I have both a vintage Akai reel to reel player and I also have a 1980s vintage JVC cassette tape deck. The discussion about whether tape is better than vinyl, or even MP3's misses the point of tape. There is still a niche for tape in this world. For me it is live recordings you can't get on vinyl or CD or anywhere else for that matter, except the internet. I have made tapes (reels and cassettes) from digital sources of live concerts and such. Sure, they are not hifi but they sound fine. Why would I do this? To me, the internet is incredibly cluttered and is just a vast pile of things to sort through. I like to find the gems, the ones I really want to keep, and put them on tape. Having a physical version of a concert makes me more likely to listen to it, and it also makes it far easier to find than finding something on the internet. Also, stuff can be deleted from the internet and simply vanish. I guess you can store all this stuff on a hard drive, but again, that too can get extremely cluttered. There is just something about having a physical copy of this really cool concert you found.
I owned numerous Nakamichi decks and used the MR1 to record a few master recordings. Technology has transcended cassettes long ago. My biggest complaint about cassette decks and especially Nakamichi is the poor reliability. I recall sending mine MR1 decks in for repair multiple times to Nakamichi and the cost was significant. All modern digital based recording devices are far superior. If you want improved sound?: Eat less cheese!!
So, I got the Panasonic AG-7350 SVHS VCR and tried to record. To begin with, I decided to use my Nak 682ZX deck as a source not Nottingham turntable. Maxell Vertex cassette in the Nak and TDK XP Super Pro SVHS tape in the Panasonic. Was listening through Grado RS-1 headphones and the Panasonic's headphone amp which is quite good. The source and the recording sound a little different, I do prefer the way Panasonic sounds compared to Nak overall. There is a little more noise, as expected, but there is a bit more solidity and precision to the sound. Something this pro machine and premium 1/2" tape do very right, in the direction of good RTR deck. By the way, I compared various SVHS tapes. That TDK was the best followed by Quantegy. They were also best mechanically. Next step will be recording off vinyl. And it is two hours of uninterrupted music. Not to mention that its video performance is excellent. I have many VHS tapes to play. I like this machine. Needs good service and alignment, I guess, but even as it is, it is quite impressive.
My cartridge sounds good, respectable even, from the moment the stylus is dropped.
At 30 minutes it sounds better. At 60 minutes better yet. At 120 minutes, sublime. A cassette recording made at 120 minutes sounds better than the cartridge when the cartridge is cold.
I have about 10 cassettes decks and 2 RtR tape recorder's. 2 Nakamichi lower numbers but they sound fantastic. I Had a big Technics 10in.RtR but traded it.I love recorder music on tape.But it depends on the quantity of the tape .Cheap cassettes sound Cheap.
Ive got a Nak Dragon and love popping in a tape now and then. Its worry free unlike like vinyl, zero prep, it still sounds wonderful. I enjoy it and that is really all that matters. I have both analog and digital in my system, and love music in all its formats for the most part.
Analog tape, whether open reel or cassette, is Old Tech in search of a need. Put your cassette tape deck next to your FM tuner, buggy whip and dial telephone.
Tape of any sort is just a storage system. Where are you getting your music from? Commercial pre-recorded tapes which are copied at high speed? Cassette tape technology is so 20th century.
On my 682ZX, recordings on a properly calibrated Metal tape sound really damn good. Better than the best vinyl? Not better or worse. Just different. Then again, my Nak is a better cassette deck in the world of cassette decks than my turntable (a Denon DP-59) is in the world of tables. Perhaps on my next turntable upgrade, this will change. But I love having both hobbies. Tape is fun.
I don't think the OP is 'dreaming' at all. Back in the '80s and '90s, I made some magnificent sounding High Bias/UDXL2 cassettes that were way more clean, punchy and dynamic than anything I would have had to put the time, expense and effort into getting off of vinyl. How many thousands did you have to spend to get rock solid bass you'd get off of a high quality tape? That went anywhere. Same for reel to reel, though you obviously couldn't take that everywhere. I just think there are a number of posters who are letting a romantic BIAS and allegiance for vinyl, possibly the most difficult format in audio, lead your thoughts.
Ahhh...yeah... a cassette, regardless of pedigree, is by definition going to be inferior to its source (check the specs). And yes, having worked in numerous studios (CHML, CKDS,CHMR and more) AND working for Retailers (almost ten years) who carried Nakamichi, TEAC and a wide variety of the rest (Technics, Luxman, B & O, Pioneer etc...) back in the 70's and eighties I had the opportunity to compare the various tape formats of "The Day". Open Reel tapes, especially, "Originals or commercial copies" are the best. Next, CD and Turntables (roughly even) and cassettes, being copies of the originals, are always my last choice (but great for portability). This is not to say cassettes sound bad... just don't compare them to what you copied, on a highly resolving stereo... it may lead to cognitive dissidence :(
Some time back I had a brand new Nakamichi DR-10 at my place. It was the first Nakamichi I had ever used. I recorded a CD to a Philips Chrome cassette. The cd player was an, Audio aero prestige capitol. To my surprise the cassette identical to the CD playback in a AB comparison. It had a hint of tape warmth, else it was the same. No loss of detail, extension or dynamics. DR-10 is an entry level Nak. It was a good revelation
Tape is still the very best medium but it is not any tape in any cassette deck, it is in higher end RTR decks. That said, and I use customized and aligned Nak 682ZX with Maxell Vertex tapes, it can and does sound real good. Biggest disappointment is a 'collapse' of a soundstage compared to the vinyl source. However, in the case of my system at least, tape sounds smoother and 'nicer'. Soon I am going to try recording off the turntable onto Panasonic pro AG line SVHS video cassette recorder. Theoretically, it should sound better than the Nak or any other cassette deck, should be close to a good RTR. The 7350 Panasonic is coming my way from Quebec. I hope it works.
I had several MCS systems. The first was a 10-watt receiver with a matching cassette deck, belt drive MCS TT, and some small book shelf speakers. The second was a 33-watt receiver with a much better cassette deck, MCS 3-way speakers, MCS direct drive turntable, Realistic 5-band EQ, MCS headphones, etc. They were great systems and they truly got me hooked on hifi. I think that MCS held its own against other brands of the time. Pretty sure I bought all my stuff on layaway as I mowed lawns to save for the next stereo!
That Teac cassette deck was $1,000 new when I bought it (got it through the military catalogue for around $600ish). Surprising that they are now $1,500 used. I'd be afraid of it breaking! But it sure sounded good back then. Auto reverse, Dolby B, C, Metal, dBX, etc. It was pretty cool for sure.
Great thread! I love using my 682ZX and CR4 machines. The dolby C with then newer chip in the CR4 is incredible. Very quiet. This is as far as tape technology got for me. I love the sound of tape and I can hear it on a good system. I like it because of that. Best source to record from is vinyl. I also recorded ALL my LPs onto HQ tape. Some still sound great today on the Nakamichi machines. The best part was grabbing a tape and just putting it in and pressing play. The record takes effort to clean and set up each time to sound good. I take care of my vinyl so it takes longer. Anyway in a perfect world I would now have a Dragon.
I still use and love my dragon. Have own since bought new in 83. I recorded a ton of live radio broadcasts that still sound really good. I also ran sound for bands and we were able to tap into the boards at concerts and record major acts with out them knowing. I always felt the cassette was way under valued in its day and even more today. It is close to an album and I don’t have to clean snd flip every time I listen!
That Teac deck looks insane! Spendy when new also! Looks like one recently sold for $1500.
I’ve had a couple MCS receivers pass through my hands, and they were very decent units, and held their own against contemporaneous gear from the likes of Pioneer or Kenwood.
I actually just gifted my brother an MCS 6601 turntable this year. Solid performer.
even on a nakamichi deck, i could tell that there was a mild haze over the music compared to the original LP, esp. if it was DD or digital master. but i have heard elcasets which my ears could not distinguish from the original. the elcaset sounded to my ears like top-grade consumer R to R.
I can see a reel to reel master tape sounding better then vinyl . Nakamichi Dragon was the best of the best , and if cassette Was of good quality it can sound very respectable . not as good as a top turntable which is $$.
It was cool to read about your MCS deck. I had several of them in the late 70s and early 80s; forget which models. They got me started in this hobby (really an old table-top tube AM radio did) and I've just gone further and further down the rabbit hole. Back in the day, with a decent deck and table, the deck was pretty close. I had the Teac R999-X and it was very very good though as at least one other posted mentioned, those machines of the time had mechanical trouble fairly regularly. I lived near the Teac facility and could take it there, but it always cost me over a hundred bucks to get it back. For me, I always bought the record, recorded for the car, and put the vinyl away. Was fun thinking about this, thanks OP for starting this thread.
If anyone on this planet thinks an optimum sound system designed around an optimum cassette deck, Nakamichi or no, can sound better than an optimum or even a modest high-end system designed around a vinyl source (i.e. decent TT) playing at concert or performance level gain, then please tell me what you’re smokin’ because I want some of that! Now, admittedly, I’ve never heard or spent quality time with a Nakamichi deck but 1 & 7/8 IPS? Really? Even when recorded from a live source, under optimum conditions, on a quality multi-head cassette machine, in Dolby B/C HX-Pro on the best metal tape, there’s no way! Of course, this is IMHO. Now, 15 IPS on a quality reel to reel machine? Well, that’s a whole other story! Again, IMHO, 3.75 IPS is better and 7.5 IPS better still but no way better than vinyl!
There's really no comparison. For example, that's why tape deck manufacturers used -20dB levels when they quoted frequency response for cassette decks. You really don't want to know what it looks like at 0 dB.
Music doesn't have high frequencies at 0dB. One of the problems was self biasing of the tape by high frequencies in the music. Higher bias lowers distortions but limits the bandwidth at high frequencies (tradeoff) . My Aiwa deck had HX-Pro that is basically a servo on the bias (keeps total bias constant). It greatly extended frequency response of the tapes. Still, it was not even close to modest TT I had, even with best tapes. CAN it sound better than vinyl? Of course. 8-track can sound better than vinyl if you get really cheap crappy TT.
I would never say cassette is better than vinyl. However, I was in a studio in Rochester NY in the 80s and they were using NAD monitor series decks to record my friend's band. The resulting demo tape was outstanding. I also got to listen to demos from other bands and they too were amazing. I heard a demo from a local jazz band, Cabo Frio, which blew me away. I went out the next day and bought the NAD. I still have it, no longer use it for much other than old Dead bootlegs and a few other boots I cannot find in digital format. I never heard an MP3 that sounds as good as a tape made from the NAD or a couple NAK Dragons my friends still own.
I had a Nak head unit in my 87 Mustang GT. The system in that car was better than many had in their homes. The installer told me the Nak would not skip on bumps at high speeds. Trying to prove him wrong I popped in some Little Feat and I took him for a test drive at 100mph over some RR tracks. He wasn't lying. Never skipped a beat.
The problem with cassette tape is that it stretches over time and may not take-up properly on the right reel. Nakamichi eventually fixed this problem by designing a better tape pad lifter on some of their models. But if you own many old cassettes and don't have a deck with this design, you could be SOL.
So nobody here has a DCC? Digital Compact Cassette. Less bits than on a CD but all the mechanical problems that plague analog cassettes gone! Plus there are very good commercial tapes made from digital sources! I have the Sony DCC deck and some tapes for it from Philips classical. Sound quality leaves analog cassettes in the dust!
I have had the CR7 for many years and I can say that there were no differences between record and cassette with distracted listening, but paying attention and dedicating more time to listening and comparing, 9 times out of 10 you have identified the difference between vinyl and cassette a favor of vinyl; a slight haze or fog on the musical message and a slightly more compressed soundstage in the 3 directions to the detriment of the recorder.
I have had several top decks in my life, from the Pioneer CTF1250 to the Teac Z series but for me the best deck or among the best decks is and remains the CR 7 or if you want to rank the king of kings both for sound and for mechanics and ease of repair is the Studer A721 or Revox B 215 / 215S
My NAK BX300 sounded astonishingly good with clean and adjusted heads...it's now been mothballed and could use a tweak/cleanup and belts I imagine...also, no space in my gear heap rack...CD player, streaming devices, preamp, amp, power conditioner, laundry conditioner, a tiny nuclear power plant, maps of Cuba...
I recently purchased and enjoy the music from a Nakamichi Cr3a deck. Highly recommend Pam, the Nakamichi salesman from California. He has a technician who specializes in refurbishing Nakamichi cassette decks. I’m totally impressed with its ability to play music. But better than vinyl?
vanson122 posts 09-28-2021 12:07am Does anyone remember when you could record music on your VHS recorders?
Yes, the originals of many cassette bootleg recordings were stored by being dubbed to VHS tape. Given the long term degradation of many cassettes over time, that was a good policy to have.
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