Coincidentally, if you go to the 3M section of historyofrecording.com, the first picture of an M23 is my picture of the little two track M23 I put together. I still have that wheeled console, you can see it above in this thread, having been adapted to hold my mixer and effects. That was a rack mount transport, not a console version, and the guy who bought it had his own rack for it. Being able to ship it in pieces did make it somewhat cheaper and easier to send cross country.
At this point, MCI is probably the best compromise of sound, tape handling and availability of parts and service among what's left of pro tape recorders. John Stephens died several years ago, though Brian Roth can still work on them and there is a guy named Keane in Calgary who is big into them still. John only made about 400 machines total, so machines and parts are very rare.
I don't know how many 3Ms were made, but the machines and parts are very rare outside of a very small handful of folks, mainly in California. Also, the Isoloop, while maintaining great tape to head contact, is a bit hard on the tape.
The only reason to consider Studer is the tape handling and control features, not sound, IMO.
Edit: Ampex is another more common option, but MCI copied the early electronics and has better transports. The other Ampex option would be the later ATR series which have great sound but are more complex than I care to deal with.
MCI can't quite compete on audio band scrape flutter, or generally on good, extended low end with 3M machines or Stephens, but you have Chris Mara in Nashville fixing up nice MCI machines and even holding classes on analog recording, and parts and service are to be had. Plus the MCI machines are easier on the tape than 3M. So if I wanted a big pro machine with a big fat class A audio sound now, I'd probably go MCI.
Otto
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