That's what you get with the generic Chinese cassette mechanism that is being manufactured these days. Tascam's specs aren't any better than that of a $100 ION or Pyle cassette deck using the same mechanism.
Yes, but not good three head models. There is one at my local mall. A dubbing deck with only Dolby B. And they are not built as well as they used to. Back in 1985 I had an Hitachi $170 machine that was built like a tank with VU meters. Even at that price it was well built. Made a lot of good tapes on those. But I miss my Nak 581. I loved her..
Did you say 50 - 12 500hz!? Even the cheapest $100 machine back in 1980 could do better than that. This is more of the frequency response of a 8 track cassette unit. No, they are better than this. How can they put this piece of crap on the market? I purchased a Sony cassette deck (new) a few years ago. It's no Nak but it makes a pretty good tape. And it has B and C. I have a lot of band demos on cassette (don't ask).
None of the cassette deck makers will dust off their state-of-the-art cassette deck designs and crank up production again unless they see clear signs that cassette tape is making a massive comeback ...
I started reading this thread so I walked over to see what cassette player I have in my living room system (a JVC TD-V621) and decided to start listening to some of my collection of .25 thrift store cassettes. Thanks Chad Not my actual player.
C'mon guys, you are overdoing it! You almost convinced me to look for a cassette deck in 2017, again! No way... who knows...
And you had a few iconic European-made cassette decks? Philips, Telefunken or Grundig? How about a Tandberg?
You got it, my first real love affair was a Philips stereo cassette deck. I had some mono light sex before with Sanyo, but I was a kid then. Growing up I met Pioneer but after that I really became adult with TEAC.
It's a good player. I got it at Goodwill for $14.99. I passed it by at first because it was JVC and I was more familiar with their lower end stuff. On second thought, I decided that it looked pretty good and Googled it. After I read up on it I decided to stick in my cart and buy it. Chad
This thread has taught me that many photos of great cassette decks can be posted...but a true knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of analog cassettes, cassette decks, and their capabilities elude some people. And that's fine.
JVC has some outstanding top of the line decks in their latter cassette deck days. The JVC TDV 1010 and TDV 1050 were probably their best ever decks, both were excellent. JVC TD-V1010 - Manual - Stereo Cassette Deck - HiFi Engine JVC TD-V1050 - Manual - Stereo Cassette Deck - HiFi Engine
Oh really? Well, we shall see about that. I have a plan. I will protest. I will eat chocolate pudding endlessly until the cassette is returned to it's former glory. And if that doesn't work I will take the letter "Y" hostage. I understand it's sometimes a vowel. Seriously though. O.k. I don't expect new cassette machines to be 20hz - 20Khz +-3db and have a wow and flutter rating of 0.05% but 50 -12 000hz +-4db and 0.3%?!! They don't need to bring out their top models to avoid this ultra-low spec shenanigans. If they can't manage at least 40 - 15 000hz +-3db and 0.08%, then they shouldn't even bother.
JVC....Now that's a company that knew how to make cassette decks. MFSL modified 100 mid priced JVC cassette decks and used them for years to make their famous 1:1 Chrome Dolby B tapes. See the exert from the interview below... "...As we slogged through the re-engineering of the candidate decks we started feeling a bit overwhelmed. The task looked hopeless. Then, one day, I opened up a KD A77 JVC deck. It was a mid priced unit but lo and behold it had a 15V power supply. Whoooopeeee. It could drive full swing from the wider bandwidth LF353 op amps we were replacing 4558's with and could punch the bias where it needed to be. Those changes and a few other little things and we had the ultra hotrod recorder of our dreams. They weren't super at playback but man oh man, could they print a mean signal..."