Cd or cassette deck

[joysec]

Dear All,

There are lots of debates, going on in the audiofile circles to choose between CD or Cassettes. Vinyl being a tedious and costly propositions with paucity of good quality vinyls, the only purest analogue option is Cassettes. Nakamichi is the unquestioned leader in the field although they had stopped production 18 years back. Hence the only source is used /pre-owned market. There are brands like tanmarg, sansui, Technics but the patented azimuth calibration and solid transport system of Nakamichi, made it the leader. Now I need inputs from NAK enthusiasts about the availability and the serviceability of these decks in India.

Joysec

 

[reubensm]

Dear All,

There are lots of debates, going on in the audiofile circles to choose between CD or Cassettes. Vinyl being a tedious and costly propositions with paucity of good quality vinyls, the only purest analogue option is Cassettes. Nakamichi is the unquestioned leader in the field although they had stopped production 18 years back. Hence the only source is used /pre-owned market. There are brands like tanmarg, sansui, Technics but the patented azimuth calibration and solid transport system of Nakamichi, made it the leader. Now I need inputs from NAK enthusiasts about the availability and the serviceability of these decks in India.

Joysec

Nak availability, generally in the preused market from dealers. Owners of Naks almost never sell them. Prices from dealers are generally high as their original purchase price would have been high. For example, a dealer asking for 15k for a basic model, could have purchased for 8-9k (or less) and subjected the deck to a clean-up servicing. If you purchase first hand from the user, you'd get it the basic ones in the 6-9k range, depending on the model. Naks are well built machines and were very expensive in their hay-day. Many thought, the higher the price, the stronger the equipment and often ran these decks to the death. Hence proper checks are necessary before purchase. Try to avoid buying without inspection. If you get a first hand Nak from the original owner, its likely to be in pristine condition.

Nak servicing, there are some good guys around but these are experts through experience and not trained Nak technicians. Also Naks run well only on OEM spares and hence, using spares from the Indian bazaar won't work.
Nak spares are expensive when purchased from abroad.

Regarding the CD vs Cassette question, in my opinion, for cassettes it all depends on the recording and the type of tape. Its always easy to go the CD route.

 

[hemantwaghe]

Dear All,

There are lots of debates, going on in the audiofile circles to choose between CD or Cassettes.
Joysec

Where can you show any links ?? I read quiet offline and onlie ; so where you read this ? Esp in international markets cassette production ceased around 12-13 years back and sales was dwindling after cd''s. *** so those audiophiles listen to particular era?

Interesting , please support your claim...


*** Ref wikipedia

Compact Cassette - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

in 2001 cassettes accounted for only 4% of all music sold. Since then, further decline occurred, with very few retailers stocking them because they are no longer issued by the major music labels.[20]

Sales of pre-recorded music cassettes in the U.S. dropped from 442 million in 1990 to 274,000 by 2007.[23] Another record low was registered in 2009, with 34,000 cassettes sold.[24] Most of the major U.S. music companies discontinued production of cassette tapes by late 2002.

 

[hemantwaghe]

Nak availability, generally in the preused market from dealers. Owners of Naks almost never sell them.

If owners DO NOT , I MEAN DO NOT selltheir NAK then from where dealer get it ?

1) There have old stock somewhere - only for dealers
2) They manufacture second hand
3) Gii in the bottle

i last 8 years i sold appx 9-10 Naks , many of then bought from owners ( or they are dealers disguised as owners ) or those owners weere not knowing your hypothesis

By the way I sold it to owners ...hyeah:hyeah:hyeah:

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

There are lots of debates, going on in the audiofile circles to choose between CD or Cassettes

Are there? "audiophile circles," and their arguments never cease to amaze me!

If you have a stack of cassettes on the shelf, you need a cassette deck.

If you do not, then the only thing you are going to get from cassettes is the warm glow that some people get from the knowledge that they are not playing digital music.

First, be practical: whatever media you have a collection of, get the device that plays it.

Second, what about the future? Even CDs are headed towards being the thing of the past: how many shops/outlets/etc still sell the music you want to listen to on cassette?

 

[manoj.p]

+1 to Thad. If you don't have cassette collection, I believe it will be harder to find good cassettes than finding a good deck.

Besides, its easier to get excellent quality solution with CD's than cassettes. First of all, you need very good quality cassettes, then a nice working player. Have to keep maintaining all the time with head cleaning, demagnetizing and alignments etc. Not the issue with CD's.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Are there really debates about CD v Cassette? It's a no-brainer. Cassette was always seriously challenged, and never considered to be anything like the quality of vinyl.

Given that, I was always amazed that I often could not tell the difference between an LP and a cassette that I had made of it, on the equipment available to me. Cassette does not have the same dynamic range: this came in handy for minimising the sound of scratches on LPs.

Look at a reel tape from a "proper" tape recorder. I forget, but It must be something like 1/4-inch wide? It plays in one direction only, and only need accommodate the two channels of stereo. Cassette tape is about 1/8-inch (?) and, playing both forward and backwards, has to accommodate two times two channels. The reels are very small, the speed has to be slow to get sufficient playing time in that box. Anything over C60 was prone to stretching (C90 might have been OK, C120 was dangerously thin.) There are almost no advantages to cassette tape other than the reasons we used it way back then... sharing music (and home taping did not kill music, ha-ha, hee-hee :lol; those horrible piano-key cassette players; and, later, portability when the Walkman was born.

The fact that some fine machines may have been made to get the best from cassette does not excuse its intrinsic failings.

I think I have had three decks, one expired full size, replaced by a better one, recently serviced and renovated, and a couple of portable classics, including the Walkman Pro, which is a Sweeet little machine.

The story of my Walkman Pro: I had drooled and wanted one for several years. I intended to use it for recording stuff like music classes. A couple of months after I bought it, I got a portable minidisc machine that made cassette recording, even on that classy little box, sound just silly.

Back in the day, real "audiophiles" swore by reel-to-reel tape, on the higher speed. Even in my younger days, how we dreamed of owning a Revox!

Somehow, the past seems to cast a mighty spell over the music lovers of today. A lot of it is rose-tinted fantasy. Don't kick the scientists and engineers of the past few decades in the teeth: they probably did the most for audio since the development of stereo itself.

( Hmmm... I don't know why, but I get loquacious at 2.30am. Must be old age! :lol

 

[kicularlook]

Try to avoid buying without inspection. If you get a first hand Nak from the original owner, its likely to be in pristine condition.

 

[tcpip]

Second, what about the future? Even CDs are headed towards being the thing of the past: how many shops/outlets/etc still sell the music you want to listen to on cassette?

It is not just the CD or cassette which is dying out. The music lover who sits quietly and listens to music is dying out faster than all of these. The feeling that I am a blooming dinosaur hurts much more than the fact that I have a dead ZX-9 and cannot listen to any of my cassettes. :sad:

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Enjoy being a music-loving dinosaur.

The internet, or something else on the computer, often puts the music in the background for me. I know it shouldn't be that way.

 

[Sunderpalanivel]

First, be practical: whatever media you have a collection of, get the device that plays it.

[/I]

Could not agree more on this. More than the system music collection is very important.

 

[hemantwaghe]

Where is OP - joysec?

I am still wondering who are the audiophiles betting on casette ?

Hemant

 

[reubensm]

Interestingly a lot of us are still taping vinyl, myself included. Still maintain a cassette player in the car.

 

[reubensm]

Regarding purchasing cassette decks, let me add an adjective to my earlier post, namely "original owner" (this is just to avoid flash-debates)

I've always believed that if you can purchase a cassette deck (reel deck and turntables included) from the original owner, you'll have a better chance of getting one in decent condition, though not always. They key I would believe is to have access to owership and service history.

Personally, I always prefer to buy from German or British dealers (and not Indians), as they tend to be very honest and generally sell only good stuff. I've been conversing with some German dealers and got to understand that there are strict laws in the EU for online sales. Good stuff.

 

[sarith]

Personally, I always prefer to buy from German or British dealers (and not Indians), as they tend to be very honest and generally sell only good stuff. I've been conversing with some German dealers and got to understand that there are strict laws in the EU for online sales. Good stuff.

+1 to that.

 

[bhaskarcan]

Where is OP - joysec?

I am still wondering who are the audiophiles betting on casette ?

Hemant

Hemant,

Looks like the subject matter is more of the OP's own opinion(rather than the so called "audiophiles" thought) which he wants the other members to confirm and make his own ego to inflate.

Maybe the poor soul has already invested some dough in a cassette setup (and after realizing it's not so gratifying as he may have initially thought)now needs some moral boost.....

Regards,

 

[reubensm]

Cassette decks may be humble from an audiophile perspective but they sound good to the everyday enthusiast like me. And yes, there are some very high quality cassette decks around too. In my opinion, it was a revolutionary format that made music listening affordable to even school boys like me, back in the day, with limited allowances. While one tends to remember the "End" its also good to remember the "Means" that got us there

 

[hemantwaghe]

Cassette decks may be humble from an audiophile perspective but they sound good to the everyday enthusiast like me. And yes, there are some very high quality cassette decks around too. In my opinion, it was a revolutionary format that made music listening affordable to even school boys like me, back in the day, with limited allowances. While one tends to remember the "End" its also good to remember the "Means" that got us there

The query is simple - instead of OWN CONCLUSION show us data - after reading 15+ years I never find any superiority of cassette ... I feebly remember in 1 high end show some modified cassette tape deck is used ....so what it is 0.0001% proof - that cannot be the real accepted market.

My data shows that in last 12 years a lot of music have NOT seen the cassette - so cassette is for what - restricted era music?

Again I may be wrong or checking all wrong sites - so show me the data ..


In God we trust; all others must bring data.


- Deming

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Cassette decks may be humble from an audiophile perspective but they sound good to the everyday enthusiast like me. ...

Indeed. I agree. The question only comes into play if the question is Starting from nothing, should I go for cassettes or CDs?