I'm looking for a solid recorder to use for radio projects.
I've heard everyone talk about the Sony TC-D5 (Ira Glass from
This American Life recomends it), but they are very expensive
on ebay.

Unfortunately they're quite expensive in general, but they sound
better than the lower-cost WM-D3C and WM-D6C "Professional Walkman"
recorders or the Superscope/Marantz portable cassette decks.


I see TCM-5000EV's for very reasonable prices. Are they similar
in quality?

?? Isn't the TCM-5000 a mono, non-Dolby recorder? I'm fairly sure
that it is. It might well be useful as a news-event and press
conference recorder for AM radio-quality sound. But it wouldn't
have the signal-to-noise ratio or the stereo capability that you
would surely want for any serious FM radio production.

You might conceivably want to look into the MiniDisc format. For
any given budget a MiniDisc recorder (correctly used) will give
you better sound than a cassette recorder, and there are no sonic
problems due to errors in bias, equalization or Dolby settings.

--best regards