Really interested to see what you think.
A former coworker of mine is a bit of a tape snob and won't use anything recently manufactured because they are, according to him, all low-quality mechanisms that are mono instead of true stereo, and again according to him, you're better off with a used/NOS tapedeck of any make, even budget stuff, than anything new.
I doubt that to be expressly true, but I assume there is something to what he said.