I hooked up the Sony Video Cassette SLV 770 HF, and it sounded clean, loud and clear; no distortion. Beyond that I'm not going to compare it to any "high end" source, although the NEC I had was comparable to high end sources.
Chakster, get some "rubber cleaner" for your pinch roller, over a period of time you'll ruin it with water.
Now that I've down-loaded my records to digital I no longer use the record player. The expensive NOS Telefunken tubes in the phono pre went belly up, and I'm not going to replace them soon. I replaced them with some run of the mill tubes, but you know how that is; you can go up the ladder, but not back down, I'll have to live without the TT until I replace those tubes with the NOS Telefunkens.
I divide my time between computer playback and reel; although the reel is better, the play list is more convenient; plus the records were down-loaded when the NOS Telefunken tubes were functional.
Some years back, there was intense discussion on this forum in regard to upgrading digital playback until it was as good as analog. I took it all in and made the necessary changes including different cards in the computer, and the best equipment for down-loading records, as well as DAC for playback; my digital is very close to analog.
Those who haven't caught up can complain how inferior digital is to analog until the cows come home, but in the meantime I'm enjoying the quality and convenience of upgraded digital. Actually, since it's vinyl that was recorded digitally and played back through a Digital to Analog Converter, it's just half digital.
Happy Listening!