Cassette decks. How good can it get?

The last cassette deck I owned was a Nakamichi 700ZXE and it was just as enjoyable as my TT/CD decks (this was 20 years ago).

My wife had a lot of commercial tapes and I had a "some" tapes recorded from LP to a Nakamichi 600.

The majority of my old tapes were stolen from the back of my car when I was moving in with my fiancé (AKA my current wife) 32 years ago.

 I used to do a lot of live band recordings (bands I played in) and also owned a 550?, plus a 250/350 (forget which) for playback in my car (mated with a 12V capable Advent 300).

I also used various VHS decks as well as a heavy/cumbersome Beta deck for recording.

The SQ of the Beta deck was really nice.

Oddly enough I also used an old inexpensive Akai cassette deck (not a clue as to the model) that was just as good as the 600, plus it was less fussy about tape.

In addition I owned/used an Aiwa double deck with synchronized SOS for mixing, but forget the model (think I bought it around 1980).

Love a good cassette deck.

DeKay

Had the Nak 1000 and CR-5A, CR-5A was better. My CR-5A had been tweeked by our 2in R2R tech and biased to TDK MA-XG tapes. Was better than any 7 1/2 ips R2R I ever owned ( admittedly i've only owned 3, but have listened to many in and out of the studio. Supposedly this was the 2nd CR-5A in the USA, per our NAK rep. I truly enjoyed it 'till the day some scumbag stole it.😢

had an akai gx9 back in the day that was superb...that was hands down the best tape deck i've owned. never got my paws on a high end nak though. maybe someday.

right now i use an akai gxz9000 which i believe was a japanese-market-only 3-head deck, and then upstairs a nakamichi bx1 (their entry level 2 head from 83 iirc) that i picked up for super cheap. both awesome, reliable decks that sound excellent. all in all i've owned maybe a dozen decent ones, give or take. before these current two i had a suckface luxman, truly 'love it or hate it' lookswise, but for a 2 head deck just great sound. an old harman kardon 292 that was a workhorse for years. a whacked out jvc that looked like a coked out executive's idea of "futuristic tech"...a couple really nice sonys..etc etc

i'm not adding much here since the OP asked about TOTL stuff but i had to weigh in because i love the format and the gear.

pioneer came out at the last with a cassette deck [CT-W616DR] that employed a refined form of digital DNR and also "digital flex" [dynamic treble enhancement above 10kc], that reported nearly the same s/n ratio as [average quality 16 bit] digital equipment. reviews were mixed-

http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=59361

My JVC KD-A77 I brought new still sounds great , it was good enough for Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab . I'm going to sell it .I just found a Technics RS 9900 US in perfect condition I'll keep this one