Audio Systems: Old reel to reel tape recorder, reel tape recorder, line level input

Question
Hello Wayne.  I have a very old reel to reel recorder and a few old tapes that I want to copy to CD.  The recorder has no output sockets at all.  I could take a feed from the internal speaker terminals but is it safe to connect this directly to the input terminals of my CD recorder?  I vaguely remember stuff from college about matching impedances etc but that was long ago.  I could put a potentiometer in series to reduce risk of overload.  Any advice would be very welcome.  Thank you.

Answer
While I wouldn't really recommend it, you certainly could try that. A speaker level output going into a line level input can cause some overloading issues.

Does the R2R have a headphone output? You could possibly use that if there is one, as that isn't as "hot" of a signal.

Just be very careful of your levels going into the recorder. Distortions may be unavoidable, however.