Wayne Parham Messages: 18786 Registered: January 2001
Illuminati (33rd Degree)
Check out the tape project. It's Dan Schmalle's "baby." He is one of the early DIY tube amp manufacturer's, after the originals like Heathkit, of course. Maybe I should say he's one of the early audio kit manufacturer's of the "modern era" - post Y2K. Anyway, this is where you can buy high-quality source material.
They don't sell eight track or 16 RPM vinyl - which I realize was your question - but neither of those was desigend for quality. Eight track was designed for convenience and 16 RPM was designed to support long duration recordings, well, long for the size of the media. They wanted to get more time on less vinyl. So neither was a quality format, and probably not something an audiophile would collect.
Reel-to-reel is a high-quality format; It was the original format used for studio recording. It's "pure" - like vinyl to analog enthusiasts - potentially even more so, because you can be "closer" to the original recording. By that I mean fewer copies, closer to the original.