WHat did Audiophiles hear during Tape deck era?

My cassette voyage started with a Technics RS 673 which I received as a gift for my high school degree - it still runs flawlessly, sendust heads, direct drive. It was a "high end" 2 head deck, the sound is still vivid and extremely stable. Actually, the deck that replaced it has over the years more problems with W & F. This is an Alpine AL 300, Alps attack on the Nakamichi throne, a three head deck with test tone generator, level and bias adjustment, linearly reaching 20k. 20k was a status symbol for the top cassette decks, but was reached with tuned resonances in the electronics...
It sounded superb, it took extremely careful listening with good headphones to detect differences between recorded and replayed music. Tapes used were Maxell & Hitachi EX and XL-II, XL-IIs, some TDKs and many Sonys.
My many recorded tapes (with LPs) still transport the quality of my good LP front ends quite spectularly given the limited physics of the medium. Including the colourful sound of my brothers Garrard "tangential" with a Decca London export...
A surprisingly transparent medium provided the source and the recording deck were of excellent quality.
These days I listen cassettes on a Sony Wd-6 pro portable deck - it's sonically stll extremely satisfying , and the direct drive mechanism (W&F) hasn't suffered a trace over all these years!

I know what you mean. I have a Sony WM D3. I have discovered a way to make cassettes sound better by damping they case. It’s called the Mystery Tweak. But I don’t reveal what it is because then it wouldn’t be a mystery any more. It’s very hush hush 🤫 And speaking of cassettes I just spent my entire stimulus check on cassettes. Was that wrong?

Those Sony WM players are crazy prices right now.
$250 up for the D3 and $600 to $1500 for the D6?
EEK!

Actually the D6 sold for more than 750.– CHF in the early eighties, the D3 maybe slightly below 600.- CHF. They are built to last, except the tape heads, but the latter seem to be of very durable quality though.
So, 40 years later in todays value, in legendary Sony quality of then (they don't fabricate quality like that anymore) would cost as much as many of these "audiophile portable players" in the above 2000$ range, but without firmware & interface & standards obsolescence.
So 1500$ is a lot indeed, but still considerably less than what a 2020 equivalent pro cassette deck would cost new...