Thinking about adding a cassette deck to my set-up

Sounds terminal to me. Forget the Awia. It has to many issues. If you want a nice cassette walkman look into a restored Sony Pro walkman. Just playback. Make sure it has B and C.


But if you want that analog sound make DSD copies of all your vinyl and cassettes. I share your love of a analog. And if it was 1992 I would agree with you. But my audiophile friend DSD digital can make perfect analog dubs of any source material you have. Check it out.

 

Find one of the Studer ReVox offerings of Cassette Decks, they were all great and so well built!


Studer ReVox cassette deck - Google Search

 

I will check it out John. I will keep the Aiwa as a nice display piece and will take a look at Sansui deck to see if I can fix it.

 

Ahh, I am a total idiot! Of course Revox, the consumer division of Studer. Yes, great. But rarely do they go on sale.

 

It's o.k. with me. I repeat myself all the time here

 

Oouch!! Sounds horrible. I tired to fix my digital 8 track a few years ago. 20 minutes later it was in the garbage.

 

I Love VU Meters. Reminds me of the 1970's and Sweet Tea.

 

John, they are a bit tough to find, but hey, they are TOP SHELF.

 

Mmmm...Yea....No argument there.

 

... Hey John,, I got a question here. I lost my cassette frequency tape and timing. I did a count and I'm off 1 second in 3 minutes. Is that good enough?

 

That depends. I guess it is o.k.
Anyway, how did this happen? What do you mean by lost?
Were you fooling around with your cassette decks again weren't you? O.k.....That's it, you are grounded.

 

Hi John,
I ended up buying another pioneer 2-head blueline deck from the early 80's so I have a similar backup plus its easy to maintain it. I have to adjust the the VU, the azimuth and the playback and recording speed. I lost my frequency tape so I just adjust it close enough and ran the digital file and the cassette at the same time. I got close to 1 second difference in 3 minutes. I don't feel like touching it anymore. LoL..... Anyways I just use this for playback. Its a real nice sounding machine. Since I got the first one, I changed all the rubbers and belts. I been running this work from home almost 10 hours a day. Surprisingly dependable. What a nice deck.
... PS. I also bought another blueline. pioneer ct-f950. I haven't even fired it up yet. Probably needs work and hopefully not much. This should be a good recording deck.
Do you know anyone that will completely recap these decks the right way? Thanks,,,,

 

First off, the U.S Government has forbidden you from buying anymore cassette decks. You will get THE CHAIR if you buy another one.


Seriously, one second is o.k.

Note: A few years ago 3 VU became 0 VU.
And no, I am not joking. You need to reset those meters. Although I believe this only applies to Pro equipment. I will get back to you on this.


There is no way in the world you can get Pro quarter inch, half track RTR performance out of a cassette deck. No matter what you do. It is 4 tracks over 1/8 inch of tape running at 1 7/8 inches per second.

Good luck..


P.S. What do you do for a living? I used to write parking tickets for $9.25 /hr before I started working for Uncle Darth Jack at his studio.

 

ct-f850

 

It's a good 2 head model. It will perform well.

 

It is 3 head but no way to adjust bias and such. What does the manual say for frequency response? What tapes does it say to use? The bias would be set for just a few tapes. Many of them you can't get anymore. Looks good..Nak didn't build any crap. Only good stuf.

 

Actually D1 is a dead video format. More likely D5 or D6.

 

I have 2 Luxmans and an HK, cassette decks. If you lived in Toronto I'd give you one of them. That would still leave me with a spare, just in case. They all work and sound great.

 

Sorry John.. I was in the middle of recording, feeding my wife and cat then take out the cat. When I came back.. what a disaster on the recording.
First of I was using the new motu interface and I pulled an okay harman kardon (mid fidelity) cassette deck and see how the process goes. On A side the out come was "very-good". On side B side all of a sudden the motor took a dive. right in the middle of the 45 mins. I totally forgot about these types of machine. They're only good for 20/20. Ive wasted a nice Japanese Fuji c-90....
Going back to the pioneer decks. the 2 ct-f555 are both 2 head players. Those guys are really workhorse. During the pandemic work from home I was able to run them continuously for 8-11 hours a day. With all the belts new, including slightly oversized idler tire +.010 and new pinch roller with the brass wide base. The pulley pin gap is not even .002 and I silicone-grease tin film. This deck sound excellent on my recordings with the sony 3 head.

... The ct-f850 is a 3-head. By far this is the most simplest recorder on the blue line. I hope I can fix this one. If I get it running I'm gonna try to get it completely recap.

Pioneer CT-F850 is a 2-motor, 3-head metal tape capable stereo cassette deck with Dolby system.
Features include an electronically controlled DC servo motor for capstan drive, DC high torque motor for fast forward and rewind, Sendust Alloy Solid recording/playback head and a small window erase head.
Specifications
Type: 3-head, single compact cassette deck
Track System: 4-track, 2-channel stereo
Tape Speed: 4.75 cm/s
Heads: 1 x combination record/playback, 1 x erase
Motor: 1 x reel, 1 x capstan
Tape Type: type I, FeCr, CrO2, Metal
Noise Reduction: B
Frequency Response: 20Hz to 19kHz (Metal tape)
Signal to Noise Ratio: 69dB (dolby B)
Wow and Flutter: 0.04%
Total Harmonic Distortion: 1.2%
Input: 64mV (line), 0.3mV (mic)
Output: 0.45V (line)
Semiconductors: 52 x transistors, 52 x diodes, 10 x IC
Dimensions: 420 x 150 x 361mm

 

Nak has an annoying habit of listing the specs for Type 4 tape only. Appaerntly Pioneer had the same problem. Metal tape is out of reach to most. You wouldn't get up to 19 khz with Type 1. Probably 17 khz.

It is excellent performance for the period but any 2 head $300 cassette deck from the 1992 could match it. Nice deck though!

 

Hi John,
Just like you.. with so much tapes that I listen and recorded on, being honest I lean towards more on the "highest fidelity Type I" normal bias. I can listen to it for a long time just because the frequency range is warm.
Speaking of.. I recorded something last night using the motu as the player to the 3 head cassette. Digital and warm. Its got a nice dac. I thpught it was recorded on a revoxx.. It turned out so nice!

 

The recording turned out really nice. The only thing I need to work on is the loop. I tried using 2 in and 4 out in the analog and its not balanced as you can see on the window. I gotta get back on this after lunch.
Any takes?

 

What? Don't you know a good ADC starts at $5 000? An actual quote from my cousin that runs a high end audiophile store in the GTA. All of the AD/DAC he sells are $5000 or higher. Jesus!
I think he hit his head on the floor or something.

 

FWIW, my Technics RS-AZ6 (bought from ebay in 2018) claims according to the manual:

Type I: 20Hz - 17kHz (+/- 3dB), 20Hz - 18kHz (DIN)
Type II: 20Hz - 18kHz (+/- 3dB), 20Hz - 19kHz (DIN)
Type IV: 20Hz - 23kHz (+/- 3dB), 20Hz - 24kHz (DIN)

My much older Technics RS-M235X (bought new in the 80s) claims:

Type I: 50Hz - 15kHz (+/- 3dB), 30Hz - 16kHz (DIN), 20Hz - 18kHz (unspecified)
Type II: 50Hz - 16kHz (+/- 3dB), 30Hz - 18kHz (DIN), 20Hz - 19kHz (unspecified)
Type IV: 50Hz - 17kHz (+/- 3dB), 30Hz - 18kHz (DIN), 20Hz - 20kHz (unspecified)

 

PS Whoever would make new type II and type IV cassettes today, would make tons of money, don't you think?