WHat did Audiophiles hear during Tape deck era?

I had a Nak Dragon and the only reason I had it was to record cassettes for the Nak deck in my car. When CD came along I tossed the cassettes and the Dragon. If you think they sound good you have a lot of work to do on your system. On ESLs with subwoofers they sound worse than an MP3 file. I can understand using a Garrard 301 long before I could understand using cassettes. They were the best you could do for cars back then but that is about it.  

In the 80’s I used a Teac X10R R2R, which I still have, with a dbx 224 type II noise reduction unit and dbx 3bx range expander.  I also had a professional Technics cassette deck with dbx 224.  I recorded about 40 reels and about a hundred cassettes. I loved the R2R sound, and the cassettes.  

In the 90’s my cassette recorder broke.  I was heartbroken, but by then I had moved on to CDs and ripped many of my reels to a NAS and my iPod.  I haven’t played my R2R in a while.  In the present, I enjoy streaming and my vinyl rig.

mijostyn, you seem to need a lot of work on your hearing. Can I suggest a good candling? 🕯

Mijo
So boring but so predictable......

Prerecorded sets were crap. The worst may have been Columbia and chrysalis. You didn’t even get to the point where you were discussing the sound because the tape would malfunction. We’ve heard mention of a few Decks from back in the day that would give you some good sound, those being Nak and Tandberg. My recollection is that TEAC made a couple that were pretty good.  As young lads my friends and I were guilty of cranking up the levels and saturating the tape on occasion. Worrying about the sound came a few years later. A substantial number of early CD reissues supposedly suffered by being mastered from cassette masters which I don’t even want to think what generation they were. But that tells you how much care of the wrecker companies are putting into the cassettes, knowing that they wouldBe played in cheap car stereos for boomboxes