......When I was 16 I think my systen consisted of a 60 WPC Onkyo receiver, a belt driven Technics turntable, a TEAC cassette player, and JBL 12" 3-way floor standers .....we would record the albums we bought the first time out the sleeves, then put them away to keep them 'pristine' .....
yeah buddy, that was a winning strategy. It was on RARE occasion the record came back out of the sleeve again unless it was to re-record the LP in question a second time because you spilled your coffee on the tape you made.
@@homer53029 a fine system for a 16 year old. I had a Pioneer PL115D, Shure M75ED cartridge, an A&R Cambridge A60 amp and a pair of Linn Index speakers!! Later upgraded to Linn Axis Turntable and a Rotel Pre Power that i kept for 30 years nearly!! Recently replaced pretty much everything… does it sound loads better .. prob not but it makes me happy 🤣🤣😀
I still have my first cassette deck a Nikko nd590II I bought new in 1980 for two bills. It has Dolby, tape bias, eq, volume knob, tape counter, record mute, VU meters etc..Oh yeah, it plays Metal tape too. I've soldered in quality interconnects and it sits on vibrapod isolators. Some cassettes like Centerfield by John Fogerty it sounds terrific.
I remember taking a pencil and rotating a cassette to forward past the blank leader tape when recording an album onto tape. All the tweaking in putting an album onto tape to play in the car was a lot of fun and pride was taken in not recording a needle drop and in creating quality fade outs.
I remember the happiness I felt when I bought my first cassette player with a record level knob. I also had a small Sony CD player that had an automatic fade out function, but that wasn’t as satisfying.
Me too!! I reject nearly all of the new things. Dacs, streaming etc .. all of my three systems contain only vintage equipment. To me? It will always sound better!!
I have a vintage booth in an antique mall and also sell at record and vintage clothing shows and cassettes sell like crazy for me, both used and new like you mentioned in this video. Keep in mind, a lot of kids are seeking out grunge/atl/new wave/punk stuff so I burn through Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Cure, Depeche Mode, etc, etc. Oh yeah, I've been selling a TON of CDs to younger folks as well. I had a teenager ask me the other day "Which Sonic Youth album should I buy first?" and I almost replied, "Come here and let me give you a hug, son."
I had a tape of my favorite musician, made in 79/80 on my college roommate's TEAC (or Technics ?) dual cassette unit. That tape played for over half a decade and when played during its 6th year on a date, it helped forge a relationship now on its 35th year. If I could find the tape, I'd give it a thank-you hug!
I still have one of their cassettes that look like a reel to reel. I recently hooked up a walkman and played a tape through the aiyima a07 and it sounded decent.
Depends on the TEAC. In some markets TEAC was a rebranded cheap chineseum brand, in other markets you got genuine TEAC Japan. Teac Japan was, is awesome. They make a lot of broadcast quailty gear, and in some markets they did domestic. The "licensed" Teac palming off cheap crap was disgustingly bad.
I actually just got one of these from Goodwill a couple of months ago. Along with a Yamaha receiver and Polk towers and sub. All for $79. Got me back in the hobby. Had to fix the CD transport, but it works great.
LOL ....This is definitely my generation (I'm 60). I guess I hadn't noticed that you can even buy blank cassettes anymore.... ....We used to make party tapes by recording specific songs from piles of LP's. ....It was a pain in the ass! (LOL!).... but fun ....it was certainly a skill if you were trying to blend. ....brings back memories .....THANKS!
Yes, did the same here and yes, it was not easy! I prided myself in it though because of all the work that went into it and I was known for my tapes as it happens.
I have some type II blank cassette recordings of vinyl records from the 70s that my uncle made. You'd swear you were listening to the record sometimes - they're that good. It probably helps that I'm listening to them on the machine they were recorded on, using JVC's own noise reduction system. Cassettes can sound good.
The problem is, that this nostalgiac journey back to cassettes is a mere shadow of its former self. Cassette used to sound very good on a machine like a Nakamichi, Tandberg, Revox, etc. These new machines are all based on a mediocre Chinese transport that has relatively high wow and flutter and often requires speed calibration from the factory. There's also no Dolby NR, which is what propelled cassettes into the hi fi world in the first place. Unlike vinyl, there just isn't enough demand to bring back the cassette format the way it was at its peak
The lack of Dolby makes it totally unsuitable for me. I have almost 250 cassettes, all recorded with Dolby B or mostly C, and as many of you will know, the compander used on recording with these noise reduction systems makes them sound horrible if not properly decoded in playback. And I’ve heard that the cheap chinese mechanism used in all cassette players today is the exact same, awful quality… A pitty really for all of us who have lost or broken our old real high quality machines.
Yeah I was hee to make the same comment. TEAC/TASCAM hasn't stopped making this model line. They just dropped off the quality post 2000. That's when the Tenashin transport took over in practically every cassette deck.
Physical Media is important because your streamer carriers tend to loose their licenses and then the product you purchased is confiscated!! It's happening with video game industry.
I loved everything about the cassette experience.. especially opening a brand new blank one.. I’d make endless mix tapes as I used to drive a lot. I swapped to CD in the car with a multi change player but it wasn’t the same!! Good call cheapaudioman… I can smell the new cassette…:::😂
I picked up a JVC dual-cassette deck at Goodwill, just to see if it would actually play my tapes and was pleasantly surprised! The wave of nostalgia that I felt was immediate. My hands knew what to do and turned the cassette case into a fidget toy, of course, and the familiar opening and closing along with the boo-boo-boo-boop tape intro sound was just too much fun. I still had my old cassettes, and haven't really added any new ones, but it's been a fun memory trip!
What brings a smile to my face is the sound of the tape ending on one side and then the auto reverse flipping the head unit over for continued musical enjoyment. I buy cassette decks at thrift stores and estate sales when I find them, some times I hit something good, sometimes they need a little work. I love the nostalgia of cassettes!
I love the physical contact of putting the cassette or cd in. I would cringe when people would overlook the button and PUSH the cd tray with their finger...ugggh. Great video!
still have and listen to minidiscs regularly plus I have a very nice Sony MDS-JB920QS deck ,very handy to make compilations using the internet and can use the digital input to make digital recordings
A good deck. Quality blank tape. Add your favorite songs, by playing the LP, and putting the LP away until the tape wears out. Which actually can be a long time. Sit back, shoot pool or play cards. Enjoy the music. I have been doing this since I switched from 8 track to cassette. Saved a lot of wear on the albums.
What lovely eye candy, and I'm sure dulcit tones for the ears, too. Takes me back to my distant youth. Thanks for your review, perspectives, and for sharing this with us all.
Sorry, I came across this machine not so long ago. A total mediocre tape section. No Dolby B,C,S or HX. Simple capstan drive with high wow & flutter. Better find a 2nd hand tape deck from the past area on the higher end section. That tapedeck section on this one is not designed to last long and really is considered very low end for a tape deck.
Yup and Time Machine nostalgia & experience sells. Not with CDs or tapes though I got back into vinyl. Especially with Metal, psychedelic and other heavy stuff. Love it.
I love this! In 91, I bought a full Nakamichi stack, CD, Receiver, Paradigm 9SE's. I know, does two comopnents make a stack? J&A Stereo Sound in Prince George, BC had a show at a hotel, and as a young 23-year old pulp mill employee I was approved to finance the lot. A few weeks later I found a used Nak cassette deck at the same shop, RX 505...the 3-head model with the bay window...the cassette would flip around instead of auto reverse for better sound. When they came upon a 'Dragon', I grabbed that too! Those were the days!
Randy, a few months ago I dug out of storage my old (1985) Nakamachi BX-300 3 head Cassette deck and thought what the heck lets hook it up again. Some of the OLD recorded tapes sounded terrible. However, I only bought just a few pre-recorded tapes. But I usually recorded my own "mix tapes' so I could have a variety of my favorite songs. In my box was a New Old Stock of Denon metal cassette blanks never used. I recorded a Led Zeppelin mix tape with all my favorite cuts and it was INCREDIBLY good....Not if you sit down and are critical of every aspect. But a venue to put on your favorite tunes for 45 non stop favorites while working around the house....it is PERFECT way to enjoy the fun of the 70 and 80/s
Except in a high ambient noise environment like a car, cassettes recorded without noise reduction (e.g. Dolby B, C or S) are low fidelity. If cassettes are to make any meaningful sort of comeback then this will have to be addressed. I have an early 90s 3-head Denon with Dolby C/HX Pro, and numerous mix tapes I made 25-30 years ago from CD and vinyl sources, using either Type II (chromium dioxide) ot Type IV (metal oxide) tape. These still sound fantastic.
@@keithwiebe1787 That's true - the DCC (digital compact cassette). As I recall the units could play (not record) analog cassettes as well. The format appeared after DAT and around the same time as the Minidisc. Other than musicians, though, almost no one got into DAT, and neither Minidisc nor DCC really went anywhere. Format fatigue?
@@onsenkuma1979 Yes, I was considering a DAT but really had it later with my video 8 digital camcorder. I actually recorded some good sounding music by running line into from my mixer board into my digital 8 audio inputs. Sounded fine. DACs in there sounded fine to me. Some of the best voice and piano music I've heard.
Hilarious! I recently snagged one of these off eBay, along with a couple vintage Walkman style cassette players. Burned some mix CDs, then used those to produce old school mix tapes. Have no idea why, as I have a decent DAP. But took me back to the 80’s. Keep up the great content!
I still have a perfectly working Teac V1010 cassette player from 1993 and I recently purchased a TASCAM CD-RW900SX CD recorder to record the CDs I love most from streaming directly to digital without intermediate analog conversions with a digital transport connected to the PC with a USB connection. Fantastic result! Long live CDs and long live cassettes!
I've been collecting tapes for about 8 years, and they are my go-to media. They sound better, than people remember them, and they are loads of super interesting underground releases. I love the diy tape label scene.
Bought a 90s car with a perfect full logic cassette player, thought I would love cassettes again so went to the vintage store and bought some cassettes. Was loving them for 2 days until it ate a tape. Now I hate cassettes all over again.
@@keithwiebe1787 First of all, there is no such thing as a "60k variable wave file". You're talking nonsense. 2. Nobody plays WAV files in their car. 3. Only a fool would convert an MP3 file to a WAV file; you gain nothing except wasted disc space! Re: "Bare minimum for what?" Bare minimum for a quality MP3 file, of course! ...which is an odd thing to say, since 320kbps is the highest quality MP3. But it's just saying that if you cannot create a 320kbps (highest quality) MP3 file, the product is junk. AVOID IT! The manufacturer is purposely crippling the sound quality. If this Teac can only create 128kbps MP3s, it's G-A-R-B-A-G-E ! ! ! They definitely don't want you creating a "mix-thumbdrive" and giving it to your friends!
@@Hyxtryx I opened some of my files. One album was ripped at 88 kbps. I use variable rate WMA. I rip cds not mp3 files. It is more than fine for car usage. Way better quality than cassette ever was that's for sure. Have you ever ripped cds to WMA?
@@keithwiebe1787 Oh, WMA. I've never ripped to WMA. I was taking issue with "60K variable WAV". There very well could be 88 kbps variable WMA, I don't know. I suspect you might be thinking of 88 KHz sampling rate, though, as 88 "kilobits per second" is a pretty low bitrate.
No. I ditched my tape deck as soon as i bought my first CD burner. And that was back when you could still buy premium Type 2 or 4 cassettes. No one makes those cassettes anymore, and you'll pay through the nose to buy a used type 2 or 4 blank cassette. You can still find new/old stock, but it's crappy type-1 blanks. And when I did record on high-quality blanks, it was from a CD. When you buy new vinyl, its vinyl that was mastered and cut from a digital source, recorded using digital equipment. At least vinyl is (can be) a hi-fi medium. The majority of cassette decks ever sold never met the hi-fi standard. The ones that did cost several hundred dollars. And don't get me started on turntables with bluetooth connectivity.
I got started with cassettes in Grad School. Bought a $199 compact AIWA boom box and started collecting. Was living in NYC at the time so tapes were everywhere. On the streets, in record shops, at the Tower Records extension at cheap prices. And of course I made my own tapes, who didn't. Walkmans? Sure, used to jog with one. I collected about 200 tapes, most of which I still have and sometimes play. My main deck needs BELTS-the main pain of cassette decks, those cheap rubber belts that ALWAYS go bad eventually. Now TELL Me, do you THINK they couldn't make some kind of synthetic carbon/silicon belt that would LAST for decades? Nah, obsolescence and inconvenience. Of course the SAME is true of belt driven TTs but they are much EASIER To replace. Try replacing a cassette belt, lol! Oh well, currently I have a Kenwood dual deck cassette player (bought at a Goodwill for 12 dollars) with one side probably needing belts soon and the other, fingers crossed, still OK. My old deck is in the basement, needs SERVICE and belts, and I already replaced those belts ONCE already. Oh the memories! The '80s boys and girls, those were the days in NYC before it became a Yuppie Wonderland. A wet dream for the so-called luxury unit market (Trump et al). Now no one can afford to live there and a lot of buildings are just EMPTY! (Actually, a lot of that began in the mid to late 80s). So it's really the 70s and early eighties that were manageable for students, workers and the poor). These combo units used to sell for less than $300. Now, over $500, WOW. Inflation! Can it really cost that much to make those in China?
Have new belt being put on my Pioneer elite tape deck now As an old Dead head/ taper I’ve always known and loved the FAT sound of a well recorded Tape. I’m a analog guy trapped in a digital world
I still have my first cassette tape that came free with the Cassette recorder back in 1972, I have all my cassettes and still listen to old radio shows on them.
I still have tons of cassettes, just because I have never had a high enough quality deck to pull everything on them, off of them. I'd rather NOT go back, thank you. 🙂 CDs, on the other hand, never went away in this house. Yes, I listen to tons of streaming, but CDs are the perfect platform for music. 44.1 kHz gives us every frequency we can hear; 96 db is more dynamic range than we can comfortably listen to; 85+ db of stereo separation again is one channel SCREAMING at me while the other is silent. IMD: 0.0025% or less. THD: 0.05% at 1 kHz. Both inaudible. No wow. No flutter. No rumble. No clicks, pops, surface noise... and if properly built, a CD should last far beyond my lifetime. Every problem with every problem CD ever made has been the source fed to the CD, NOT the CD platform. What's not to love?
When cd's came out after belonging to all the tape clubs through the mail. I was frustrated that in a way we were forced to buy the new cd's. I do not stream any longer and only listen to cd's. I have the Onkyo DX-390 6 disc player and the Integra CDC 3.4 6 disc player. While the Onkyo functions good the Integra has a five year warranty versus the Onkyo's 1 year warranty. Well worth the extra money on the Integra for me. Both feed my dac's great!
I still use vintage TEAC 122 MkIII cassette deck, 2 Akai decks, 2 Denon decks, 2 Sonys, 1 Technics deck, and these are the cassette decks that do fantastic recording. I can't say the same for anything new.
My current CD player is a Laserdisc player I found at a thrift shop last year. Got bit by the retro tech bug a couple of years back, when I got a stupidly heavy 36" Sony Trinitron off FB Marketplace. I originally bought it as a Laserdisc player, and a happy little surprise was that it had a CD Tray too :D Loving the videos of yours I've watched thus far, ever since I was looking for a few finer points on how to connect a subwoofer to the AV Receiver I found a few months back, but finally got around to playing with. Maybe someday I'll get up to the big boy toys you're showing, but for now, Ima scrounge for deals at the thrift shops, so if I fux up and blow something up/out, I ain't out big bucks haha. Though damn if that TEAC unit isn't just that, so tempting and pretty.
Dude! I got a pioneer laser disc with a separate cd tray from one of my patrons. And I think I had that sony. It made it through a hurricane and weighed probably 200 lbs
No CD recording in this machine = NOT GOOD !!!!! Actually - buying ( or if one already has ) a decent Blue-ray/DVD/CD recorder + a DOUBLE deck cassette player/recorder, will not deprive from much more space ! - how BIG is a Blu-ray/DVD recorder ?!
Your 1984 was around the mid-end of the stereo wars era for me. In 1984 I got my first Hitachi mini rack/barely portable boombox. Whoever came up with the idea of a boombox weighing 24 pounds yet still running on 8 d batteries(albeit only lasting about 2-3 hours max) was both an idiot and a genius. It was so powerful at a true 50 wpc, it made most other boomboxes look weak regardless of their size. I think Pioneer had an even heavier one. If you got fed up with carrying it because of the absurd weight, not only the speakers detached but also the tuner, cassette deck and amp/equalizer all seperated to become a true mini hifi system. It also costed about 4x as much as other boomboxes. I've looked high and low to see another one but this unique Hitachi product is extremely rare and few were ever made. I gave it to my older brother in 1992 and he blew it up within 6 months.
When I came to the US for college 36 years ago, I brought my 100 plus cassettes with me. Also bought a pioneer cassette deck, Technics integrated amp, a Technics graphic equalizer and a pair of Realistic speakers from a graduating music major from college, pretty girl... Anyway, the deck, equalizer and the tapes are all still with me now.
i started off with a Sony Discman D-141 w/Mega Bass playing MJ in 92 or so, i loved the digital screen, the sound the CD-ROM made, the colors of the disc, and those ear phones takes me back
Actually the Cassettes allow artistic liberty in that different formulations of the tape inside the plastic housing influence the recorded sound. So you have the chance to play with Dolby and tape formulations. It is real fun allowing the sound to please your particular ears.
I recently threw out a mix tape cassette my cousin made from our 1966 summer in Greece, as the last cassette player left my life about 7 years ago. Then I thought, “Gee, there was only one song I ever really cared for” and searched for it on Qobuz. Found it! Not a well-recorded tune, but who could know that on cassette? And that, my friends, is the whole story for an audiophile like me.
I had alot of Teac & technics gear in the 90's. I was a kid then and got those two brands mixed up. I miss buying used a/v equipment just for the heck of it from garage sales/random shops in the area, then taking them home to see how they sound.
Thanks for the video that thing is cool I got my first cassette player in 1966 yeah I'm a old guy I still have all my cassettes yep at least 4 thousand and maybe buying more this weekend that's mental illness that's meHave a great day I'll keep watching it keeps me insane I asked my buddy how many cassette decks do you need he said all of them
It’s amazing. I’ve recorded hundreds of cassette tapes from my vinyls and CDs. But I don’t remember ever buying any original recording in cassette format. 😅
Leave cassettes in the past. I remember them getting tangled, losing sound quality, rewinding and fast forwarding. I would rather listen to CDs or stream. But I think CDs have the best sound and much more dynamics than vinyl. I have compared my CDs to tidal and I can hear a big difference in sound with both running through my dac
"If you're buying this, don't buy it for pure sound quality" -- yikes I'd reckon, where'd they find that tape head?? 50-12K 59dB signal to noise - ouch!! Any $150 car tape deck from the 80's was better than that !! My '93 Teac TEAC W-700R component was 25-20KHz with 80 dB S/N (literally 4 times quieter!) -- that was a true rival to CD's with the Dolby noise suppression (plus back then CD players in cars would skip with every bump !!) But I get it, the multi-format feature set is kind of fun, that's the real reason for this product I suppose. Just don't get it if you're serious about recording to / playing from cassette and expecting quality sound. Must be doing some magic with the DAC or something, because a tape head with those specs would almost be painful to today's spoiled listeners.... On second thought, if your TAPE is from the 80's, then this is probably fine, it probably matches the degraded sound quality of your tape just fine lol !! They were the good ol days, but for audio, glad they're gone !!
My early 80s Technics cassette deck (200 bucks) rolled off below 50 and above 10khz. I found out I could change the bias settings internally to get good output at 10khz and be happy but by that time the heads were worn out and I had moved on to cds.
I never left the revolution, I bought a Nakamichi 600 in late 70's, it made great tapes with high bias tapes, made lots of mix tapes for people back then. I did sell it off but bought a newer Nak about 7 years ago, it records & plays well. There were good quality prerecorded cassettes made in the day, I have found several for just a few bucks at thrift stores still!
Currently in the process of transferring my 40+ year old collection of cassette tapes to mp3 files using one. 100+ tapes = 200+ albums. Some recorded from the radio complete with DJ and commercials.
I almost got rid of my tapes since I don’t have a tape deck at the moment. I had planned on getting one again but my wife and I were trying to down size. I have a couple of demo tapes from friends that are no longer with us and no matter what those were staying but in order to maintain domestic tranquility I agreed to get rid of the rest of the tapes and she agreed to let me replace them with records. A pretty sweet deal since she has no clue what tapes I have but then I saw your video about that portable tape deck and I started getting cold feet. The day came for my tapes to leave with our donations and I couldn’t do it. I ended up sending my blacksmith’s post drill in their place and tranquility was maintained. My wife even told me to buy a tape player. I almost bought a different Tascam/Teac deck but the manual says do not play 90 min tapes and that was a deal breaker for me. I’m now looking for a vintage deck. Oh and just for the record I agree tapes can suck but I’m not really an audiophile. I just like to enjoy my music. Nothing like the tactile experience of being able to interact with your musical media or just walking over and cranking that volume knob up. Remotes are for collecting dust.
I have a nakamichi 2 head cassette deck, some of my new recordings from digital or analog I could fool some people that they are listening to a cassette, I love my hobby ❤️👍🏻
Love Naks With I had money for a dragon Have my Pioneer elite 3 head getting new belts etc now. My tech worked for pioneer in 80’s so I’m lucky to have him. He recapped my Yamaha CR-1020 last summer Oh the fat sound of a good analog recording
I love to have this experience again with my tapedeck that I bought. And it definitely NOT High end audio! But your run of the mil 80's Kenwood KX-57CW double cassette deck. And I love it! This is probably the second best system I ever owned... And I got it for less the 50 bucks with a decent amp receiver from Onkyo Tx8210R. Just need to get me a cd player at some time. i got it all second hand and it's great!
I saw this Teac and thought Awesome 💯 And immediately sighed realizing the loss of all my old tapes....😢... I've never given up on CD's abd while I have all my old 40-55 yr old Album's Cream, Led Zeppelin, Hall and Oates, etc ... Steely Dan ...Its Always...a Dan Fine Day ...
I've literally had TWO of these for almost 4 years now (they accidentally sent me TWO!) and I think back then I paid $300 for one. Last I saw, everywhere is asking closer to 400 at least nowadays. (I also love how the remote is VERY 90's-ish)
I really enjoyed this review. I was ready to buy.... And then, the price. A hard no. For half that, I can get a nice Onkyo cd player (with optical out) and for another 150, a new cassette deck off Amazon. I have been having fun screwing around rebuilding a CD collection and lately, cassette (gasp!). I bought a realistic tape deck off eBay for like, 50 bucks. Cleaned it up (heads etc) and it works fine. Then I ordered a big box of cassette tapes from back in the day. You know what? I was stunned at how good some of those tapes sound! I mean some are 30-40 years old. I never would have dreamed this. Anyway, it has been fun to realize what a pain in the ass it was to listen to our music back then! Cassette tapes in my area can be had for around 10-15 cents at Goodwill. At these prices, you don't care if the tape is shot. Just a fun thing to mess around with.
Kill 'em All, Master of Puppets, etc. Better on cassette. That's how I first heard them, and that imperfect, "sounds like it was recorded in somebody's garage" rawness just.... fits.
Still playing my cassettes on my Marantz DA2452 and CDs in my Pioneer PD-5700. Through a Pioneer SX-50, Realistic STA-112 and Yamaha RX-V470. Also got a Technics SL-PD1010. Got a MCS 3536 Cassette Desk that I need to replace the belt on.
Another great useful feature of this TEAC is that it is capable of recording playing music from its cd player into the USP, so the USP can be played back in your cars (most of the cars nowadays don't have cd player) or other devices.
@@trucchuong1726 Cassette has full sound spectrum. 128 mp3 chops off some low and high frequencies to make small file. 128 MIGHT be bearable in a car but it's awful vs 320. Years of trial and error with mp3, etc. on USB in a vehicle port. 192k is the lowest mp3, etc. my ears can handle in a car.
@@Beethoven5th go read the spec. of this TEAC on frequency response and other data, available on TEAC website, then we'll talk. You can't just assume any mp3 formats in general vs. cassette tape formats.
@@trucchuong1726I already read the specs on this machine. FYI 128 k is not designed to achieve 20khz let alone 16khz. I'm just trying to help. 🤔 320k bit rate is minimum that one should use... even at 320 bit rate it feels compressed compared to CD/LP/Tape but at least it has full audio frequency spectrum.
TEAC aims beyond entry level, too. A DD $749 TT perhaps worthy of consideration to some more well known in that price range, besides audiophile (has XLR out) manual belt TT at $1799.. has varied line including 'Reference Series" with a $2699 CD transport and a $3799 'Dual Monaural USB/DAC CD Player/Pre-Amp/Headphone Amplifier' (we should all have LOL).
I still have my Teac dual cassette deck with Dolby HX Pro. The most glaring deficiency with cassettes is the loss of high frequency, with the high end of 12 or 15 KHz, depending on the type of tape used. Dolby HX Pro reconstituted high frequency to the point where it made cassettes sound pretty good, & it was still backwards compatible, making it pretty universal. I’m surprised Teac didn’t incorporate this on this cassette/CD deck, but paying Dolby may be pretty costly & that may be the reason why.
being from the 60s myself i had a lot of those components, i still have some TEAC components, i dont use them anymore though to spice up my recordings from vinyl to cassette i bought 2 fairly expensive DbX components, an 3 channel expander and a DbX II noise reduction (90Db+) unit, the only downside is that you'll have to play the Dbx cassettes through the noise reduction unit but the sound was high quality, nowadays i compress all my CDs to FLAC and MP3 i still have some vinyl but no more cassettes, but i think those cassettes would be warped by age now, just like me 😂
I found myself a nice Nakamichi DR-3 and im loving that deck. It was mint conditon and got it for 150. Way better than what is being put out in these "modern" tape decks
I've always been more of a CD kid, as young as I am. But getting this would have me considering the idea of asking my family if they're willing to give me any of their cassette collections. Hopefully they still have them!
CDs and Vinyl I understand. Some people want the physical media. But with cassettes, I threw most of them out because they wore out, didn't work anymore.
I mean, seriously, what are the odds???!!! I was just checking this out the other day to see of it's back in stock on Amazon, it seems they can't keep enough of them on shelves! I already have a killer Nakamichi ZX-9 for my living room and the almost-CD-sounding Pioneer CT-W606 DR in my bedroom as we;; as the dual cassette decks on my Panasonic RX-DT55 boombox. Still, the idea of having all of the TEAC functionality in one device that looks this good is very lucrative. Unfortunately, they're being scalped due to high demand and only one online retailer in my country has them currently for close to 700 bucks. I would have immediately impulse-purchased one! Randy has a few years over me, but I also started with my first cassettes in the 80s' (1985 to be exact) and inherited a Toshiba RT-120S when my sister upgraded to her new and shiny Fairmate boombox... Great memories...
The cassette deck was once my favorite audio "toy". I owned many of them. I had a Pioneer CTF 500, AIWA ADL 450U, AIWA 6700, AIWA 6900, Harman/Kardon CD 191, Harman/Kardon CD 391, Denon DRM 700 & Denon DRM 800. Not all at once. I also owned a couple of Revox R2R decks, the better of them being a B77. My understanding is that there is only ONE company manufacturing magnetic tapes anymore though, and Dolby isn't into Noise Reduction anymore so no thanks. I really loved the cassette format back in the day though.
Heh, at 5:55 you talk about being able to buy one of four turntables at your local Walmart. That is not quite true (from my personal experience and from the screenshot you show). You can buy a terrible Crosley or Victrola "all-in-one" or you can get an Audio-Technica AT-LPGO-BT, but that is it. The Audio-Technica AT-LP140XP-BK is not sold at brick-and-mortar Walmart's and the Mainstays 1 Tier Plastic 12" Diameter Nonskid Turntable in the screenshot is a "lazy susan" turntable.
I literally spent 16 dollars on a bulk lot of cassettes from Goodwills shop app. Most of the tapes I did don’t care about. But I wound up getting Van Halen, Van Halen II and Woman and Children First, On top of these being probably some of the greatest albums of all time, they were unopened!! Sounds amazing in my old Kenwood deck!!
Sounds like my wife. Some hiss, surprisingly good fidelity considering whom she married, can listen to her for almost an hour, and I love her (of course). 9/10. She's all i need, want (and can afford). I have tapes, but they're in my DFW attic, so maybe not in great shape. If i were smart enough to keep my records, i'd have been dumb enough to put them there too.
My issue with units like these and other "recent" cd players is that TEAC and other manufacturers just doubled/tripled the price on 8-10 year old models without updating/upgrading them in any way.
