cassettes CAN sound better than vinyl.

I still use and love my dragon. Have own since bought new in 83. I recorded a ton of live radio broadcasts that still sound really good. I also ran sound for bands and we were able to tap into the boards at concerts and record major acts with out them knowing. I always felt the cassette was way under valued in its day and even more today. It is close to an album and I don’t have to clean snd flip every time I listen!

Great thread! I love using my 682ZX and CR4 machines. The dolby C with then newer chip in the CR4 is incredible. Very quiet. This is as far as tape technology got for me. I love the sound of tape and I can hear it on a good system. I like it because of that. Best source to record from is vinyl. I also recorded ALL my LPs onto HQ tape. Some still sound great today on the Nakamichi machines. The best part was grabbing a tape and just putting it in and pressing play. The record takes effort to clean and set up each time to sound good. I take care of my vinyl so it takes longer. Anyway in a perfect world I would now have a Dragon. 

@rfnoise


I had several MCS systems. The first was a 10-watt receiver with a matching cassette deck, belt drive MCS TT, and some small book shelf speakers. The second was a 33-watt receiver with a much better cassette deck, MCS 3-way speakers, MCS direct drive turntable, Realistic 5-band EQ, MCS headphones, etc. They were great systems and they truly got me hooked on hifi. I think that MCS held its own against other brands of the time. Pretty sure I bought all my stuff on layaway as I mowed lawns to save for the next stereo!

That Teac cassette deck was $1,000 new when I bought it (got it through the military catalogue for around $600ish). Surprising that they are now $1,500 used. I'd be afraid of it breaking! But it sure sounded good back then. Auto reverse, Dolby B, C, Metal, dBX, etc. It was pretty cool for sure.

Tape is still the very best medium but it is not any tape in any cassette deck, it is in higher end RTR decks. That said, and I use customized and aligned Nak 682ZX with Maxell Vertex tapes, it can and does sound real good. Biggest disappointment is a 'collapse' of a soundstage compared to the vinyl source. However, in the case of my system at least, tape sounds smoother and 'nicer'.
Soon I am going to try recording off the turntable onto Panasonic pro AG line SVHS video cassette recorder. Theoretically, it should sound better than the Nak or any other cassette deck, should be close to a good RTR. The 7350 Panasonic is coming my way from Quebec. I hope it works.

Yeah...no! 8 tracks maybe?