Top 10 vintage cassette decks

AIWA AD-F1000 - pretty much indistinguishable from vinyl when using Sony UX-Pro tapes.

I remember auditioning cassette decks in the 70s. My goal was a deck that was indistinguishable from the LP. I settled on an Aiwa, way too long ago to recall the number but cost about $350 I think. Nakamichi was considered the tops. Anyway, the first deck didn’t live up to expectations back home, so I traded up to the next Aiwa model for the difference in price with my local audio store in Dallas. That did it. I had an ARxa turntable at the time, probably a Shure cart, Marantz 2230 and large Advents — very 70s lineup. By the time the head wore out CDs were here so I didn’t pay for the repair. I remember CrO2 tape was the best.

Brent,

Lot's of replies for various decks.  Can't say one way or another which is best.  But, I would like to interject.  If you are not looking for absolute performance (and I can only assume you are not if you are looking at cassette decks), I would suggest looking at a cassette and a R2R that match each other.  My go to pair would be a Pioneer RT-909 and a Pioneer CT-1250.  Neither of these decks is the best in their class and neither of them will be a bargain.  But they can give you decent performance and they'll look good doing it.  At least that's my opinion. 

Good luck however you proceed.

Nakamichi Dragon was nice, but I'd pick the ZX-9. The Dragon did everything automatically, where the ZX-9 allowed for manually fine tuning the heads, etc.. With (I think) Maxell CR02 tape I made the best sounding cassettes I ever heard. It did a better than excellent job on prerecorded tapes, too. Like most, I wish I'd never let mine go.

knolbrent, back in the '70s and '80s I owned a number of cassette decks.  They included Nak, Tandberg, Harman-Kardon, Aiwa, Pioneer, and Denon.  Because of the time interval my comments today must be only general terms.

First off, beware of prerecorded tapes you may find in used record stores and thrift shops.  Even brand new and undamaged I always found tapes I recorded myself were of better sonic quality.  A main reason was likely the high speed duplication necessary for volume production.  And at the time cassettes were the #1 sellers.

Nakamichi has become the standard "go to" brand and with good reason.  They were well designed and built.  But they were complex and are now old and the average electronic repair person may not be able to update them properly so be prepared to find a specialist if you buy one.  I owned a 480 and found it only "average" so I wouldn't pay for the name there.  Spend more and find something higher in the line.

The "sleeper" among those I owned was the Aiwa f990.  It was not so well known then but now I see substantial prices for refurbished examples.

I still have a good collection of tapes and a Pioneer CT-900.  That is also a very good deck but mine has a broken belt which is a pain to replace and not high on my task list.

Anyway, with proper selection of blank tape and careful recording procedures you may be surprised by the sonic quality you can enjoy.