Cassette decks. How good can it get?

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’.

@officerat So I understand. I looked for some time before I bought a big stash of good tapes, and that was many years ago.

EDIT: Depends on how deep your pockets are. Just looked on Ebay, and it seems you can get used ones for about $40, new for $200.

Just had my NAK serviced. Costly, but well worth it. An alternate analog to a TT. Have an abundance of blank high quality leading brand high bias type II and type IV cassettes awaiting. Glad because to have some fun at this time they sure do want more than an arm and a leg for them. Library here I come!