MajorFubar said:
I still have one, as per my sig. (In fact I've got several, but the others are more historic relics than true useable HiFi pieces). Our car still has its original radio-cassette in it too (Kenwood something or other) with a CD changer in the boot. Never had the need or desire to change it.
As for which ones to buy...not easy. If you intend to play only your own recordings then there are loads of used models which fit the bill. Anything from Sony, Techncs, Pioneer, Yamaha, etc etc. But if you have a lot of Musicassettes (pre-recorded tapes) you'll be amazed by how many machines out there were never set-up properly at the factory to get the best from them, and without demo-facilities it can be hit n miss. The safe bet is a Nakamichi. They didn't make a duff one ever.
This is very much the issue.
There are two separate aspects to setting up a cassette deck, it is relatively simple to set up a cassette deck so that it is 'self consitent'. That is, recordings made on that deck will play back extremely well on that deck.
The problem is that any recordings made elsewhere, either privately or commercially, will almost certainly not allign correctly with your machine, the asimuth will probably be out too. The result is a noticeably less clear sound that can often sound muted or muddy, through a hi-fi system at least.
Nakamichi may be the best but, despite what the Major says, they are all different in terms of 'absolute' allignment and asimuth, so the results on tapes recorded elsewhere will still be patchy, mediocre in the main.
Some years ago we were required to supply 2 £1000+ Nakamichi 1000s to a client. The requirement was that he wanted to record onto one machine, in his main system, and then playback those tapes on a second system in his study. OK, the client was very critical but there was no way that we could make that happen, the decks were setup time and time again, both sounding superb playing there own recordings but noticeably less good playing the other. It just could not be done.
To be honest, it is probably better to just replace the recording you really want to hear on modern media, probably cheaper too.
Unless you have a lot of irreplaceable recordings of course, that is a different issue.