TDK SA-X or Maxell XLII-S which do you prefer?

XL1-S is lower distortion.

XL 1 s is lower distortion, post got changed in the translation

IIRC, the TDKs were smoother, cleaner, but had more frequent dropouts. The Maxells were brighter, a little grittier, with a little more detail, and suffered less from dropouts. I didn't think anyone still cared. I digitized all my cassettes (well, the ones I lacked a CD or LP of) and now my really nice Onkyo TA-2600 (bought new in 1989 - 2 motor, 3 head, with real time and time remaining counter!) sits at the bottom of my rack, gathering dust.

Well.... back during the day when I was using cassettes as one of my music sources (which is now no longer the case), I used TDK SA-X Chrome 2 Cassettes to record off of FM Radio, and their high-end Metal Tape to record CD's (all of which was used to playback on an Awia Walkman Radio Cassette Player..... I bought the 1986 model with Full-Logic Controls and a Wired Remote Control).

My Cassette Deck at the time was a Nakamichi BX-300 (3-Motors, 3-Heads, Direct-Drive, with Pitch and Bias Controls which I bought brand new in 1987, which I still have, but now, I no longer use).

Now.... this is what I call walking down memory lane.

--Charles--

I use my Nak 682ZX quite often but almost exclusively with Maxell Vertex metal tape, the best cassette tape known to man, at least to common man. Better by far than all TDKs, Denons, That's, Sonys etc. Extremely expensive to buy these days, quite rare too. I make compilations from vinyl and cds and get a great sounding background music.
I will keep tape deck forever.