Cassettes.......pre-recorded and otherwise....

I'm gonna skip the technicalitites of thd, wow/flutter, pleasing waves of distortion, and will get right to the point. A top Nakamichi, Tandberg, or Revox/Studer tape deck (with proper tapes and corresponding equipment) can and will sound better than your $10K Sim Audio or Krell CD-player. It will do everything right (unlike a cd-player), will not have a piercing digital edge at higher volume level, and won't sound like a computer built from zeros and ones. Some of these tape decks cover 10hz-35khz with a S/N ratio of the best of CD-players. The Nakamichi Dragon has a 0.019 % THD. Are you claiming you are going to HEAR that? Not even your dog will. This thd is normally found in $5K CD-players.
It is a fact that your favourite tube amp measures a thousand times worse distortion than these tape decks, yet you find it pleasing to your ears and prefer it to solid state amps with virtually no thd... It's all in the listening and what pleases your ears. We can go on about white-paper measurement all day, they mean jackshit.
If you haven't owned one of these tape decks please try them one day and you will feel the sudden urge to remove your above statement.

Cassettes are, believe it or not, making a small comeback recently with underground music and DIY musicians who have some recorded tracks that are not worthy of a vinyl pressing, or small labels that want to produce something on the cheap and easy. I've bought a few over the past couple years and found a Technics deck in good condition for $20 to play them on. I was surprised at how good they sounded. Smooth analog sound and plenty of headroom. Not as good with separation of notes and detail as vinyl but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

I have to agree with Milanv, I once owned a Revox B215, that was freaking amazing. I had to struggle to hear the differnece between it, and my B77. Only on my Sony TC-755 could I easliy tell a difference, and that was in the bottom end. (sony goes down stairs like none other) Hence in a moment of stupidity sold the Revox. I am now using my calibrated Advent 201A to make tapes for background music when company is over. Surprising, it's a very respectable machine. Milav is also spot on with regard to the top Nak decks. I still use cassettes and enjoy their convenience. While I would never sit and 'seriously' listen, you may be stunned at what a well calibrated machine can do.

Try to contact 'Teresa' on AA. She's all over the higher-end pre-recorded cassettes.

At least she was recently-her format tastes seem to change on a whim.

I found a Nak deck that really blew my mind, using a Telarc Cassette I picked up in a thrift for .25 cents. The theory is that even cassettes, with all their issues, might still provide a more "liquid" sound than CD's with their inherent bandwidth limitations. (I'm quoting from the 'net, so take that FWIW.) I was very fond of the Slatkin/Barber survey on RCA and EMI but I didn't like the sound at all on CD, I like the sound on cassette. Considering that the deck was $10 and the casettes are often 4 for a dollar, you can't help but experiment. The Nak was the only player I found that still ran smoothly and had good bass and an soundstaging.