Top 10 vintage cassette decks

I use a JVC KD-A77 3 head deck it made great sounding tapes that I still listen to just put new belts still works great .

Nak CR-7A, out performed everything else in its class. Bought one new, and still have it. Every now and then I pop in a tape I made 25 years ago and still sounds great. Glad I never got rid of all my cassettes, have 100's

Many companies produced great cassette decks, most claimed big Nak killers, few did it though, some of the top ones came out late when cassette was dying and sported Dolby S. Many also never made it outside Japan so not well known, all were amazing piece of engineering and could demonstrate what the cassette was capable of, you cannot go wrong with any of these,

Nakamichi-ZX9, CR7, Dragon

Luxman/Alpine-K05/AL95 (same deck)

Revox-B215, B710

Pioneer-CT95, CT-A1

Sony-TC-K777ESII, TCK-A7ES 

Tandberg-TCD3014

Akai-GX-F95

Technics-RS9900

Teac-Z7000

Regret selling my TCK990ES (K555ES in Japan).

Back in the day I owned the Nak CX9. Could not afford the Dragon at the time. The Dragon was the ultimate deck. 

All Nak decks broke but were able to be fixed. The consensus "best" was the Dragon. Three heads, azimuth alignment are the keys to a good deck.

You can buy them used but you may have to have it serviced. Once it is working as intended, it was considered the best back then and still is.

Now, as for TAPES, well, good luck finding the best ones--metal as I remember.

Cheers!