[greglepore]

I had an RT707 rtr. Cool piece with great sound.
To answer the original question, Nakamichi was pretty much the pinnacle. Dragon was the absolute top. Any of the 3 head Akai's were excellent, had one of those. Three head decks have separate record and playback heads so that you can hear the actual recording as its made and adjust bias etc. Otherwise you're just listening to pass thru signal.

They're mechanical devices and unless its recently been cleaned and serviced, you'll likely need to budget for that.