Lots of people seem to have hoarded a few sealed cassettes, I pick plenty up at car boot sales and know people who regularly find them in charity shops, about 30-50% are low end and I don't bother, but at least a third are decent chromes, this year I've found BASF chromes, TDKs, Sonys and even a stack of Maxell XLII and XLIIS, all sealed, £1 or less each.
Probably nostalgia. There's no logical reason to use cassettes nowadays. As well as sealed OOP ones. That's because cassettes manufactured today aren't really top quality.
There's a Youtube channel called "Cassette Comeback" dedicated to discussing the quality of ancient cassette brands, you might want to check that out. The owner also runs an online shop, so keep in mind it's subtle advertising, but still very interesting.
I suspect it to be better than the dragon, either way you'll be splitting hairs, it definitely looks more impressive -at least to me- than a dragon. That one I linked to was overpriced, you can get them for less but they are a lot rarer than the dragon. If that is not good enough then you can get the gold plated one which cost more than several dragons and I have seen it only once on ebay.
I want to keep the sound analog, so I record my (analog sourced) vinyl to high quality cassette, so I don't have to flip the record over, etc. There is a "logical reason".
Pretty good. Got this 5 pack of Sony UX Pro (non-ceramic) for about GBP£2 the other day: And a friend in Europe has unearth these for me, from long-established hi-fi/audio dealers he knows, for about 4 Euros each, sealed, which is pretty amazing if you know what these are, and their vintage (we help each other all the time, finding forgotten high quality hi-fi items): This doesn't happen all the time, but it happens often enough. Just think how many tapes were produced over the years. My advice would be to cultivate long-distance audio friendships!
I never had any experience with one, but I was impressed with this youtube video of a slightly later model (with Dolby and azimuth adjustment!):
I own a Nakamichi Dragon (which many cite as being their favourite/ the best) and a Nakamichi RX505 (which is the deck I love to use) but I would swap both of them for a Tandberg TCD910 if I could get my hands on one (they are mega rare) as I rate that as being the best cassette deck of all time. It is strange that the Nakamichi Dragon has such a cult following and is rated by so many as being the best. I heard that Nakamichi themselves considered the ZX9 to be their best sounding deck and personally I prefer the CR7 to the Dragon. One issue I would take up with you though since I am an analogue fan and not a digital fan, when you say that the deck is close to CD quality I would have it the other way around, CD is poorer quality than a top of the class cassette deck. Having always had a turntable and cassette deck in my system and now have added a vintage reel to reel deck (Revox B77 Mk II) - analogue reigns supreme. Of course I do listen to CD but it definitely falls short in many ways. The higher resolution (and now defunct) formats of DVD Audio, SACD and HDAD show what can be done digitally though and were a huge improvement on CD but for some reason these have fallen by the wayside and given way to the inferior CD, my question is why? I do have DVD-A, SACD and HDAD discs which I listen to and if they were now still available would probably buy them. Vintage cassette tapes and decks are making a comeback and prices are rising. If you get hold of any of the top Nakamichi or Tandberg decks they will very likely appreciate in value……maybe? If you hear of a Tandberg TCD910 coming up for sale….please let me know!
I suspect Tandberg never made that many units of this deck and the deck was actually intended for professional use ...
I've got a Nakamichi Dragon and a Nakamichi CR7 (I sold my RX505 this past spring). I mostly use the CR7 to record (the auto tape calibration is great!) and the Dragon (with NAAC) for playback. I don't know about "best ever produced", but I know they're the best I've ever had.