Over 20 years ago, all the mixing I was doing was off analog 2-inch, 24-track tape and onto 1/4-inch stereo tape. I'd started with recording to DAT (digital audio tape) stereo decks for mixdowns, but I was concerned that their built-in digital converters were not of the highest quality (I was correct), and I was sure that any tape-based digital recording device was a bad mechanical idea (it was). I was a bit of an anachronism for that time, as DAW recording was becoming prevalent and taking over the studio world, but I held out for longer than most and kept tracking artists on tape and mixing analog.
These days, the idea of setting up a studio to only record on analog tape sounds like a pretty rough economic decision. No one is building new 2-inch tape decks, though Mara Machines and a few others can help you out if you want one, and there are a couple of tape manufacturers still around. But if we're thinking about the purely analog recording process, what is it about tape that we are really missing now? I'd suggest the main thing I liked was the (usually) transparent limiting that tape does. When I've done mixes off my console through tape and also direct into Pro Tools, I can actually see the difference. Peaks are comparatively pulled into the mix, the average vs. peak volume goes up, and the mix generally sounds more "done." But other mysterious things happen via tape, like how the channels are under- or overbiased, how the record EQ high frequencies are set, and certainly the sound shifts when the tape gets hit harder – it can even get to the point of extreme compression, with an audible release time sucking all the good out of your tape tracking or mix.
So, driven by these same thoughts, Spencer Walters set out to design an audio processor that sounds like tape, or at least what he likes about tape! He built the T805 as mono, all-analog channels with the "discrete transistor circuitry of a Swiss tape machine" feeding a magnetic energy transfer device he designed with his Full Spectrum Magnetization™ research called the Tape Element™. He claims it mimics the bias of a tape deck, plus the magnetic compression of high frequencies, and even the head bump of a tape machine. "What's head bump?" you might ask. We don't have the room to fully discuss it, but it's an effect that causes irregularities in the reproduction of low end off a tape playback head.