Cassette decks: do you own one and are you happy with it?

[MaxD]

I do and very happy. It is survived from the 70s and it still sound great. It is a Nakamichi 550 one of the first top class portable on the market.

always used to record everything with a basf chrome cassette and no dolby, back in the days and still now.

I now still play my original collectable tapes (Roir collection for example) and sometimes I still record some of my demos on it, or on my Tascam cassette recorder. It sound soooo warm and hot, better than my actual home demo studio, the iPad.

What about you?

 

[Glacialpath]

I have pioneer one. I got it brand new about 3-4 years ago and is basically the only new piece of Hi-Fi kit I have. Strange really.

I have loads of tapes from the old days and loads of riffs on tapes too. So I will use it one day to copy the riffs into my computer then dump the tapes.

I won't get rid of my Iron Maiden tapes as they are part of my collection. I get Metal Hammer mag and a few months ago it came with a cover mount tape EP. Sounded great.

 

[MajorFubar]

Proud owner of Nakamichi DR-1 here. Very happy with it, though of course it's very much under-used these days. I'm familiar with the Nak 550. Excellent portable machine. Nak didn't make many battery-mains portable machines as far as I remember. In fact the only three I can recall are the Nak 350, the playback-only Nak 250 and yours.

 

[MajorFubar]

Always felt cassettes got unfair bed press from people who had never owned a deck good enough to even nearly exploit the medium's potential. Though I've had that argument on here before and there's nothing to be gained from re-starting it.

 

[tino]

I never had enough material on cassette to warrant keeping my Technics deck, but I made sure that I kept my Panasonic cassette player that was barely bigger than the cassette itself so that one day I could copy what music I had on to a computer. And somewhere in the loft I have a computer that still loads software off cassette so it might come in useful for that too!

 

[Waxy]

I had 3 or 4 cassette decks over the years, starting with an old Akai with an orange backlight and bouncy needles! It was my first source purchase. All my gear was second hand in those days - I was only 15 so had to make do with what my Saturday job at the butcher could pull in.

I also remember a Sony deck with LED level meters and electronic buttons. No more using actual finger pressure to move the heads into position! It was prone to eating cassettes though.

The last deck I owned was an Aiwa with micro-switch controls and 3 flavours of Dolby. I got rid of it, along with all my cassettes when clearing out my late father's house. I don't regret getting shot of it at all.

The last time I used it was to create a compilation for a girl I was trying to woo. Must have done some good as we're still together 14 years later with a beautiful daughter added to the mix, so to speak.

*biggrin*

 

[matthewpiano]

I have a Technics RX-BX501 and a Yamaha KX-580. Both good decks but both tucked away out of use at present. My main use a few years back was making tapes for the car but seeing as I haven't had a car with a tape player in it for about 10 years I haven't had much use for cassettes.

 

[chebby]

I had a couple of Technics cassette decks in the 1980s then bought a Sony WM-6DC 'Pro' Walkman. Lovely little machine for recording and playback and not at all out of place in a decent hi-fi set-up.

I used that until 1996 and sold it to a friend (who wanted it for recording music at Breton and folk dancing events) and bought a Yamaha KX-580SE. Another superb machine that I used for 11 years before giving it to my brother. (Who is still using it in his system.)

For recording long radio plays (some of which were 2 1/2 hours or more in duration) and for it's timer facilities, I started using a top-notch Philips Nicam VHS and recording (audio only) from the FM tuner. Audio cassette was useless for recording such content - there would be too many breaks to turn over/change cassettes - and a good quality TDK 180 VHS tape was ideal. (Especially as unattended recordings could be easily set-up on a VHS recorder.)

I still have many of these recordings from the 1990s. After I went over to DVD I used Panasonic DVD/VHS/HDD recorders and transferred the radio plays to DVDs. Subsequently I used MPEG Streamclip software to demux/convert the audio files to AIFF and import them to my iTunes. Even after all these years, and the subsequent copying/conversion, they still sound superb as lossless iTunes files.

A few years ago I had a very interesting and very friendly e-mail exchange with the then acting head of BBC Radio Drama - around the time of the Radio 4 'Complete George Smiley' broadcasts - in the course of which I told him about some of the plays I had recordings of from that period There were at least half a dozen they no longer had any copy of themselves! (I was e-mailing him about the possibility of various dramas being put out on BBC Audio CDs.)

Nowadays I have no need of a cassette recorder. (It was only ever used to record from vinyl.) If I am away for longer than iPlayer Radio will keep a programme, then I set up my Humax to record the Freeview version. That doesn't happen often. (When away on holiday basically.)

If anything I like ever comes out on BBC Audio CD then I snap it up. (Dramas, book readings, comedies, documentaries ... you name it.)

As far as music is concerned then I buy the CD and rip it to iTunes.

 

[tomlinscote]

Yamaha kx-690 (I think) 3 head one with Dolby B C and S. It makes/made great copies. I still have a Sony tape deck in the car so use tapes all the time. One of my faves is a compilation recorded from May 1987 Friday rock show with the great Tommy Vance, it still sounds good, recorded on a Sanyo deck I still have

 

[aob9]

Yamaha KX-493

http://www.vintagecassette.com/yamaha/kx_493

Hooked up to my Denon PMA 720 and still used occasionally for fun. I back up new vinyl to Sony Metal XR cassette, again just for fun. I also have a perfect Sony WM-DC2 (avatar)which sounds fantastic.

http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-dc2

 

[nopiano]

Cassettes have given more me more fun than anything I've ever owned in the hifi world. But that was years ago when I used to regularly record Radio 3 concerts.

Many years ago I bought a Nakamichi ZX-7 from a chap I met at a hifi show. It had just been serviced and has been brilliant. Before that I had a variety of top of the range Pioneer, Hitachi and Aiwa models, followed by a harman/kardon hk1000 which was superb. I still love top loaders!

 

[super]

I have a Nakamichi CR7E and a CR3E still working and are in excellent condition. I also have a sony TC-186SD which i bought in 1976 but i don't use it anymore. Nakamichi made the best cassette decks out there.

 

[Melchior]

No, do not own cassette deck. Have Sonty portable minidisc, but have not used it much lately.

 

[wclough]

Now is a good time to pick up a quality bargain. I've always had a cassette player alongside a turntable and then later cd players. Even though I am very critical with what I hear I am also a bit tight. I started with AIWA and then a Yamaha. When this last one went faulty last year I bought a Nakamichi DR-3 on ebay. Sadly all the lights went out after a few weeks and I had to get my local hifi shop to fix it. The sound quality on these Rolls Royces of tape decks is excellent and people are now off loading them as they are no longer using them

 

[andyjm]

Now is a good time to pick up a quality bargain. I've always had a cassette player alongside a turntable and then later cd players. Even though I am very critical with what I hear I am also a bit tight. I started with AIWA and then a Yamaha. When this last one went faulty last year I bought a Nakamichi DR-3 on ebay. Sadly all the lights went out after a few weeks and I had to get my local hifi shop to fix it. The sound quality on these Rolls Royces of tape decks is excellent and people are now off loading them as they are no longer using them

Completely compromised format. Tape speed too slow, tape was too narrow which resulted in the tracks being too narrow and too close together. Originally designed by Philips for their dictation business, it should never have been used for music. Rather like the Porsche 911, cassettes were a triumph of engineering over design - it was a miracle that they ended up sounding even halfway decent. Nobody responsible for trying to make the damn things work shed a tear when they finally died.

 

[Waxy]

I remember spending ages untangling chewed-up tape from the mechanism of many a cassette player. Tedious and annoying!!

 

[MajorFubar]

cassettes were a triumph of engineering over design - it was a miracle that they ended up sounding even halfway decent. Nobody responsible for trying to make the damn things work shed a tear when they finally died.

Oh you mean like records then. Records and tapes sounded as good as they did because they were both a triumph of engineering over design, and it just shows what you could achieve in the 'old days' when manufacturers were actually forced to build things properly instead of making cheap plastic mass-produced cr@p built from parts-bin surface-mount ICs that they can then churn-out ten a penny and charge a fortune to sell.

 

[chebby]

... it just shows what you could achieve in the 'old days' when manufacturers were actually forced to build things properly instead of making cheap plastic mass-produced cr@p built from parts-bin surface-mount ICs that they can then churn-out ten a penny and charge a fortune to sell ...

I remember a childhood with over-engineered, built-like-a-battleship, British televisions that were hand-built (mostly) by a Thorn EMI factory in Gosport, Hampshire that then 'badged' them for most of the country's TV rental companies. They were enormous with acres of carpentry and they used lovely valves rather than ICs.

They were also c##p! (And prone to catching fire or exploding.)

They'd break down so regularly that TV repair men were known by first names and visited more often than some friends and relatives! This is the main reason that most people rented them, because the repair bills would otherwise be too punitive.

I dodged that bullet. My first TV was a mass-produced, plastic, Japanese, Sony Trinitron 14" Portable with only one 'valve' (the CRT itself) and - presumably - lots of cheap, surface-mounted components (including parts bin ICs) and it lasted about 25 years, without fail. It also had a great little picture and decent sound. It was eventually donated (after use by us, both daughters and mother-in-law) to an ambulance station 'bring-and-buy' sale and it was still working fine.

 

[wclough]

All true Andy but I was responding to the original question and adding that previously expensive ones can be picked quite cheaply. You may also have picked up from another thread I started that I am now experiencing problems with CDs and CD Player. It all keeps us occupied I suppose

 

[JonB1001]

Not a dedicated cassette deck, but a combo with a cd player - Tascam CD A550. Its very good. http://tascam.com/product/cd-a550/ worth taking a look at.

 

[Al ears]

I still have my Sony WDM- 6C Walkman Professional which is still going strong and occasionally gets and airing.

Very good sound quality from these when partnered with a good quality tape.

 

[MeanandGreen]

I've still got an Aiwa AD-F450 and an AD-F460 in the house though both are in the spare room not hooked up to anything along with some other old HI-FI gear like old amps and a graphic equaliser.

My Aiwa's were WHF award winners back in the day. The best budget decks available at the time.

Back then I used to hire CD's from my local library and copy them. That was before CD-R. I also made tapes for the car, I have fond memories of adjusting bias dials and record levels and experimenting with TDK/Maxxel/Sony/BASF also various Dolby settings and Fe/Cro2/Metal.

Ah, good times! Of course my music is all digital now, some magic is missing today I think.

 

[MajorFubar]

My first TV was a mass-produced, plastic, Japanese, Sony Trinitron 14" Portable with only one 'valve' (the CRT itself) and - presumably - lots of cheap, surface-mounted components (including parts bin ICs) and it lasted about 25 years, without fail. It also had a great little picture and decent sound. It was eventually donated (after use by us, both daughters and mother-in-law) to an ambulance station 'bring-and-buy' sale and it was still working fine.

Your TV was probably built during a time when we had the best of both worlds. It wasn't and isn't the type of throwaway cheaply made deliberately-irreparable rubbish I'm referring to. Your mention of TVs though couldn’t be more fitting. I highly doubt that TVs bought today will be going strong in 25 years, and in fact they are designed not to be, either through the deliberately-finite life-expectancy of a crucial part that will be cost-ineffective to replace (or obsolete and unobtainable), or through technical obsolescence rendering them worthless and unwanted, like UHF sets are now.