Cassette decks. How good can it get?

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.

@barts 

I bought my dbx discs in 1990. The base Exchange was closing out its entire stock of records. Dbx discs were $15.95 each. They reduced the entire stock to $1 each. I spent $125 in one day. 53 dbx discs. I bought every Nautilus disc and Telarc disc also. The next day I bought their last Denon DP45F deck for $25. I missed out on the 57, 59, 62 decks. My wife was not happy that I spent money on them. She is my ex-wife now…..

@wolfie62 

@wolfie62 

Wow that's a once in a life-time gambit! Good for you.  Fortunately, my darling wife is a music fan and has "golden ears".... no really.  So, I get some grief if I purchase some crap.  I don't buy crap.  It's a private joke between us......................

Go figure.

Regards,

barts

The last cassette deck I owned was a Nakamichi 700ZXE and it was just as enjoyable as my TT/CD decks (this was 20 years ago).

My wife had a lot of commercial tapes and I had a "some" tapes recorded from LP to a Nakamichi 600.

The majority of my old tapes were stolen from the back of my car when I was moving in with my fiancé (AKA my current wife) 32 years ago.

 I used to do a lot of live band recordings (bands I played in) and also owned a 550?, plus a 250/350 (forget which) for playback in my car (mated with a 12V capable Advent 300).

I also used various VHS decks as well as a heavy/cumbersome Beta deck for recording.

The SQ of the Beta deck was really nice.

Oddly enough I also used an old inexpensive Akai cassette deck (not a clue as to the model) that was just as good as the 600, plus it was less fussy about tape.

In addition I owned/used an Aiwa double deck with synchronized SOS for mixing, but forget the model (think I bought it around 1980).

Love a good cassette deck.

DeKay

Had the Nak 1000 and CR-5A, CR-5A was better. My CR-5A had been tweeked by our 2in R2R tech and biased to TDK MA-XG tapes. Was better than any 7 1/2 ips R2R I ever owned ( admittedly i've only owned 3, but have listened to many in and out of the studio. Supposedly this was the 2nd CR-5A in the USA, per our NAK rep. I truly enjoyed it 'till the day some scumbag stole it.😢