One drive I have is the Pioneer RT-909. It's a good, general purpose reel-to-reel and it has remained very popular. It isn't sold new anymore, but they go like hotcakes on eBay. They sold new for about a grand, and they've really held their value. A used one that is well-maintained is worth as much as it sold for new; Broken ones still sell for $300 and $400 on eBay. They are easy to maintain and Pioneer still has many parts in inventory, but some parts are out of stock and aren't produced anymore. Still, it is a good and popular reel-to-reel and it sounds very good.

Cassette has always been important to me too. In the 70's and 80's, cassette was the popular media for portable and car sound. If you wanted hi-fi in the car, you had to own very good quality cassette decks. Not only did your car deck need to be good, but you had to have a good recorder at home, because most store-bought tapes weren't very good. Treble response was usually terrible, and the general quality of the recording was poor.

What I found was that the best cassette recorders had a record bias adjustment, and this is still true today. The tape head must be aligned and clean, and obviously the deck must be of good quality. But even if all these things were fine, the absense of a bias adjustment limited your ability to make quality recordings on various tapes.

A modern cassette tape deck I've found that has this feature is the Sony KA1 (TA-KA1 ESA). If you have need for recording high quality cassettes, I recommend this deck. It only costs a few hundred dollars, and makes high-quality recordings on all types of tapes.