I'm going to expand this thread a little bit, beyond just where to get tape decks and add where to find accessories as well. I saw some fantastically blinged out reel to reels at Axpona this year; and while that's not my sort of thing, it's nice to see that enough attention is still being paid to reel to reel to make modern aftermarket parts; I just wish said parts weren't so expensive.
For starters, these two decks seem to be the popular ones. The Technics RS1500/1520/1700 series, and to a lessor extent the Otari MX-5050. I personally picked up the Otari MX-5050 as they are a workhorse that was often used in radio stations (good balance of price, size, and reliability for radio work) and with some patients some great deals can be found. The Technics seems to be more of the Pro-sumer/audiophile choice, and honestly it's quite a good looking machine, but also more expensive. These are the decks that The Tape Project recommends and uses, and their working with Bottlehead for upgrades/mods.
http://bottlehead.com/reel-to-reel/J-Corder is the Technics guru and where I believe all the blinged out Technics I saw at Axpona come from.
http://shop.j-corder.com/main.scDarklab is a German shop who's accessories seem to make their way over here.
http://www.darklab-magnetics.de/darklab_webshop/index.htmNAB-Shop makes some NAB hub adapters for those with Pro or Prosumer grade decks that can take 10.5" reels. They also have some custom machined reels.
http://www.nab-shop.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=1&vmcchk=1&option...For super bling - Reeltronics makes some fantastic looking precision reels. Their page was up a week or two ago, so it seems they are rebuilding it right now, but here is an article on them.
http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/reeltronix_e.htmlSo, why besides bling would you want precision aluminum NAB hubs and reels? The hubs is more for convenience; the big extrusions allow you to rock the tape back and forth to cue up a specific spot on the tape like big pro-decks do. Not really necessary IMHO. However, having precision reels helps to reduce or remove that shush-shush-shush-shush sound of tape slide into a not-so-straight reel which can be distracting during quiet passages. While I don't think the uber-expensive ReelTronix are necessary, I highly recommend tracking down some "precision NAB takeup reels". I know Steve has at least one I saw at Decware, it's got a heavy precision milled hub that the whole reel is built around. I picked up a similar one that I believe may have been used on an old-skool computer that used big tapes.
I'll add more to this as I have time and I find more stuff, and if we plan on keeping this tape hobby alive, it helps to know what all those resources are.