Showcase your cassette deck

Audiolab 7000 Series - Now available at HiFiMART.com
reubensm

reubensm

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
5,056
Points
113
Location
Trivandrum, India
Hi tapeheads!!

Would be nice if you can showcase your tape decks. There are many of us out there who still own and enjoy tape deck performance.

I own a Nakamichi DR3 in great condition. The sound of this deck is amazing and miles ahead of any other deck i've heard till date.

Looking forward to seeing your cassette decks.
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
500ba.jpg
 
miroflex said:
Hi,

Do you find a marked difference between the sound quality of the RX-505 and the Dragon? Enough to justify the difference in price?

Regards
Click to expand...

Hi,

The Dragon is one fine sounding unit. The best thing is how it optimizes the sound of every cassette no matter where it was recorded. That NAAC system is really a work of art. But it is also prone to problems :) When it works, it works WONDERFULLY and perfectly.

The RX-505 is almost 90% of the sound of the Dragon for the most part and even equal of it on cassettes recorded on the RX-505 itself. So not too much difference in sound. Putting up with the Dragon is a touchy subject because if it breaks down and needs servicing, that can easily get very expensive.

Cassette listening is fun....I find myself not recording to cassette anymore really. I just use the decks for playback now. Happy listening!
 
Our Children will never know the link between the two
Click to expand...

Nice one :) Even I had to think for a moment: in my mother country, the perfect fit is not so much a pencil as a Bic ball-point pen.

(I can also imagine children of the future saying, "That's one of those old-fashioned music-storage systems, yes? But what's the thing on the right?")

My cassette deck: Sony, recently deceased, awaiting discovery of local Sony Service Station, but don't have a lot of hope.

My Special, historical, cassette deck: Sony Walkman Professional. It's pics were featured on another thread, which I now can't find.
 
This is another cassette recorder which I used to own, back in my school and early college days. It was a Grundig C450 Mono Cassette recorder with fantastic recording quality. I still remember it had a 5 pin din socket with even a phono input. Great memories. It was reduced to use for recording only after I built my own stereo cassette player.

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_c450_automaticc_45.html
 
Last edited:
Thad E Ginathom said:
Nice one :) Even I had to think for a moment: in my mother country, the perfect fit is not so much a pencil as a Bic ball-point pen.

(I can also imagine children of the future saying, "That's one of those old-fashioned music-storage systems, yes? But what's the thing on the right?")

My cassette deck: Sony, recently deceased, awaiting discovery of local Sony Service Station, but don't have a lot of hope.

My Special, historical, cassette deck: Sony Walkman Professional. It's pics were featured on another thread, which I now can't find.
Click to expand...

Thad, you just brought back some memories...when I was a kid, we used to spend hours rolling up salvaged tapes using a ball-point pen, just to play them back and discover what was on them...later on, we'd roll through tapes just to check for fungus, before playing them!!
 
My brother used to own this deck until recently. Good deck but definitely not as good as my Nak DR3. He sold it off to a gentlemen who had a Denon rack with DRM500. He got this off my brother to replace his dead DRM500 and he was a happy camper after that. My brother did not want to sell but had too to avoid his FIL from playing rotton fungus tapes in it.
 
Last edited:
Nice thread.

Currently I own two cassette decks: 1) Nakamichi RX 505, 2) Onkyo K-505TX.

The RX-505 is of course a legendary deck and a lot easier to maintain than a Dragon (which also I had long experience with, but never owned it) while the sonics are almost indistinguishable from the Dragon for most recordings. In comparison, the Onkyo is a very ordinary deck. If I use dolby B/C in the Onkyo (of course with recordings with dolby B/C), it mutes the sound too much and takes away the sparkle from the music. This never happens in the RX-505. I know I should not compare the Onkyo and the RX-505. They are almost different breeds.

I will put up pictures of my decks one of these days. I have about 500 cassettes, and more than 90% are still in pristine condition, mostly premium quality chrome cassettes (TDK, Maxell, Denon), and some metal (Sony) and some normal bias too. I have a few Sony normal bias cassettes bought and recorded into in 1982 and still playing fine. Many of these cassettes contain live recordings of concerts of various artistes.

The decks I previously owned (apart from integrated decks in mini systems):

1) Technics (model forgotten), bought in 1986
2) Aiwa AD-F 800 3-head (bought in 1989)
3) Sony W-MD6 (Walkman Professional) -bought some time in early the early 90s, can't remember exactly)

The nos. 2) and 3) are very very good decks. I have done most of my live recordings with the W-MD6 using a stereo microphone and a pre-amp from a small Dutch company called Prefer. Some of these recordings are so good (through my Nak RX-505) that if I did not tell you, you'd think they were done professionally. I have also done copying from the W-MD6 to the Aiwa AD-F800 with exceptional results. AD-F800 was also used successfully many times for home recordings. It was a big deck and hence was a little inconvenient to move it from the rack. The recording on AD-F800 (costing Deutche Mark 650 in 1989) had marginally better quality than the W-MD6 (DM 800 in 1991 probably). For its size (much bigger than the usual Walkmans, but still very portable with a very nice leather pouch), the W-MD6 was a marvelous deck and could compete with the big brothers almost on equal terms.

Regards.
 
reubensm said:
Out of curiosity, why do you say that it is temperamental?
Click to expand...

It suffers from the infamous Technics electronic control misalignment. You press the Play button and Recording engages, you press the stop button the cassette rewinds...this happens sporadically. No issues while operating with the remote. I have lost the remote (it's becoming a habit now :() but works find with my universal remote.

I've seen other Technics decks have the same issue too.
 
Last edited:
Asit said:
Nice thread.

Currently I own two cassette decks: 1) Nakamichi RX 505, 2) Onkyo K-505TX.

The RX-505 is of course a legendary deck and a lot easier to maintain than a Dragon (which also I had long experience with, but never owned it) while the sonics are almost indistinguishable from the Dragon for most recordings. In comparison, the Onkyo is a very ordinary deck. If I use dolby B/C in the Onkyo (of course with recordings with dolby B/C), it mutes the sound too much and takes away the sparkle from the music. This never happens in the RX-505. I know I should not compare the Onkyo and the RX-505. They are almost different breeds.

I will put up pictures of my decks one of these days. I have about 500 cassettes, and more than 90% are still in pristine condition, mostly premium quality chrome cassettes (TDK, Maxell, Denon), and some metal (Sony) and some normal bias too. I have a few Sony normal bias cassettes bought and recorded into in 1982 and still playing fine. Many of these cassettes contain live recordings of concerts of various artistes.

The decks I previously owned (apart from integrated decks in mini systems):

1) Technics (model forgotten), bought in 1986
2) Aiwa AD-F 800 3-head (bought in 1989)
3) Sony W-MD6 (Walkman Professional) -bought some time in early the early 90s, can't remember exactly)

The nos. 2) and 3) are very very good decks. I have done most of my live recordings with the W-MD6 using a stereo microphone and a pre-amp from a small Dutch company called Prefer. Some of these recordings are so good (through my Nak RX-505) that if I did not tell you, you'd think they were done professionally. I have also done copying from the W-MD6 to the Aiwa AD-F800 with exceptional results. AD-F800 was also used successfully many times for home recordings. It was a big deck and hence was a little inconvenient to move it from the rack. The recording on AD-F800 (costing Deutche Mark 650 in 1989) had marginally better quality than the W-MD6 (DM 800 in 1991 probably). For its size (much bigger than the usual Walkmans, but still very portable with a very nice leather pouch), the W-MD6 was a marvelous deck and could compete with the big brothers almost on equal terms.

Regards.
Click to expand...

Cant wait to see the pics!!
 
This is my very first cassette recorder. We got it in I think, 1978 or so in a broken state. Father got the tape section to work and gave it to me in around 1986 or so. It was an old vintage Philips radio cassette with joy-stick controls (probably from the 1960s)
 
Last edited:
My guilty memory of a "classic" cassette machine.

This would gave been around 1972-ish. Sony made a machine that looked very much like the "cheap" portable cassette, battery powered, rectangular, with manual key control at the front --- but it was stereo, with external speakers and a superior sound. It was not at all cheap!

It also worked on mains electricity. By some ridiculous design decision, the "8" mains plug also fitted some other socket. One of my friends had one of these desirable machines. I was staying at their house overnight, and went to use the machine. You can imagine what I did when I plugged it in. There was a pop, and the machine was no more, and could not be repaired.

It's cost was several times my weekly wage at the time; it was just not possible for me to compensate.

My friend took it very well. :o :o :o

(the same friend was working in the news dept of the BBC. One day he brought home a Nagra reel-to-reel portable, probably more than a whole year's worth of my pay! Oh... that was one beautiful machine!)
 
Wharfedale Diamond 12.2 Bookshelf Speakers Special Offer
A beautiful, well-constructed speaker with class-leading soundstage, imaging and bass that is fast, deep, and precise.

Similar threads

N
Cassette Deck Tape
Replies
1
Views
3K
efernand1
E
T
TryVu from IOWA, US
Replies
2
Views
2K
Nikhil
Nikhil
reubensm
Pinch Roller Adventures
Replies
1
Views
4K
naks
N
S
A Sanely Priced Power Conditioner That Actually Works Objectively and Subjectively - OnFilter Powe Distribution Unit
Replies
8
Views
7K
saur1985
S
az9012
Indiq Signature Mishra V2 - Ownership Experience
Replies
9
Views
4K
mahaaprasaad
mahaaprasaad
Back
Top