I never saw a pre-recorded reel in a record shop.
Attitudes like that have always been with us. With any luck music will become more amature and less of a cash cow.
No, I don't want to put you out of work. I did spell check the word [it looked odd to me], but clearly must mend my ways. In any case, music existed before recording and "the music industry", most of the music was performed by amateurs in the home. Recordings substituted home music making. I suspect there will be more homemade music in the future, in part because so many people are creating music at home, including recordings intended for the general market. Very little of that music will become a life-long paycheck, and recording is becoming a very small part of a musician's income. But that's not because of music pirates, music pirates have always been part of the mix and always will be. That's because music on physical formats was a bubble, and that bubble went away.
Art in general is not a reliable way to earn a living. Modern copyright has made things a lot better for composers, but many performing musicians still struggle to make ends meet, one gig at a time.
I believe there are, today, more musicians wishing to make a living from their art than the music-buying public is willing to support. The cake simply isn't large enough to feed everybody.
Not even tempted. For better or worse (and now that I’m getting long in the tooth, I start thinking l missed out on owning a “reely” valuable antique) I sold my B77 24 years ago when l bought a Sony Minidisc deck. Got rid of that one too, but I still hold on to my LPs.
