dave weil wrote:

Well, that's another issue. But frankly, the whole issue boils dow to
whether the "general properties" of the format are onerous. I maintain
that it isn't necessarily so.

Here's a typical professional view of analog tape recording in the modern
context:

http://www.plangentprocesses.com/

"Every analog magnetic recording starts with a motor dragging a rusty strip
of plastic over various rollers and guides, and across scraping metal
parts."

sentence separated out to make the point clear to what seems to be some
mightily unwashed people

"Any inconsistency in the speed of the tape as it traverses this obstacle
course is reflected in the timing, pitch and FM error spectrum of the
recorded material. The transport's various imperfections create an
ever-changing matrix of speed variations, slow and fast, subtle or severe.
At worst this results in the familiar warps and warbles familiarly known as
"wow" and "flutter", or (as in the famous case of Miles Davis' "Kind of
Blue") long-term tuning change over time. But even the very best recordings
are affected by a varying and shifting pattern of high frequency flutters,
constantly overlapping and heterodyning, causing spurious beat frequencies
to be introduced into the program - all of which seriously interfere with
the natural harmonic structure of the musical material. This actually
dictates to a large extent the sonic signature of a particular brand/model
of a tape or mag machine. It is a little-known fact that much of the
coloration, the "sound" of a particular recorder is a result of its
mechanical design, often more so than its electronic performance. The
familiar honky and constricted sound of 50's movies is sourced not within
the electronics, but in the fast 96hz sprocket cogging, a flutter component
which is indistinguishable from classic intermodulation distortion (IM). To
eliminate these defects would be to regain neutrality and transparency, and
to minimize the unwanted colorations that distract us from our enjoyment of
the music."

There is not one idea that is controversial in this paragraph, at least in
technically-informed circles.

And if you listen to the samples of their work, you will see one common
problem with analog tape in Technicolor, and then you'll see it elegantly
solved.