Played Dire Straits debut album last night - from a Maxell XL 2s cassette recorded from the vinyl over 30 years ago. Best sound I've heard on my system in months. I have the SACD, but doesn't have the organic sound from the tape/vinyl. Dig out your old cassettes!
I have to agree on the paucity of liner note information given with the typical cassette, usually a single sided piece of very thin card with just a photo of the album cover was very common. Of course there are exceptions and I do possess some that have big fold out notes although the print is very small for sure. Definitely not one of the cassettes high points... lol
Although I have purchased over 50 big multi-box classical CD sets, the individual CD or small sets and most of my Jazz sets have an abundance of recording and historical information concerning the music and artists, more than the typical LP had. Yes, the print is small but I'm nearsighted and can easily read the fine print. Some of the rock and pop CDs have difficult color on color print which is difficult to read but usually have less information anyway. Cassettes, not so much. They rarely had much information if any accompanying them. Long live the LP and CD.
I listen to LPs at home for a number of reasons. Do I care that my LPs are not "digitized" and portable? Nah.... That's what Napster was for back in the day and what ripping CDs is for today.... Sound quality and the material in the LP jacket are two things digital can never equal..... Same goes for tape... Taping from LP playback is an analog recording of an analog recording at a very high level.... How can that possibly sound like "crap"? With this "quarantine" I am finding that making a tape of the "top tracks" I play for the day to be quite satisfying. They are great for playback while hanging with the family as every track is great and the sound is so damn good.... My young girls still cannot believe the tech and how good it sounds. If I get my hands on more blank tapes they will likely be making their own to play when they can finally have friends over.... :-) This "new" Nak has made all the difference.
I bought my first cassette deck for a car in 1965 I believe. ( maybe 66). A Phillips as I recall. Paid over $200 back then. All my friends had 8 track and the music stores had thousands of 8 track tapes and half a dozen cassettes. I guess I was an early adopter. Over the years I collected vinyl and cassettes. Then switched primarily to CD and SACD. About three years ago I hooked up a cassette player to my system. After listening to cassettes for an afternoon I threw them all away. Too much compression in my opinion . Now I primarily listen to vinyl with a healthy dose of Tidal streaming to audition new music. Don’t miss my old cassettes.
It looks like the American Recorder Tape Head Cleaner is the place to start. The Rubber Renue sounds like heavy duty stuff.
I have a lot of cassettes that I recorded back before cds from vinyl for use in the car. It was also back before I had a good turntable, so I’ll see how they sound today.
Hopefully someone has a good answer for you. I am still using a tape head and roller cleaning solution I bought probably 15 years ago...lol. I bought 3 bottles and still only on the second. Unfortunately it does not list content or ingredients on the label. It is made by Vinyl Styl. Good luck and have fun with that deck.
@uberwaltz...I prefer the 46 minutes tapes also. I have probably more of them than anything else. However, I have noticed that the newer albums tend to be longer.
Back in the day, most albums fit on a 46 minute tape no problem. I just recorded a couple that cut off the last song (or two). Even some 90 minutes tapes are too short for some of the newer stuff, (one full album per side).
IMHO, you did great on the price of those. Some were metal, so really not too bad. I had just bought that huge lot of tapes and really didn’t need anymore. That’s why I gave up.
Yes it was the 46 minute tapes and yes I likely paid a little too much but I made my final bid and hoped it was enough and it was. I would have preferred less but still pretty fair price for the level of tape and each one should hold an album and then be similar in layout to a pre recorded tape, rather than the more common 90 minute tape with an album either side.
usual hifi and nostalgia virus. When had enough we dump the old media and recall when not satisfied from what we have (listen)!!! Cassettes are compromised by width and speed, easily evident when compared to R2R and VHS, but is a very economic media, elegant to use in portable and different from norm. My experience in cassettes comes from 3 respectable machines i had in the past, Nak-bx300, Akai gx-f91, Sony tc-k990es, i have kept all the tapes and enjoy them greatly on my walkman, even though i regret selling my k990es. When i want to record a B77mk2 and a MDS-ja333es are better options.
@mofimadness I won an auction for 21 Fuji tapes and they were just delivered. Mix of FR Metal, FR-11 & FX-11. All pristine. Will see how they perform recording wise compared to my normal TDK SA tapes.
On my high end system, I get very good sound from my live recordings on a Tandberg 310. It's the pre-recorded tapes that sound mediocre at best (10 great out of 500). So, if one desires to use their cassette deck instead of an Alesis Masterlink (CD) or Sugarcube (thumb drive to HD type digital storage) for recording off LPs, fine. But I will stick to the ease of use and high sound quality of my digital recording devices over cassettes.
I picked up a cheap Akai Cassette deck from fleabay just because it is same vintage look as my Sanyo receiver in second system. Gave it a good blast inside with Deoxit and played a tape. Not too bad. Cleaned the heads and demagnetized them while I was at it. But biggest surprise is recording on it and then playing that back. I threw in a cheap but brand new TDK D tape and recorded a Brand X album off Qobuz.
I hate to say it as too many Debbie Downers around still but the recorded playback from this el cheapo deck is quite astounding. Rivalled the original source at least in sq.
Used an old jvc tape,deck for years in my stereo, and records. once cd hit the market, cassettes were boxed. Still boxed in basement, Mercyful fate, Kreator, schenker, Hirax, onslaught, motorhead, Raven, tank, spartan warrior, crossfire, bathory, pestilence, trust, satan jokers, Celtic frost, and about 40 others.
Most were played on my Panasonic rx-c45 little boom box. Miss being young! I’m sure we all do!
and no cassettes do not rock. LP’s and cds’ are better.
Tomic Some people are vastly over pricing the Dragons. Sure it was top knotch but in reality not truly much above a zx7 or zx9 which are likely the best bet in top end Nakamichi ownership for value vs performance. Still, nothing worthwhile will be a $100 CL buy... lol
I owned 2 Nakamichi decks, the Dragon and a 505. I used metal tape for 90% of my recordings and chrome for the rest. Back then it was amazing. Not even on the same planet with today’s source components.
We were NOT a Nak dealer but had Revox and Tandberg and it was always a tough sale against a Dragon.... the Tandberg , when it worked sounded great. Obviously both the Revox and Tand RtR are amazing machines.
i have a nice CR-2A in my garage system sounds nice on tapes I made for my Concord ( remember them ? / Alphasonic / Madisound system I had in my IROC
I posted a wanted ad a week ago on Craigslist for Nakamichi decks. Like I had stated above, I was a Nak dealer for many years and owned quite a few, but over the years and with various life situations, I had to sell most of them.
My Nak rep, (he sold other gear too), retired a few years ago and I picked up a very clean LX3 from him for $100. He had others, but I didn’t have the money at the time.
Over the past few days, I bought a (9/10, but not working) LX5 that took me a couple of hours to work on and it runs like a champ now for $50 and just purchased a (8/10) 680ZX that had a complete Willy Hermann service, (he had the receipt) back in 2009, for $300, that runs like new.
Must say, Nak fever hit me hard, but I think I’m cured, (for the time being anyway).
(I don’t mean to make light of the COVID19 circumstance...Sorry!)
I recently restored a Nakamichi BX-2 (built in Japan) and cannot believe how good it sounds. It replaced a Kenwood double well deck that sounded mediocre in comparison.... Tapes from long ago still sound as good as they did back in the day. LP tracks I am recording to sealed Maxell XL-II tapes sound very very close to the LP itself. I find used prerecorded tapes at stores for $0.50 to $1.50 depending on how popular the release was. Is great way to find things that are unavailable or very very expensive on LP. No joke. They sound fricken awesome on a good deck like a Nak...
@wyoboy, your welcome. Who knew this thread would also blow up into a Nakamichi deck love fest. Although I now have a lowly BX-2, the fact that the tapes were recorded on a 500 seems to ensure high quality playback.
I have a mint NACHAMICHI RX-505, the sound is organic with huge sound stage with laser like focus, lol!, I compared this deck to some cheap mass produced digital player’s, to say the least this NACHAMICHI out performed them to the extent that I was smitten leaving a smile on my face for days, I suppose I will send the unit in to Willie Hermann for evaluation since I have never had to service the deck after the carnivorous viruses is sub sided, cheers
Good to hear from Willy here. I play serviced by him 682zx almost every day. Thought about sending the deck to him this fall but put it on hold. I do it every three-five years. Maxell Metal Vertex tape gives absolutely best performance. If you never tried this tape with a calibrated higher end Nak, you don't know how a nak can sound. Don't waist your effort and money on 660 and 670 series let alone below. 680 series, ZX-7, ZX-9, 700ZX, 1000ZX. 682ZX and ZX-7 are best value.
@mcondo --you inspired me to dig out some cassettes i hadn't heard since the 70s just to see how they sounded. I don't remember what deck i recorded them on, but i was amazed how good the playback was on the Nakamichi for the first two albums i ever recorded--a mix of Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley--luckily (more than knowingly) recorded on high quality TDK tape. Sure, the noise was there between tracks (I rarely used Dolby B or C) but once the music was on it was not noticeable. Of course not a lot of musical instruments on these reggae albums but i never had replaced them after the flood and it was great to listen to them again for something different--Thanks for this thread
I'm glad you made the comments as i was bummed when i read the post saying he had retired--and thrilled that he hasn't, although he told me he's got a 10 month backlog so if your 660zx needs work you better get in line now!
I was a Nakamichi dealer from the middle 70's until they imploded and can attest to Willy's statement(s).
IMHO, nothing was made or sounded as good as a properly working Nak! There were a few that came close (some Tandberg, Revox, Akai, Tascam/Teac), but a Nak is a Nak...
A few days ago I recommended Willy to another member that was looking for a part for his Nakamichi deck. Willy went through all four of my decks, and my RX-505 (the only one left) still works like new. When we lived in the Bay Area, it was comforting to know that I could drop my Nakamichi player with Willy and he would work his magic on it, and I could just drop by and pick it up from him. It was a bonus to know that he was a gentleman, and someone you could trust with your expensive toys.
I don’t play cassettes anymore but my brother does. He has a very inexpensive system in his garage with an old Panasonic cassette player I believe. Maybe 100 old cassettes. Does it sound good? Hell no, it sounds like total crap! But he absolutely loves it. But then again he is not an audiophile. To each his own right?
It would be interesting and great fun to hear a nice Nakamichi deck on a good system again.
I was thrilled to get an email from Willy this morning--i looked for the comment from someone else about him being "gone" but i couldn't find it--not sure if it was on this thread or a different one--anyway, Kevin, thanks for letting me know that was erroneous. Willy serviced my Nakamichi deck about 10 years ago and it's still working beautifully.
Good to see you here Willy. Wyoboy was the member who thought you had retired. I corrected him on that and I guess he emailed to verify.
This is Kevin in Florida with the zx7 you just restored and extremely happy with the job you did for me. Nice to see you bringing a technical perspective to the questions. 👍👍
I just had a client contact me to let me know that y'all think I'm "GONE". I can assure you I'm still very much here and repairing Nakamichi cassette decks. With my current backlog I hardly have time to follow these forums but have read a bit of this thread. My two cents for sound quality: If you haven't heard a Nakamichi cassette deck properly calibrated you haven't really experienced what the cassette format is capable of. Having been a servicer and retailer when all these decks were new I can assure you that all the claims by non-Nakamichi dealers that the deck they were trying to sell you was a "Nakamichi killer" are false. Back then the Nakamichi franchise was highly sought after and difficult to get. If you didn't have it you had to do anything you could to sell the products you could. Recently I rebuilt a Dragon for a client who also owned an Akai R-R deck. After listening to his Dragon he's selling the Akai because the Nakamichi out performed it so dramatically. I'm not saying that the cassette format is superior to R-R. If you have a really good quality R-R (Revox, Tandberg or the like) the benefits of higher tape speed and greater track width show through. Mid line Japanese consumer R-R decks just generally don't sound very good.
thanks for the tips on what to look for--back then i was just trying to replace mostly rock/folk albums and most of the CDs were awful (not all). Interestingly the flood did not touch my classical music LPs--made me wonder if there was a message there.
The Everest/Vanguard Ultra Analog classical issues of the 1994 that were 20 bit masterings sound slightly better than the 2008 24 bit remasterings. Both are superb and faithful to the original silver/black LPs.
I'm sorry to hear you lost your LP collection. I have 100s of excellent/superb jazz CDs mastered in the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. About two dozen were done in Japan. Many are Contemporary/Fantasy label. Many are VSOP mastered by Bones Howe and the stereo CD versions were pressed on really bad vinyl in the early 60s. Actually, most VSOPs sound better on CD than on the VSOP LPs, why I don't know. Even classical 1980s CDs can sound better mastered (or just copied LP mastering) than the remasters in the past 10 years (the RCA opera series mono reissues a few years ago were TERRIBLE with boosted mids, chopped off highs, minimal bass and compressed sound). This is not generally the case but it was then. I have found 1980s Decca operas to sound inferior to the LPs. So, depending on the genre and mastering, CDs can sound really bad or terrific from it's early manufacturing period.
Agree about RR--my RR LP transfers are not only still good but far better than any of my recorded cassettes--unfortunately i had more cassettes than RR tapes but the cassettes i recorded that are still acceptable are preferable to me than taking a chance on buying the CD--i initially began to replace all of my destroyed vinyl with CD--this was early-mid-90s and i don't think they had yet made many good quality CDs yet--i stopped buying them when i became discouraged with the sound--so yes, you've been smart/lucky--but once i discovered streaming a couple years ago i can do that first and then play the cassette and see which i like better. And much of the time the stream is better, esp with MQA--Besides, with Willy Hermann gone my decks will probably crater soon and forever in this dry AZ air...
Yes, I agree as to making one’s own live recordings on premium quality cassettes can render superb sound. I recorded probably 300 LPs onto cassettes prior to 1995 and they sound very good, not as good as my RR LP transfers. But as to nearly all of my 550 per-recorded cassettes-it’s bleak sound on a high end audio system. I am addressing @geofkaitt.
I feel sorry for those of you who can't enjoy great CD derived music sound. DACs and players have greatly improved since their inception.
Hmm. Maybe I missed something here?
I don’t remember saying I don’t enjoy superb digital replay, just the opposite in fact.
However I also vastly enjoy superb analog replay INCLUDING Cassette replay. Now yes the numbers for consistency on Cassette are lower than vinyl or cd but that’s just on pre recorded tapes.
Some of my home recorded efforts sound quite a bit better than a fair percent of the pre recorded tapes. And some nearly on par with vinyl. I don’t think anybody is claiming Cassette is superior media in any way, just that it’s not all bleak as some would have you believe.
But hey everyone has a different perspective and that’s just hunky dory.
I have a high end system. This means that my digital system is constructed along the same quality line as my analog. It isn't SOTA. I have heard this system as SOTA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb_LBRSefvE I brought two LPs and two CDs to hear on it. It was a mesmerizing sonic experience of music. In no way did the CDs sound inferior, compressed or limited compared to the LPs. I can understand how awful digital sounded for decades with CD players until 2005 when I bought my EAR Acute, now superceded by 100% with my COS Engineering DAC D2. The LPs I used were Urania - Breaking the Sound Barrier and EMI Bartok Concerto for Orchestra/Kubelik The CDs I used were Mercury Down To Earth/Lewis and V.S.O.P. in a Jazz Orbit/Holman. I didn't bring my Yello Touch CD which I love but will next show because it will really indicate what systems are up to the task of playing it well.
Maybe I'm just a smart and lucky CD collector but probably 50% of my 7,000 CDs sound great. With LPs, I've gone through multiple pressings of the same title often and would say about 15% of my LPs are great sounding. What I noticed is that 1970s-1990s rock/modern pop CDs sound in general worse than their LP counterparts.
Among my 550 pre-recorded cassettes, only a dozen sound great. That's a bad comparison to CDs. Many of my 78s sound more dynamic and alive. I blame compression, inferior tape, hiss and with Dolby B, poor quality highs for the reason my pre-recorded cassettes sound mediocre (and I'm not alone-again, all my audio friends do not play cassettes for sonic reasons). My 2 track 7.5 ips RRs, now that's where I have consistently great sound.
I feel sorry for those of you who can't enjoy great CD derived music sound. DACs and players have greatly improved since their inception.
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