Any new cassette recorders out there?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by patrickd, Jan 16, 2017.

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  1. patrickd

    patrickd Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Austin TX USA
    So my teenager has dug out my old Sony CD/dual cassette player that I bought in the early 90s and is having fun with it. Amazingly it still sort of works (as I told my wife, 'that is why it's worth keeping old gear around') but the cassette drives tend to chew up tapes and generally misbehave. He's keen to explore this new world of 'tapes' (!) and tells me his peers want to create mix cassette tapes, particularly stuff they stream/edit/mix up using laptops. While I am trying to figure out if I can get the old Sony to play nice with tapes, I wondered if there are any modern cassette recorders designed to take computer audio input. I figured musicians might be the last hold out but can't turn anything up at Musician's Friend and the like. Are we down to used gear only now for this?
     
  2. Benzion

    Benzion "Cogito, ergo sum" Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    No new production, with the exception of cheap console-style gizmos from the likes or Jensen, Pyle, and TEAC that combine a turntable, CD player, and cassette player, sometimes even an AM/FM tuner, to boot. Those are crap, but - if you're not too serious about it, they might work for a while. Otherwise, used, or, sometimes you may score a NOS deck on eBay - I've come across a few of those.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2017
  3. Benzion

    Benzion "Cogito, ergo sum" Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
  4. patrickd

    patrickd Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Austin TX USA
    Thank you -- I actually find now that Amazon lists that Pyle at an even cheaper price --- amazing since I search Amazon before asking here, clearly not as well as I imagined. Not sure how good it is but it will serve the basic purpose for sure!
     
  5. Arnold_Layne

    Arnold_Layne Forum Resident

    Location:
    Waldorf, MD USA
    Anything currently made is Chinese junk. If you want to get a decent working cassette head over to tapeheads.net and ask some of the members there who can recommend a decent deck that can be easily serviced to get back to specs.
     
  6. patrickd

    patrickd Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Austin TX USA
    Yeah, I get that (and I know I could easily get sucked into to classic model for myself) but primarily I want something that makes it simple for my son to interface a computing and tape rig. Was hoping there was a single box modern machine out there somewhere that was half-decent.
     
  7. dxer2_2000

    dxer2_2000 New Member

    Location:
    Australia
  8. PhilBiker

    PhilBiker sh.tv member number 666

    Location:
    Northern VA, USA
  9. Arnold_Layne

    Arnold_Layne Forum Resident

    Location:
    Waldorf, MD USA
    Because it doesn't have Dolby NR. For $149 don't expect much out of it.
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  10. Jerry

    Jerry Grateful Gort Staff

    Location:
    New England
    Most dual decks, and from what I've seen of USB cassette decks, have limited frequency response specs. When we were dubbing Dead tapes in the 70's and 80's, we always insisted that dual decks were never used.
     
  11. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    Jerry is right. Dual decks and the USB decks were not up to par on frequency response. And therefore, generated worse quality dubs.
     
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  12. Locutus67

    Locutus67 Forum Resident

    That Marantz "Professional" deck is really something. :laugh:

    It even features Dynamic Noise Reduction. DNR? You gotta be kidding! That was the poor man's Dolby that you found on the K-Mart stereos 30 years ago.
    I can't believe they label the tape selector as CrO2 rather than Type II. I guess that beats the K-Mart stuff that featured a Normal/Special tape selector along with the flashy DNR logo.
    And don't forget that oversize rec level knob for precise adjustments.

    I nearly forgot: I'm surprised it doesn't have a huge "Metal" logo of some sort with 'P.B. only' in very small type.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
    sunspot42 likes this.
  13. PhilBiker

    PhilBiker sh.tv member number 666

    Location:
    Northern VA, USA
    There is a Pyle Pro deck that looks like the same thing without rack ears.

    Pyle - Dual Stereo Cassette Deck with Tape USB-to-MP3 Converter »

    Good thing about it is that it is not auto reverse.

    tough to find any new tape decks being made by anyone. Methinks the best way to find something would be to purchase a not - too - old Tascam rack mount deck used or NOS.
     
  14. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    Marantz Professional split from D&M Holdings recently, and this is a major decline in quality from their previous good gear.
     
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  15. fmfxray373

    fmfxray373 Capitol LPs in the 70s were pretty good.

    Look for a gently used JVC KD-V6 three-head cassette deck. I found one about 4 years ago on EBay for $40. Cheaper than a Nak and sounds great.
     
    McLover and Daddy Dom like this.
  16. GuildX700

    GuildX700 Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Any brand new deck being sold now days is a POS.

    As was said look for an older top of the line deck from one of the major manufactures preferably with Dolby S, even if you don't use the Dolby S those decks are all built to a much higher degree of quality and be sure it's been gone through with new belts and such or make sure you have a place that can do that before you buy one. Some are easy to do belts on, others are a nightmare.

    I have several top of the line decks, Teac, Aiwa, Pioneer, Onkyo and love using all of them.
     
  17. Daddy Dom

    Daddy Dom Lodger

    Location:
    New Zealand
    Another anti-dual-deck here. I remember all kinds of compromises with flutter and motors running at wrong speeds. One sounding better than the other yada yada ...
     
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  18. HDOM

    HDOM Well-Known Member

  19. Bubbamike

    Bubbamike Forum Resident

    Get your Sony fixed and forget the new junk.
     
    jlykos and PhilBiker like this.
  20. HDOM

    HDOM Well-Known Member

    Who?
     
  21. jlykos

    jlykos Forum Resident

    Location:
    Parts Unknown
    I had a Sony KA2ES that had been broken for around 15 years that I recently had repaired by a local electronics tech. All the repairs cost $100 and the deck is as good as new. You may want to scour Craigslist for a decent model, even a non working one and find somebody to fix it. Much cheaper than buying one new and probably better quality as well.

    I never throw out my electronics. Its amazing what you can have repaired by a good tech. Even if I end up not using it, you can always put it on eBay with the certificate of repair and make somebody else happy.
     
    HDOM likes this.
  22. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    TASCAM just released a new cassette deck:

     
  23. harby

    harby Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    With no Dolby B or C, this doesn't make for a good choice for transcribing tapes you've got, even with its 48kHz/16 bit USB output.

    With no HX Pro either (although this bias technique must be patent-free by now), and no support for metal tapes, it doesn't reach to new heights in recording either...
     
    Larry Geller likes this.
  24. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    As explained in the video, Dolby no longer licenses their analog noise reduction systems. From what I've heard, it was a change in company policy shortly after Ray Dolby passed away in 2013.

    The recording heads available today are incapable of delivering the increased bias current necessary for recording correctly onto metal tape. But the 202mkVII does still have the sensor towards the middle to detect when a metal cassette is inserted, so at least it knows to apply the correct 70 µs equalization during playback.
     
    Jeffreylee likes this.
  25. 12" 45rpm

    12" 45rpm Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    This deck usually goes for ~$80 nowadays. Another good JVC is the TD-V66 .

    To the OP, I would recommend buying a "serviced" used deck. I bought one from this ebay seller who seems to know what he is doing:

    abraxasaudio | eBay
     
    nosliw likes this.
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