WHat did Audiophiles hear during Tape deck era?

There seems to be a lot of pre-conceived notions a goin’ on here. Or wishful thinking perhaps, or even mass hypnosis. Yes, I know what you’re going to say, “but my system sounds fabulous!” When cassettes were peaking circa mid 90s they were just beginning to aggressively compress the life out of CDs and LPs. So sad that was the end of the cassette era. 😢 The industry wins again! Score: industry 2, audiophiles 0

Never bought a pre-recorded tape in my life. I made tapes with TDK SA  cassettes and my Nakamichi Dragon.  They sounded damned good. 

There were a number of manufacturers that made some really nice Halo decks that are coveted today by those who still enjoy the format. Nakamichi comes to mind of course. They pushed the envelope with their amazing tape heads, transports and electronics. I have 12 of their various decks including a 1000ZXL restored by Willy Hermann a couple years ago. I have many of the other Nakamichi models but the 1000ZXL computing deck is the pinnacle for me. I also have decks by Aiwa, Akai/A&D, Alpine/Luxman, B&O, BIC, Denon, Eumig, Harman Kardon, Hitachi, JVC/Victor, Kenwood, Kyocera, NAD, Pioneer/Phase Linear, Realistic/Hitachi, Revox, Sony, Tandberg, Teac, Technics, Vector Research and Yamaha. I have collected many tape decks and learned to perform repairs and restoration on them using the tools of the trade.

Used an outboard DBX noise reduction device with my 3 head Onkyo TA-2060.  It was pretty good but still way inferior to records.

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