Cassette decks. How good can it get?

@livin_262002   Thanks for that reminder. That does bring back some brain cells from back then.  

As an addendum, ALL the NAK decks broke pretty quickly after selling them.  They fixed them for us, but it was a PIA for the customers who paid top dollar for quality decks.  Once fixed, they seemed to be fine, but really?  Over $1000 for a deck back then was pretty steep--1970's.  I forget how much the Tandberg's were, but $795 comes to mind, or $895--in that range, I think.  The three-head adjustable decks were, of course, the most expensive.  Others made them as well, but I think these were the best ones.  Open to correction, of course.  LONG time ago...

Cheers!

@richopp Tandberg's were priced lower than TOTL Nakamihci decks IIRC around $1200. They were sold in lower numbers as well. Dragon was one of the best and longest selling Nakamihcis

I have two Nakamichi CR-7’s, one gear and one belt. Belt is better. But with my current vinyl setup, there is virtually no wear, and little reason to tape.

CR-7 is a 3 head machine with an auto setup feature, which is very convenient. Also an azimuth adjustment for playing tapes from lesser machines. It does not have the cast frame of the 1000 (and, I understand, the Dragon).

Even with metal tapes, there is a small loss of quality with cassette, but it’s not bothersome to me. Best of all are the ceramic body cassettes, but they are pretty much unobtainium now.

@terry9 I've got a stash of Sony metal ceramic body tapes, as well as Maxell XLII's.  I had been wondering if there might be a market for them, but now that I've had my Nak refurbished, I think I'll hang on to them.  Am I wrong, or is it pretty difficult to find quality tapes these days?

Yes, it is difficult to find quality tapes today. They are basically no longer produced, so you are stuck buying old ones, or if you can find them, NOS hi quality metal tapes. And both of those can be a crap shoot, as you don’t know how they were stored, and have been damaged. And expensive, typically, as there is now somewhat a cassette resurgence among some.

As I say, I really enjoy the ones I have, but doubtful I will expand my collection much. There are times I will buy a used record  label production tape, if it was manufactured during the ‘golden years’.