Let’s hear it for old-fashioned cassette! When used in a great deck, they are hard to beat!

Dave

Oh, BTW, I won another Tascam 133 for $42 plus shipping and handling. Not bad for a deck with a list price of $1200.

Man, that's great that you're finding such good prices!

I still like tape too. I've been a long time user of Hi-Fi cassette. Some might consider cassette Mid-Fi, especially since most cassette equipment was. But there were some very high end tape decks made in the seventies and eighties. Your Tascams were a great example.

I stayed with cassette because I used them in cars. Back in the eighties, I ran Concorde cassette decks in my cars, which sound better than most CD players I've heard. These things were statement products. So I wanted to make good quality tapes for them, and found an Onkyo deck that had a bias adjustment. Not just the switch for tape type, but a variable knob for fine adjustment. I found that certain tapes worked best at certain settings, and without an adjustment, you really couldn't get the best sound from any given tape. That bias adsjustment knob has been a mandatory option on all tape decks I've purchased ever since.

Now days I still maintain tape for the same reason. My Cutlass uses a cassette deck, and I wanted to keep the stock dash trim which precludes my upgrading to a CD unit. Later models mount a CD player, and it's really a simple matter of using trim that had a larger cutout. But I wanted to stay stock, so I have a cassette deck in the car. Most thieves aren't old enough to remember cassette, so it thwarts them too.

Naturally, with a cassette deck in my car, I needed a good home deck to record with. So a few years back, I went on a search for a good unit. Most of the new units are of the old mid-fi variety anymore; I guess the thinking is that most people aren't using them. That's made availability of high quality decks even scarcer than it was two decades ago. But I did find the Sony KA1ESA. It's a great sounding high-quality deck and it has the requisite bias adjustment knob.

I guess if I had thought about it, I could have searched for a good cassette deck on eBay. What stopped me from trying was that I purchased a used Tascam cassette deck, thinking it was the old studio deck like you're undoubtedly talking about. I really like the pro decks made for doing four track recording. Great sounding decks, durable and nice sounding.

But what I mistakenly bought was the Taskam 202 MKII, thinking it would be more like the "real" pro units. It's not. The 202 is Tascam in name only, and is like a $59.95 discount store special. Terrible. So I didn't try the used deal again, and instead decided to search for a good new deck. If I hadn't been successful, I would have most certainly gone back to Tascam and purchased a good professional deck.

Anyway, I'm with you on this Dan. The sound quality of a good high-quality tape formula in a good tape deck is surprising. At 1.875ips, it's pushing the edge of magnetic media technologies, but it's convenient and good sounding.

Wayne

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3764933829

The nice thing about this unit is it has high speed option (3 3/4 IPS) and a loop for whatever outboard noise redution I want. Also, the 3rd channel. This works great use as a vocal close-up mic channel. I use it on a mic that is close to the vocalist's mpouth, then blend it into the rest of the music on the other two tracks, thus making the vocals less likely to be lost in the rest of the music. It works well for this. Very rugged and pro quality throughout.

Dave

That's one sweet deck. Has it arrived yet? How does it sound? What tapes have you tried and what works best for you?

Wayne

The Tascam probably won't be here until the middle of next week at the earliest. I have another identical deck that I've been using for about four years now. The right playback channel went garbled and I figured it would be cheaper to get another deck then to fix that one. Besides, this way I have a parts deck.
As for the sound, it's great. I recorded my last CD on it (three years ago). I've had a couple of audiophile friends comment on the good fidelity. I'm planning to start a new CD project later this month or in January.

Dave

I think some that aren't familiar with a real good cassette deck are quite surprized when they hear one. It's a great format, "user friendly" and good sounding when the tape and deck are of high quality.

When I use a deck with no bias adjustment, I usually find one of two brands that work best. Teac and Maxell CrO2 or metal tapes are usually best. But when I have adjustable bias, I can usually make most any tape but the ultra cheap ones sound pretty good. Of course, Fe2O3 tapes always have a little more bass and less treble, but with the right bias setting, I can make them really sound pretty good, flat out to probably 16kHz. The metal tapes are easy to get dead flat out past 20kHz.

I used to have a Pioneer CT-f900

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5734457662&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

This was my favorite stereo cassette deck. I think it's the coolest looking component I've ever had. Mine finally died (record stopped working and most of the rubber needed replacing). Someday I may just get another one just for the cool looks. The three head design sounded good, too. I think it had user adjustable bias fine tuning.

I like TDK's top chrome (type II) tape when I can find it (getting scarce around here). Maxell's top chrome is next on my list. These sound great on the Tascams. Sony's CD-IT tapes are ok, but not quite as perfect sounding. I haven't seen Denon tapes around here for a while. I used to use them in my pre-Tascam days and liked them.

Dave