I'm down to about ONE per month now, always 1/2 inch.
I recently transferred 24/48 files to half inch per clients request for a hard rock project, Foo Fighters type sound. On an ATR Service Co. (M. Spitz) restored ATR-102 with Ampex heads, GP9, 30 ips +6/185, needles pushing 0 to +1 I was pleased with the results. Going over +1 or aligning to +9/185 didn't help the project IMO.
I've been encouraging my lower end clients who work at home to buy used 1/4" machines and begin experimenting with 'em. For a few hundred bucks I've seen Revox, Tascam, Otari's on ebay in very good condition. I think this would be a much better investment for a modest studio than some crappy "TUBE" mic pre with one 12AX7 sucking 50 volts out of a wall wart.
To date, no one has taken my advice, sigh!