The greatest consumer cassette tape deck ever produced?*

by the way... i had a few minutes to try the teac 4300-sx .. i recorded genesis live. wow. monster tone. all solid analog and a lot more. i cant wait to put some time, set and clean it. start recording. i also need to get some 7 inch tapes. which one are good?

 

what's a good 7 inch blank for TEAC A-4300SX
feet and density or whatever? Thanks,

 

Depends on what your machine is biased for. Most Teacs then were biased for Maxell UD and UDXL, UDXL's equal is today's Recording The Masters LPR-35 aka SM 911, you can also use their 468 tape formulation too (which is low print archival/broadcast tape). The LPR 35 is 1800 feet (90 minutes both directions), the SM 911 and SM 468 are 1200 feet (60 minutes both directions). Your Teac in fine cosmetic and functional order happens to be an excellent machine.

 

thanks for the info. probably gonna be asking you more in the upcoming days. ill get that spool ordered. meanwhile itested it this morning. wow monster sound. but needs minor cleaning and whatever. so far so good. i also got a jvc in the box. i just got it for a song. ill start off with these ones till i get use to it. thanks..

 

I got a brand new 361 ampex tape 2400 ft. I8ts just for starter. Any good?

 

I just posted a couple of scans in the cassette thread, when I dug out the cassette brochures I also found a Nakamichi one, I think it's from '86 or so, anyway here's their top deck.

 

The final addition to my recording station. I'll get the correct rack to it all setup up for starters. Ill playback it for a while until its all set in sound. before I make my recording adjustments and settings.

 

Nice looking deck.
Welcome to the world, (and expense) of RTR.
I think you will enjoy it.

 

Yes. Definitely a new road for me and exciting too. It sounds just incredible!
Stepping back at the cassette deck a bit, I cannot really say I'm all set with the cassettes decks but so far I have 3- 3-head recording decks and 3 playback single plus 1-multi 6 cassette shuttle that I'm using and backups. It took me almost 1-1/2 year to restore everything to workhorse abilities. with mountains of tapes. Its a good thing that I been buying high fidelity tapes for a long time. So far, on my recording experience, I'm probably only using 2% of type II and up cassettes. There rest are normal. Will just call it atleast 1-C90 a day of recording from Monday to Friday. So you can easily figure out how much I recorded and blanks available.
Moving forward to the reel, In the upcoming months, I wanna design and expand my storage racks so I can add the reels. My main music room is perfect which and its a bonus room upstairs. I can see out city and at nights which is so clear sky. The only thing I can see in the sky is millions of stars. On good nights like this season, I can see the milky way. I can dig that with this other reel deck that I got too. Its a 70's JVC and its practically like new in the box. Its so quiet and clean. Ill use this as a playback. I just plugged it in on my 300b and its just sound fantastic!.

 

Hey guys enjoy the long weekend. Seriously get out in the sun. The daytime is ultra-long and should be a great time to do stargazing tonight. Enjoy and see you guys in a bit.
Hey John baby lets talk later. Been a while.

 

Mornin'. gotta question here. I ran my recording today on the JVC reel and I was trying to figure out the input record level sweetest spot and sound like its around -6 to -5 on the VU meter. I'm not sure if that's correct but when I do a playback in my tube amp its really good.
Even the factory pre-recorded that I got when I do a playback on only swinging at -8 to -7. Is this like normal or I can push it more? On thing for sure, this reel deck sounds very wide and has more equalization. In the beginning, I thought I had my EQ running on my music source but it wasn't. Any tips would be great.
I recorded the Genesis Live album "The way we walk". Its incredible! My speakers are just totally worked up.

 

This machine I have no experience with. JVC then wasn't big in tape machines. And this machine is likely very good but not best. What tape formula are you using? This machine was most likely set up for a Japanese brand of tape, most likely Maxell UD or TDK SD/Audua of the era. A note: Your machine's VU meters are closer to peak reading than VU ballistic.

 

Medium grade scotch 296 reel grade using 3-3/4 speed. I was able to push it more to -4. I think youre right about the formulation, I gotta find the correct tapes for this.
All the sound and ingredients are there its just a matter of matching the correct media.
On a regular cassette sound experience, it does feels and sound like your running a scotch European normal bias on a pioneer silverface deck. I have a brand new maxell downstairs. I think I'm gonna try that one...
what about speed? should I go faster?

 

+1 on the Maxell. Honestly it already sounds excellent but this one is better! Wow Ill finish this whole album today. But first I'm run a fan. This thing can produce heat on the back. Ill probably gonna install a computer cooling fan in this later one during the week.

 

Increasing speed will widen the frequency response and increase signal to noise ratio. Of course your operating expense doubles because your time per reel is cut in half from 3.75 inches per second to 7.5.

 

Okay got you.
This old JVC reel surprisingly sounds good and absolutely super quiet. I cannot really compare it to the other one which is a Tascam but I'm pretty sure the Tascam is a better machine. I need to finish one more switch know on the Tascam and its all completely reconditioned.
Ill start recording these albums now. I did all the record level setting so I'm ready to rock. Out of curiosity I'll start with the 3.75ips.

 

finished the whole track. I switched to 7.5 and sounds way better... Thanks,

 

My best recordings on cassette decks has been eaten alive by the reel tape deck. I wont even try on the LP for I already know what's the answer.
Damn....

 

My Dad always coveted a Nakamichi Dragon. Then he discovered the Tascam 122mkIII and was happy for years.

 

By reputation it is the Nak Dragon and the Tandeburg 3012D (Dragon Slayer). However Sony, Revox (consumer version of Studer) and even Luxman had some bad-ass decks.

 

3014a

 

According to a youtuber, this is the greatest cassette deck ever. They're always pricey and in Europe or the Russian Federation when they turn up on eBay.

This was Sony's top model:



Similarly pricey, and usually in Japan or the Russian Federation. Both decks had Dolby S. If only I had nothing but time, space and money?

 

Hey John,
Here is my Tandberg Slayer.. 1-head solid player. I just did a full recap, all the belts, align, deoxite, re-luble all moving parts with silicone grease, labella 106 all plastic. Almost everything new. It runs dead quiet, supreme high fidelity sound. Fast forward and rewinds like a time machine....
I'm finish coating the shell panels so itll look nice. But here it is...

 

Actually it wasn't. Not if you made a copy of a CD, tape or vinyl record you already owned.

I love your post. It brought back memories of a better time. Did they really think the consumer would look at the skull and say, "Ohhhh Jesus, I better not tape...?"

Funny, according to most people from the "home tapping era" the tapes they made sucked. Assuming we are talking about Canada and the U.S here I never understood that. Even my cheapo $315, 2 head Kenwood deck from 1991 was damn good. It wasn't 3 head quality but it held it's own.

With Type 1 tape..... 30 - 17 000 hz +-3db
With Type 2 tape..... 30 - 18 000 hz +-3db
With type 4 tape...... 30 - 19 000 hz +-3db

Most cutting lathes bottom out after 18 khz and cutting frequencies below 30 hz on vinyl was difficult. Frequencies below 30 hz are hard to track by most budget carts. So 30 - 19 000 hz was more than adequate in most cases.

And all the multitracks from the 1960's crapped out after 15 khz. And with the exception of the Studer A800-24 Mark 1, most 24 track recorders from the 1973 - 1985 period were - 2 db at 40 hz (- 3 db at 30 hz) running at 15 ips. At 30 ips the bottom end was worse than that of a Tascam 144 4 track! Oouch! Even the famed Studer J-37, 1 inch half track John? Yep! Even the J-37.

For those who are curious:

All measurements are at 15 ips Record/ Reproduce (via tape) unless otherwise mentioned.

Studer J-37, 1 inch 4 track....30 - 15 000 hz +-2db

Ampex 300 series......30 - 15 000 hz +-2db
That covers the half inch 3 and 4 track, and the 1 inch 8 track models.

Scully 284 - 8 (summer of 1966) 1 inch 8 track.
Scully 284 - 12 (Aug 1967) 1 inch 12 track.
@ 15 ips..... 35 - 15 000 hz +-2db
@ 30 ips..... 50 - 18 000 hz +-2db
For those who are really curious, the 12 track recorder was only 1 db noiser than the 8 track model. Clever eh?

The Ampex MM-1000 16 and 24 track recorders.
(You could order by 1968 but no studios got delivery of said machines until early 1969)
@ 15 ips..... 30 - 15 000 hz +-2db
@ 30 ips..... 50 - 18 000 hz +-2db

3M M23...... 30 - 15 000 hz +-2db
The 8 track The Bealtes used at Abbey Road.

Why 15 khz? Apparently due to the head and tape transports of the time, recording the last half octave (> 15 - 20 khz) was very difficult.
So much so that the tape machine manufacturers of the day didn't even bother setting up their machines to record any higher than 15 Khz. In fact the Ampex test tapes in the the 1960's had no test tones above 15 000 hz. In 1970 everything changed. Even the tapes got better. The first good tape was the Scotch 306 in 1970. The 306 offered a 2db increase in signal to noise ratio over all the other tapes that had come before it.

For example the legendary Otari MTR90, 2 inch 24 track:

@ 15 ips..... 30 - 20 000 hz +-2db
60 - 18 000 hz +-1db

@ 30 ips.... 50 - 25 000 +-2db
60 - 20 000 +-1db

All specs are Record/Reproduce (via tape)

Signal to noise measurement.
@ 15 ips.... 66 db unweighted
.... 69 db 'A' weighted

@ 30 ips.... 68 db unweighted
.... 71 db 'A' weighted

The 71 db is the spec Otari used for the marketing campaign for their MTR90.

Anyway as you can see 30 - 19 000 hz +-3db using Metal tape and Dolby C (74 db 'A' weighted) would make you a damn good copy. Maybe not a perfect clone but close to it. I am not saying one should have not purchased a 3 head deck but even by the early 1990's cheap mid price decks had gotten very good. You could borrow your friends CD copy of DSOTM and make a cassette copy that sounded just like the CD. Or damn close. So when people say cassette sucked I wonder what they were doing. Probably making high speed copies of a cassette. Or recording on normal tape without any NR at a low level.

 

Old news same as video killed the radio star. I think digital plastic format is killing the music..
The reality is we are so much in advance technology today and hardly anyone knows how to write good music nowadays. The music, production, the right way how to lay down tracks, the music changes.... They just lost that feel.