Top 10 vintage cassette decks

Aiwa F990. Most underrated deck ever made. I’ve heard nothing better.

I've owned various decks, but aside from an Akai and an Aiwa (sp?) the others were Nakamichi.

Of the Nak's (250/350/550/600/700ZXE) the 700ZXE was by far the best (think the 250 was payback only as I used it in my car).

This said, I also made extremely good recordings with VHS (3-head) and Sony Betamax decks.

I assume that parts for the Nakamichi's would be more readily available.

DeKay

I’ve owned a great many of these (including DATs and Elcasettes(!). I currently have (and strongly recommend) the Revox B710MKII (not MKI), the Tascam 122MKII (not a MkI or MKIII) and the Studer A810. You cannot go wrong with these IF they are properly maintained. Importantly, most parts are available for these. Parts availability means problems for many SONY units and the Technics RS1500 decks. The Nakamichis are great, BUT they use a different EQ curve than all the others so forget about swapping tapes between friends. If you are buying used, you should expect some sort of repair bill no matter what the previous owner tells you - unless they can show proof of recent service. For R2R, I’m obviously partial to the Studer A810, but you should also consider a PR99 MKII or MKIV. A “sleeper” would be the Fostex E2 – if the heads are in good shape. I can suggest a few good recorder techs if interested.

100% on any Nachamichi. When they and cassettes were at their height, they blew everything away. I sold most of the major brands back in the 80-90's and Nachamichi's always sounded best. But it is really important to have any deck checked or purchased from a reliable source as these are mechanical machines and many things can wear out, or at the least need a good cleaning, demag and oiling.

I still have a shoe box full of cassettes but I haven't had a machine to play them on in at least a decade.. In any event, way back when I went through a number of cassette player brands including Nak, and ended up enjoying my Denon the most.