Nagra
Ask any analogue enthusiast which company made the best tape machines, and it's a dead cert that Swiss concern Nagra will top the list.
Its pro-audio recorders were made as beautifully as the nation's exquisite timepieces, with many parts machined from solid blocks of aluminium.
Nagra's legendary attention to detail was important; these were expensive workhorses, designed to deliver consistently-high standards of performance with no reliability issues.
This Nagra E is a mono single-speed full-track machine, originally intended for location film and TV work. Although of limited use to hi-fi enthusiasts (for a start, it's not stereo!), a collector would consider the £385 asking price to be fair.
Nagra allegedly translates to 'it records', in the Polish tongue of founder Stefan Kudelski, but according to Google Translate it means 'On the game'.
Whatever, Nagra