Cassettes still rock!

thanks for the tips on what to look for--back then i was just trying to replace mostly rock/folk albums and most of the CDs were awful (not all).  Interestingly the flood did not touch my classical music LPs--made me wonder if there was a message there.

I just had a client contact me to let me know that y'all think I'm "GONE".  I can assure you I'm still very much here and repairing Nakamichi cassette decks.  With my current backlog I hardly have time to follow these forums but have read a bit of this thread.  My two cents for sound quality:  If you haven't heard a Nakamichi cassette deck properly calibrated you haven't really experienced what the cassette format is capable of.  Having  been a servicer and retailer when all these decks were new I can assure you that all the claims by non-Nakamichi dealers that the deck they were trying to sell you was a "Nakamichi killer" are false.  Back then the Nakamichi franchise was highly sought after and difficult to get.  If you didn't have it you had to do anything you could to sell the products you could.  Recently I rebuilt a Dragon for a client who also owned an Akai R-R deck.  After listening to his Dragon he's selling the Akai because the Nakamichi out performed it so dramatically.  I'm not saying that the cassette format is superior to R-R.  If you have a really good quality R-R (Revox, Tandberg or the like) the benefits of higher tape speed and greater track width show through.  Mid line Japanese consumer R-R decks just generally don't sound very good.

Good to see you here Willy.
Wyoboy was the member who thought you had retired.
I corrected him on that and I guess he emailed to verify.

This is Kevin in Florida with the zx7 you just restored and extremely happy with the job you did for me.
Nice to see you bringing a technical perspective to the questions.
👍👍

I was thrilled to get an email from Willy this morning--i looked for the comment from someone else about him being "gone" but i couldn't find it--not sure if it was on this thread or a different one--anyway, Kevin, thanks for letting me know that was erroneous.  Willy serviced my Nakamichi deck about 10 years ago and it's still working beautifully.

 I don’t play cassettes anymore but my brother does. He has a very inexpensive system in his garage with an old Panasonic cassette player I believe.  Maybe 100 old cassettes.  Does it sound good? Hell no, it sounds like total crap! But he absolutely loves it.  But then again he is not an audiophile. To each his own right?  

 It would be interesting and great fun to hear a nice Nakamichi deck on a good system again.