23:00
Miranda
Apologies for the late discovery & response, however here is my expertise: Reel-to-reels were most common in households in the 1950s through 1970s. there were a considerable amount of hold-outs but the niche that they held as the high-fidelity option was being usurped by CDs in the 1980s. of course, many people still preferred reel-to-reel over CD because they could record their own tapes whereas an effective home CD burner wouldn't be accessible for another decade or so.
For hobbyist audio recording there were other options by the 1980s such as cassette and microcassette for general purpose audio recording and dictation respectively, the portable reel-to-reel units were especially popular with traditionally silent super 8 shooters because one could more easily time the reels of the tape with the reels of the projector for an edited production than keeping track of two different measurements with a tape counter. Of course all that was also being usurped by home video in the 1980s.
But all is not lost, of course. As, hi, i still play tapes on my reel-to-reels, as do many other folks. I also use all that other stuff. Lol.