Review of the new Toshiba Aurex ‘Hi-Res Cassette deck’ 

****** HUMOUR WARNING ***** In one part of the video I make a humorous reference to all the dust on the machine (to avoid people feeling they have to message me about it) - and as a joke, I state "I'll be having a strong word with the housekeeper". This joke has resulted in complaints. People are angry that I will be speaking to the house staff in such a manner. The thing they haven't spotted though is that this was a joke - the joke is that it's ridiculous that I'd have a housekeeper. I chose the word housekeeper rather than cleaner because I was attempting to make the phrase as preposterous as possible - because pretty much no one has a housekeeper nowadays. It's more of a Downton Abbey or Upstairs Downstairs kind of era (and then only in wealthy houses) - the kind of thing that died out well over fifty years ago. Occasionally people who don't have time to clean and can afford it might have a cleaner come in once a week - but that's still a very rare thing. I've never met anyone who doesn't clean their own house - and I'm the same. The joke was that obviously I'd be the person on the end of the 'strong word' - so I'd be telling myself off for not dusting. Yes, jokes aren't funny when you have to explain them. I suppose this is a good example of humour not travelling well. I suspect that the people who didn't get the joke aren't from the UK, so perhaps they think that housekeepers are a thing here. They've seen episodes of shows like Downton Abbey or watched films like Mary Poppins and think that everyone in 'Merry old England' wears a bowler hat and carries an umbrella and goes to work on a red bus and each house has a staff of cooks and maids and a butler. Anyway now I'm just off to hang some clothes on the washing line before getting the vacuum cleaner out - that's real life. So please try to lighten up, don't be so ready to get offended - life is too short to spend it looking for things that wind you up.

Thank you for your service. Yet another previously-tempting retro device I can happily avoid now!

Having not seen the video yet, I can't help but think "if there's a magical button to make it sound better, why not always make it sound better... why does it need a button?" Haha

This comment has been up converted, it's better than all the other comments.

I see more than two minutes left when the patreon credits start, and get excited for the puppets!

It seems as time goes on, manufacturers can slap a Hi-Res logo sticker on any audio device. This thing was a disgrace.

“I’ve seen better LCDs on a Tamagotchi” Loooool!

I adore your easygoing attitude and the humor. You're an audiophile after my own heart. You make it fun rather than a competition, which is what it's about, isn't it?

"Hi-res... records to digital media as 192kbps mp3...

And I was hoping it could be a viable option to getting one of those old premium players. Ah well, I guess we’re better off finding some good ones on ebay. ;) The audio engineer in me looks very sceptically at the whole Up Convert thingy claiming it can re-create something that isn’t there... 🤨 That’s just like upscaling images and you get anti aliasing because the data is not there anymore. «Emperor’s New Feature» indeed. Great review though, as always! :D

"...not really 'low end', it's just *THE* end." Okay, I laughed out loud at that one. Then cried. Then died a little inside.

In Audacity, if you use the Invert function on one waveform, line things up perfectly, and then mix it with the one you're comparing with, it'll subtract whatever's the same and leave only what's different between the two. Might be useful for future videos.

“I think it was replaced...by Minecraft.” God bless Techmoan.

Wow that LCD screen screams cheapness. They could've at least made it inverted to better match the color of the face plate.

This kind of video makes me feel good to be alive. It's not something I would have sought out on RU-vid necessarily (I'm not really a Cassette fan or anything) but I so appreciate the effort that has gone into this video not only from a technical standpoint but to make the subject interesting to pretty much any viewer. No wonder Techmoan is often cited as a channel that other popular youtubers subscribe to. Well done sir! Well done!

"How many bits is Hi Res then?" "Oh, all of them.." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

The most damning thing about this is how you can hold it in one hand like it's a piece of styrofoam.

RE: Vocal Down function: This works by putting the stereo tracks out of phase, then combining them. Since most pop mixes put the main vocal in the center, this procedure results in nearly complete cancellation of the main vocal (or anything else that is mixed mono center). However, many audio mix engineers like to pan the echo from the main vocal left-right even though the soloist is mono center. This means that the vocal down function will fail to cancel the echo, even if it works for the main. That's what your brief test sounds like to me.

You know the sound quality is Huge between Nakamichi and Toshiba when you can hear it on RU-vid with a crappy tablet

The dragon sounded infinitely better than this plastic monstrosity 😛

"The emperor's new up convert button"! RU-vid gold!

Like the high-end audio cables mentioned in this video, we must have been "gold-plated and kissed by the pope" to be lucky enough to have our music featured for a second time on your channel. Even though the high-resolution feature of the Toshiba Aurex Hi-Res Cassette Deck turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, your puppet show at the end of the video was a clever smashing success. Bravo!

"30 is the maximum volume" Better than 11 then

What's interesting to me (as a 20-something) about cassette is how much technology there was surrounding it that was dedicated to making it sound better. Tape formulations, Dolby Noise Reduction of different types, direct-drive mechanism, etc. There was an entire industry dedicated to making them sound better than they did when they were introduced.

£142 is daylight robbery

"The Emperor's new up convert", love it. And the puppet bit was pretty funny too, and about sums it up.

Even with RU-vid's audio compression, the Dragon still sounded clearer. God that thing is a real sexy beast.

Even through laptop speakers, with RU-vid's compression, the Nakamichi sounds phenomenally better... frequency response, stereo separation, less distortion.

The sampling rate on that (obviously) digital VU meter is just horrible. But at least the whole machine is horrible :D The muppet segment at the end is just golden :)

Techmoan is like the retrotech savy grandpa I've never had. Thank you Techmoan for allowing me to have this experience.

What a disappointment of a product... I'm really getting used to the idea that the world ended sometime after 1991... :(

200 dollars for a piece of, to be blatantly honest, crap... they must be mad?! The kind that should go in the loony bin. This type of machine would cost 40 dollars, or maybe 30 in a sale. Well, if we were back in the 90s at least.

I do not regard the table top unit as junk. True it is no where near the performance of a Nakamichi DRAGON or a ZX-9 (I regard the ZX-9 as better than the DRAGON). It does illustrate that the cassette format is a phenomenal medium to listen to music. Perhaps Toshiba (Aurex) will have another go at it and make a new and improved machine. Long live the cassette!!

"Up Convert" button might as well be the" Got Yo Monay Fool!" button instead.

Aurex used to be the premium line of Toshiba , this looks like an insult to the brand

There's a very clear difference in audio quality between the Dragon and the Aurex, even on my phone speakers.

Very sad that even the Japanese have stepped this low in quality.

Now I need diamond-coated cables kissed by the pope. Does that add angelic fidelity?

I think the best brand new cassette deck out there right now is the Tascam CD-A580. Even though it's $400 if you want new that's the only option that comes anywhere close to the standards set when good equipment was being manufactured. It supports normal, chrome and metal but does not have dolby. BTW I just found this channel and it's spot on man!

I started to dabble with Hi-Res, until it dawned on me that at 52 I was not in a position to get the benefit. It's quite dispiriting but sadly you can't buy your way into hearing better than an 18 year old.

That dragon machine is badass

My guess is that the vocal down function requires a mono vocal and stereo instruments. So, how good it works really depends on the recording.

OMG.I have heard about the mighty Nakamichi Dragon,but i never thought i would never see one work in action to realise the quality.Thanks Techmoan.You allways surprise me even more with every video you upload.

Skip to 23:20 for "funny, grown-up, & smart" puppets. "You'll need a source..." "Like bar-be-que?" Best accent humor ever!

Am I the only one wondering why all the buttons are labeled in English?

16:27 The moment he says "The Best Cassette Recorder Ever Made" I blurt out "The Nakamichi Dragon" and instantly earned myself a geek point from the misses. Alas I have only a mere Aiwa AD-F770, not quite on the same planet as the Dragon but perhaps in the same star system.

TLDR: the machine sucks. Skip to 23:20 for the real show ;)

It‘s really a shame that toshiba calls it aurex, it has nothing to do with the then nice Hi-Fi equipment

‘Do they even make new music? I thought it got replaced by minecraft.’ 😂

Toshiba used to have excellent quality control, but they went right down. They're generally garbage now. Ashens reviewed a Camelio HD camcorder, and true to form, it was a dreadful device. A shame

I just found a Sony TC-FX33 in the trash, I’m going to clean it up and see if it works.

"Do they even make new music?" "I think it got replaced by Minecraft." *laughing hard intensifies*

To me it sounds like the up conversion is a glorified EQ. Sounds like the mids and the highs are a tiny bit brighter and that's it really.

I was expecting you would pull a Photonicinduction move (put a hammer through it)... or an 8-bit Guy move (steamroller it) - since it didn't qualify to standards. hahahah :D

Think we've finally found that device that wont be going up in price because you featured it!

"how many bits is hi-res then?" "oh, all of them"

"Higher things are always best." "Like cholesterol?" Priceless!

Even Toshiba didn't want to put their name on the front of this..

Just add a cheap quality ceramic cartridge-equipped turntable to the mix and it's pretty much just another retro "does everything but not that well" sound system... :P (Though it is 1-up on my Neostar out in the shed in that this toshiba can record to tape, not that I play them any more!!)

Great review...👍🏼 My conclusion from this review is, Japan can keep it...👌🏼💯✔

That nakamichi recorder is so beautiful with its painted brushed aluminum look

Oh my god! Toshiba has gone Crosley???

Just what a musician wants to hear after you listen to his music: “well, that was underwhelming” lol I know this is not a music review. Your music is very enjoyable Anders Jenson!

come for the info, STAY FOR THA PUPPETS!!!!! ;-P

This whole Hi-Res stuff is so stupid.

So I am watching this on system with decent klipsch speakers and i can hear a difference but it sounds artifical, just like a basic bass and treble boost. Just like really good EQ settings as opposed to a "full range" enhancement like they promise. It's noticeable but why would any one be plugging that into $1000 speakers for a mediocre enhancement

A company cashing in on nostalgia to make a quick buck? You don't say?

Interesting video. I've downloaded the two example files 'standard' and 'up convert' and had a look at them in Pro Tools. There is barely any difference at all between the two versions, however the 'up convert' version does have a very slight boost in the higher frequencies. I can only just hear this difference through high quality studio monitors and so the likelihood of hearing it through the built in speakers in the Toshiba unit is zero. Both versions tail off rapidly above about 7Khz though. Not good at all.

I was tooo much in love with HiFi equipment, years ago, at my particular level.... but TechMoan is so OUT THERE, INCREDIBLE with all this gear he finds and fixes.... absolutely entertaining and enjoyable. TechMoan has truly inspired me to get my own equipment from decades past fixed and operational again. Will be very, very expensive in time and/or money to have done, though. Thanks so very much TechMoan. Inspirational.

The puppet bit is priceless.

Love the puppets. Always makes me laugh. I wish all your videos had them, or maybe they could have their own channel. BTW, what are their names?

Aaah they looked on their inventory from the 90's and decided to use it rather than throw it away. It's all in the name of the environment

I live in Japan. This machine is for old folks. Anyone who knows their audio will go to one of the many many many shops that sell vintage stuff, often looking like new with prices to match. Btw, still enjoy this video but then again I'm a huge teachmoan fan.

They should have tried with something like the old "Stereo Wide'' function some boomboxes had. It's a quite simple and effective electronic function that adds a bit of artificial stereo separation mixed with some EQ-mojo to make it a bit brighter as well. No pretense of "high resolution" or even "hi-fi". One example in particular comes to my mind: I have an East German RFT model SKR-601 radio cassette with that feature. On normal stereo it sounds decent, but when you switch it to "Wide"...holly hell does it sing. For an 80s plastic boombox it actually makes it sound like a bigger stereo system and it's clear as a bell too.

OOF that puppet sketch in the context of spotify finally announcing hi res streaming officially for the first time today in 2021...

Marvelous ending with puppets , they know it best and they are absolutely right Kissed by the Pope .....

Great video as always. Definitely could hear the difference between the Nak and this thing, even on RU-vid through crappy laptop speakers. As for what that "upconvert" button actually does, my guess is that it's trying to stretch the high frequencies of either compressed digital or "low res" analog tapes back up to or even above 20khz, which the standard amplitude waveform on Audacity wouldn't show. (The spectrogram view would.) But it's still trying to get blood from a stone. I would doubt it would sound any better to anyone, although these days with algorithm-based processing (if this deck is doing that), who knows. As your puppets point out, though, people our age probably wouldn't be able to hear the difference even if one exists. I know I can't hear anything over 16khz these days. One thing I can be somewhat understanding of on this deck is the fact that it can only record on Type I tapes; as far as I know that's all that's made any more. Type I blanks are still pretty common in Japan; you can even find them in the 100 yen stores. Type II and IV tapes are unicorns, though.

>hi-res deck >records to 192kbps mp3 instead of flac

Lol can't say I'm suprised. Wish one of the manufacturers would release a good high-end cassette player, but that's a bit of a pipe dream.

What an unfortunate machine. I believe I could hear a difference, but the difference was so negligible that it's more of a nitpick about the tiniest, most minuscule differences you'll ever hear. Such a shame that it wasn't better. It'd have been awesome to see a modern tape deck that improved on the old technology instead of just making it look worse.

Well, it's all down to what the average consumer wants, and for a dead format that's been revived with left over parts I'd say this thing is nice. It beats dealing with an old/used machine that's got a million or so issues. And like it or not these machines are the future for compact casette, because in the end, that's what the majority of people remember about the format; cheap machines which weren't really that good but did their job.

Flipping Heck.

It probably just runs the tape through a 96/24 or 192/24 AD-DA loop, which achieves nothing. I'm surprised they didn't put in a bit of treble EQ boost just to make it seem like it does something, that's what most companies do.

What's the name of the song at 12:21? Edit: Found it. Candy Apple Blue - Mad About You (Juno Dreams remix)

Have you ever heard of the phrase: "No highs, no lows, must be Bose"? That Toshiba Aurex's "frequency response" looks like it would be a perfect match for Bose speakers.;)

The product feel like cashing on nostalgic with cheap built quality.

So to sum up: Its pants. :P *EDIT - Keep on moaning... I really love the humor you throw in. :)

All the 'vocal down' button does is invert one of the tracks and mix the two together into a mono signal. This causes destructive interference and whatever is the same on both tracks (usually the vocal, dead centre) is cancelled out. Of course this doesn't work on all material, particularly if there are echoes and pans on the vocals!

Take it apart. Teardown teardown teardown!

I have to admit - the Sony CFD-S70, a machine that's about 1/3 of the price of the Toshiba, sounds about 10 times better when playing cassettes.

your video was wonderful, the machine that is awful, was not meant to give good analog sound quality, and even on digital it fails miserably. I can even compare it to that wagon-shaped vinyl record player in terms of sound quality and manufacturing. "It's an abomination" hahahaha

So wont be selling my Nakamichi Dragon soon!

This type of super cheap quality P.O.S. machines are making a total JOKE out of the "High-Res" audio thing, that's for sure, which is a very unfortunate waste of the potential in that!!... Very weak!!

I was considering importing one of these as I thought it would be a high spec getto blaster due to the price and brand. What a disappointment.

I watched the first 5 mins or so then skipped to the credits and the puppets. Seems like this piece of tech to avoid. Clearly the makers are using up their stock of old, cheap parts to get cash from those who would know no better.

The reason the "Vocal Down" button didn't function correctly is because most features like that are center cancelling, removing sound from the center of the stereo image where the vocals are usually placed. You'll notice the voice seems echoey in the video once the vocal down button is pressed, this is because that particular song had a stereo reverb on the vocals, so when you cancel the sound in the center of the stereo image all you have left is the sound of the echo.

Great review, and I love vids that include puppetry skits. Very cool of you to run proper tests. Those graphs tell much more than YT compressed audio ever would. This product though...wow. It can't play Type II or metal tapes, no Dolby, It's genuinely ugly, interface on the top instead of the front, wussy speakers...Jeez. This is one sad product. I don't understand why this product exists. I don't see the market for it. Maybe this started as a good idea that went too far in the design process to pull the plug on when it became clear that it wasn't feasible to make an affordable high quality tape deck in the current state of the industry... The mid 90s JVC decks are still extremely affordable, and the high-end ones are still fantastic. In my early teens, I used to record church services as a service for shut-ins members with one, and it was a treat to use. We'd record the master on chrome with Dolby-C, and copies done on Type 1 /w Dolby-B. The copies sounded so good that only audiophiles would be able to tell it wasn't uncompressed digital. The church's sound-system probably created more hiss than the tape recording/playback added. If those mid-90s decks ever start getting scarce and expensive, only then should anyone try to make a new decent tape deck system. And it's gotta come from a company that is large enough to eat some initial investment costs to start making proper components; that or wander across a warehouse full of new-old-stock. I find this to be pretty unlikely though. Cassette just doesn't have the same love as vinyl, and I don't think it ever will.

Came for the retro tech, stayed for the puppets.

16:35 Unleash the Dragon (the Nakamichi Dragon, that is)! :)

The up convert button directs the sound trough a vial of snake oil.