I've still got my 40 pound Teac. But it really is great to be able to record things without worrying about running out of tape; and these CD things play in my car. It's also great to be able to capture live digital streams. I know some true believers think analog is better, but this guy who sits in the tenth-row-center (okay eighth row next time; for Anna!) at the Metropolitan Opera knows what unamplified music sounds like. And IMHO, NOTHING from 15 years ago comes so close to live as what one can do these days with a relatively cheap recording setup.
ML/NJ
We actually some Beatles Reel-To-Reals, they sounded so good compared to even LPs or Cassettes back then. We had the one that would automatically reverse the tape after 10 seconds of silence, so there was no need to flip over the tape and respool.