Cassette Deck??

I've found yamaha decks from the late 80's and early 90's to be top performers and were a great value even back when new. You should be able to pick up one for a pittance these days.

You will pay a premium for other big names from that era, like Nakamichi and Tandberg, but they may be worth it.

Aiwa used to make some of the best looking and sounding decks as well in the late seventies, but there may not be many of these around anymore in good working order. Mine gave up the goat a good while back.

I think the three main sonic limitations of the cassette source format are often noise levels together with high frequency response and sometimes dynamic range.

That aside, I still have many cassette tapes still I recorded on various decks in my various system variations over the years. Despite the age of some (30 years old in some cases) when I play these on my current system, by far the best I have owned I would say, they still sound pretty good. I even have some tracks on my music server I digitized from these cassette sources. When these come up in random play mode among others, they sound quite listenable, but I do not think I have any trouble identifying that these were sourced from cassette tape, mainly due to noise levels and frequency response. For other tracks that are more pure digital source or even vinyl, it is hard, although surface noise from vinyl when present is a dead giveaway.

ORph,

Thanks for the info.

Vinyl surface noise doesn't really bother me too much. I am used to it. Plus most of my records are in pretty good shape and vinyl is a low % of my listening these days. It is even nicer though when not present at all.