Cassette decks. How good can it get?

I have 2 Aiwa AD-F780 (1988) 3-head dual capstan drive decks. I play cassettes regularly. Most are pre-recorded commercial tapes. I love the sound! I also have 2 Technics RM240X decks, with dbx, that I listen to. Still very good playback of 47 dbx tapes I made 1982-1984, Maxell UD XLII. Superb playback with no “pumping” as they used to call it. Most of the tapes I’ve digitized for long term storage. I also have an external dbx encoder/decoder, and 53 dbx discs that are truly phenomenal!

I won’t be giving up on cassettes any time soon.

Back in the day I had a cassette machine, kinda crappy really, but it looked nice and I would record songs from FM radio instead of buying the album.  Then I got my first Teac rtr and that was the end of the cassette almost.  Bought a dbx compander for the Teac and wow what an improvement.  So I tried it on the cassette and it really made a huge difference.  No, not enough so that it came close to the Teac, but good enough for casual playback. 

OP,
dbx equipment can be found on eBay almost all the time, heartily recommended.

Regards,

barts

@wolfie62 

That's about 10 times as many dbx discs as I had, gave them to a friend a while back.  I remember one was "HEART" and another was DeBussy...yes they did sound phenomenal!

Regards,

barts

Didn't Pioneer come out with a direct drive (gear) deck that was supposed to eliminate tape hiss?

I still run my Nak Dragon in my system and it sounds great. Yes the negative reply will be plentiful but most of them are referencing back to their boom box days. They always want to compare to reel to reel and the speed of the tape. Recording an album through a good tape monitor loop like the Sansui 9090 had and using a quality metal oxide tape produced very good recordings. I also recorded many live concerts off radio stations and still listen to them. Is it the best source for critical listening no but it can still sound very good if you make it about just enjoying the music.