I don't have mine hooked up at present but I think it's fine for older pop stuff. The better the source recording the less I want to hear it on cassette. |
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I never liked cassettes even when they were popular. Jeez I'm glad those things finally died off. To me, the only thing they were good for back then was for making tapes for my car. Before cd's arrived, in my house, I only played vinyl and reel to reel.
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Enjoying Exit...Stage Left while writing this morning on a Nakamichi BX300. Sounds killer. Replaced all the rubber on this fine deck and it sings. Paid a mere $200 for it in mint condition.
Have a Nak Dragon currently being serviced at Willy Hermann's. Along with vinyl, this is analog heaven and cassettes were quite good provided the playback gear is up to extracting the full frequency response on the tape. Nakamichi's 3 head decks certainly do so, plus their output sections are higher current and have larger power supplies than many other competing designs. Plus, the Dolby sections are implemented correctly.
It is really positively remarakable how far this format developed and progressed. |
I now have a H/K TD392 and an AIWA ADF-660 both 3 head cassette decks, both picked up for a song and dance and also recently inherited about 500 cassettes too, mostly recorded, not pre-recorded cassettes. Now to find some nice storage racks for them. |
French_fries the guy you talking about that fixes Teac reel to reels and high end tape decks is Sam Palermo
He works at
Skywave Tape Deck Repair- Chicago area
(630)616-0932 Office/ 708-334-2260 Cell,
Email: skywavebe@sbcglobal.net
The other guy i recommend for fixing highend tape decks and Reel to Reel players is Russ Bachman.
This guy is really good.
He fixed my Teac Z6000 Tape deck.
http://www.njfactoryservice.com/
201-967-0060
Just Google Russ Bachman tape deck, or Sam Palermo tape deck to see all the great reviews they got on fixing equipment. |
I still have my Onkyo Integra TA-2090. Works great, sounds wonderful. I have a number of radio shows I would like to transfer to digital at some point. |
I just got rid of my Nak BX125 so will have to find something else to play my 400 or so cassettes and also am too lazy to xfer them to digital...back in the day, mid 80's, it was between the Nak and an AIWA F990 with the horizontal type keyboard - think that was the AMTS unit?....super cool looking but just seemed like too much technology going on there so opted for the perceived more reliable Nak....
I think when I'm ready for another cassette I'm going to consider perhaps a later Nak like the Cassette Deck 2, an older H/K unit or else an NAD unit...
Anyone else have any suggestions on a really good cassette deck that will be reliable and won't break the bank (not more than $200, since I just sold my Nak BX125 for only $50? Thanks |
Just yesterday, on a Sony KA3ES, using Sony Metal-SR tape, Herby Man in Brazil. It sounded real good.
If you're going to get into quality decks, be sure and by two identical decks. Parts are no longer available. I bought spare rubber for mine, that's what goes bad. Revox decks have the least amount of rubber. Good luck. |
Speaking of tapes, I often think about when I first got into house music (not techno, techno is one of about five genres of dance or electronic music and it seems that people that can't differentiate, classify it all as techno), there was a lot of good music only on tapes that are probably all mostly lost forever. What a shame, if I knew then what I know now, I would have bought 3 or 4 copies of everything I came across. I do have a Phillips cassette deck that's sitting in my Moms room. Hmmm, I wonder if I could find any of that early house music on e-bay or something. |
My first official high end piece of gear was a bought new nakamichi 480 deck. I still own it and use it rarely. It doesn't sit in my rack but it's in the music room. I also have a Sony pro walkman cassette player. I'm not converting any of my tapes. |
If anyone can find an AIWA with AMTS it will be your lucky day. The Anti-Modulation Tape Stabiliser really locks the tape in place. I have the AD-R707 & would recommend any other 2 head model as well. The Dolby C kicks in the MPX filter so noise is quite minimal. |
About 11 or 12 years ago I bought a Nakamichi DR-10 from J&R in New York. That model listed, as I recall, for $900. and was being closed out at $299. It's a 3-head deck with quite a few bells and whistles and makes quite good recordings. i bought it to record a weekly Saturday evening jazz program (Milestones) produced by Miles Willis for KPFT (Houston).Each program was recorded on two 90-minutes cassettes. I accumulated several years of the programs until Mr. Willis left Houston for D.C. The DR-10 still works great, and I still listen the tapes on an ocassional basis. |
Of course, my Nakamichi Dragon is going strong. Still state of the art, and many of the 2,000 cassettes I have do sound good. Analogue never dies. |
i am Just too lazy to transfer the music from all my cassettes onto digital medium, and i can operate a cassette deck in my sleep, so yes, i still have a cassette deck hooked up to my preamp along with a reel to reel- Tascam 122mk3 and a Teac X-2000M Reel to reel deck. a guy in chicago still fixes the teac reel to reels and restores them to where they work like brand new, so while i used to complain about the expense, $350 is not a big deal in retrospect.
the tapes sound muted but i have some really terrific content collected over a LOT of years. i just have to shut off ALL of the dolby noise reduction to restore the higher frequencies.
BTW, does anyone know WHERE i can get a cassette deck repaired, no hassles, by an expert? one or two good references would be appreciated.
i have a Harman Kardon 490 that needs help, and it's too nice to "dispose of".
thanks! |
My Toyota Avalon has a cassette player and I use it often. I was listening to "1983 top 105.5 songs" I recorded off 105.5 KNAC this morning on the way in to work.
Alway brings back good memories of times gone by.
-John |
I weeded out my old bootleg cassettes. Only kept a few thousand. |
Yes I do, I have a lot of music on cassette that is the only copy I have. I don't spend a lot of time with it but its nice to know that I can still ply certain things if I want to and the sound is pretty good too a lot better than I remembered thinking it was back in the day. Cassette is making a real comeback there are a lot of new releases done only on limited runs of cassette and many old cassettes have quite a value on the used market as well. |
I've stopped wasting my time. Have more things to be done at my early 40's. |
I have a similar Yamaha cassette deck in my system. I use it on occasion to play cassettes I recorded years ago on various decks I have owned over the years, or to transfer that music to CD and/or music server using a Denon CD recorder, but I do not use it often. Background noise levels have always been the main weakness of cassette sound. Other than that, many cassette source tracks that end up on my music server in rotation with all the rest sound good enough to listen to, but I can usually tell the source when I listen usually due to hiss noise levels.
I do like that I can hear the distinct "flavor" of the sound of the various vintage gear I used to record those tapes over the years when I listen to these tapes on my current rig, which is neat. Most have a distinctive sound, like many vintage recordings recorded on vintage gear does, but as a whole these recordings are very enjoyable, though perhaps more inherently flawed technically. |
Mine is in storage but i have to say that the tapes i made on my Luxman using DBX back in the mid 80's rivaled anything on CD. Yes they sounded awesome and when I go looking for a reel to reel it must have a dbx noise reduction option. |
Yes indeed, mostly dubbing tapes to cd or directly into my computer made long ago on a Technics cassette deck and then Sony 707 ES deck. Playing them back now on the best of the bunch, a Nakamichi DR-8 unit. Always using good tapes yielded good results many years later. No, not cd level buy enjoyable still. After all it is still about the music. For myself music from "back in the day", when music was the most fun coming from the best groups ever. Of course every one feels the same about their music.
I loved recording music from my LP's to cassette but especially reel to reel. Great music, great gear, at least the best I could afford, most fun ever. Connects you to the music and the equipment. Which is why a love this hobby all the more. Have fun. |
OMG the $15 you saved you can eat a couple more days. I bet thats a relief. |
