Chime in.What's the Best Cassette Recorder ever ?

Dear Don: I made several cassette recording copies ( mainly from LP ) through my Nak 700 ZXL ( that I still have ), I made it in different ways: with Dolby C, with DBX and with out any noise reduction system.

The best quality cassette performance were on that recorded cassettes where I don't use any noise reductio device.
The noise reduction system is a " heavy " signal proccess that makes a signal degradation. OF course that everything is on the trade-offs that we choose.

Like any audio device a cassette deck is a " whole " item: quality of the tape heads, quality of the cassette mechanism, quality of the electronic design, quality of the lay-out, quality of the electronic parts, quality of the execuion design, facilities ( like the auto-calibration on my machine and other Naks mahnes. ), etc, etc. As a fact IMHO the noise reduction is not the main/important subject on a cassette machine.

I achieve a " new "/high quality performance level when I buy the 700ZXL service manual and change ( mainly caps and resistors ) several passive parts where the signal pass through for better ones, IMHO it is worth to take the effort to do it.

In those times I heard several cassette decks including Tandeberg but not your specific Teac model and IMHO no one beats the original Naks due not only on its high/superb quality build/design but for the auto-calibration system too.
As almost always the quality is system dependent and " ears " dependent too.

Don, the important subject is that you are having great fun with your Teac, good!

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Sometimes, when a lot of people a recommending Nakamichi decks over Tandbergs the best, I wonder how many of them ever heard the TCD 910 (400 build) or the TCD 911 (35-40 build) to reject those decks?

Sometimes I also wonder under what conditions people audition tape decks to make their decisions?

Anyway, when it comes to noise reduction systems, I recommend only to use the double ended ones when tape formulation is low quality and generating unbearable hiss.

Double ended noise reduction systems are e.g. Dolby B, C, S and dbx I, II.

Single ended Noise Reduction Systems such as DNL or HX-Pro (many would define some of them Headroom Expanders) are great in use on all tape formulations and all machines on which they appear. Never make a recording without them.

What you compromise, using Double ended NR systems, such as Dolby B, C or dbx I, II, are parameters like microdynamics, attack, room definition, air around instruments and precision.
These parameters are some of the same you compromise in the digital encoding process to acchieve the "black background" AKA noise free.
This is the reason for liking the analog tape.

In the best Tandberg machines were used technologies such as Dyneq and Actilinear.

Dyneq is dynamic equalization.
HX-Pro was a technology based on Dynamic Bias.
Both systems expand the headroom but as a side effect the better the dynamic range and the S/N ratio.

The Actilinear system is a technique ensuring constant power to the recording head. Circuities ensuring the constant power is not depending on frequencies, a kind of constant power generator where the output power is proportional with the input voltage and where the frequency correction is isolated in another circuit.
It gives better Slew Rate, less Intermodulation, less interferrans with the oscillator for the deleting head and up to 20dB better ability to saturate compared to the tape formulations ever produced.

All in all these were technologies that really had huge influence on the quality of recording.

"dolph"

Let's not forget the peak-reading meters that respond to the post-equalized signal, and a great innovation on the open-reel decks . . . the Cross-Field system, whereby the bias was injected by a separate head on the back side of the tape. The Tandberg approach to tape recording was unique and very innovative . . .

. . . but their pullers were the fussiest things under the sun, and it really is a shame. For the cassette decks, all of those brilliant electronic innovations were at the mercy of the little brushes and commutator in the takeup motor . . . if they weren't in tip-top condition then variations in takeup torque produce so much wow & flutter that who cares how much headroom you have?

But still, I have great admiration for Vebjorn Tandberg . . . whom I understand from those who met him and worked for him, was a brilliant, compassionate, and gracious persion . . . it's a shame that his life ended the way it did (a la James Lansing). May he rest in peace.

Pullers on a close loop double capstan tape transport will not affect wow & Flutter.

At worst it will show up jamming the tape.

If Tandberg machines are used regularly, there will be no maintenance issues.

"dolph"

I worked in a high end shop in SoCal in the mid-'70s. We carried tape decks by Nakamichi, Revox, Teac, Sony, Tandberg. I worked at another shop a little later that carried Hitachi and Dokorder. In-store we had a Nak 1000 (precursor to the Dragon), the 700, the 550, and some of the Tandberg cassette decks (TCD 310?). Tandberg is definitely my first choice. Their decks always had more body to the sound. As I remember things, Nakamichis always sounded like cassette decks; the Tandbergs didn't.