Chime in.What's the Best Cassette Recorder ever ?


I just recently purchased a used Teac V-900X from a local
used Hi Fi shop and was amazed at the specs of the machine,But more amazed at the sound coming from this unit. I had my CD of Ray Sings Basie Swings and dubbed it onto my Teac cassette recorder with DBX fully engaged on the machine and levels kept at 0 DB or -4 on peaks with my Maxell New XLS Type 2 tape. All I could say was WOW, WOW.
The tape copy had lower noise then the CD and more dynamic punch. I used my old Mit 330 Cable as a dubbing cable from my Toshiba DVD SD 2705 to the Teac. I know thats not much of a front end for playback, But I do not have hardly any Cd's in my collection just tapes and reel to reel live recordings along with a huge collection of live Dat recordings as well .
I did some research on the net and came upon the specs of the Nakamichi 1000ZKL. The freq. response is better then the Teac, But the Teac is no slouch either.
The owners manual on the Teac V-900x state Freq. response 30 to 21k + or - 3 DB. Signal to noise 92 DB(dbx in at 1K,
dynamic range 110 DB DBX IN, 1KHZ PEAK LEVEL. I opened the lid to the machine and I noticed it only has one belt in it not the typical 8 or 9 belts seen in others. The machine has 3 motors 1 DC FG SERVO DD capstan motor,1 DC REEL MOTOR,1 mechanism control motor.Now all I need to do is snap up as many virgin Sealed Metal Tapes I can get my hands on and then have some real fun. I will be recording live on the Teac V 900x next week with a small symphonic community group and will report my findings to all of you on how it holds up to a live recording which I am sure will be a challenge to keep the meters at 0DB.
In the past I have heard the Nakamichi machines most all of them along with the Revox decks as well and I cannot recall the noise levels down as much as this machine can do along with the dynamic range as well.
Waiting for your comments
Don
128x12876doublebass
In order:
Pioneer CT-93
Nakamichi Dragon
Nakamichi RX-505
Nakamichi DR-1
Nakamichi BX-300
Pioneer CT-1250

The only real mitigation involves NR systems, azimuth correction and ability to print MOL cleanly, which is tape dependent. There are any number of descendents, design cousins and other close relatives from adjacent production years, that could be included, but I don't currently own any of them. I DO own these because they've earned their place in my real estate through much testing, restoration and real world listening.
Everything else is just conversation. And not much else competes.
I have owned a number of Naks. LX-5 is very good, ZX-7 (two) were both better, DR-1 better yet, and CR-7 (two) best. The CR-7 belt drive was notably better than the CR-7 all-gear drive. I still have one of the Zx-7's and both CR-7's.

Raul is absolutely right when he suggests taking one of the great Nak decks and replacing the most important passive components. That makes a larger difference than one might expect.