2. analog
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Anyone into cassettes?

I recently picked up a Nakamichi BX300 for a couple of bills on Ebay and after replacing the idler tire and the two belts, this baby sounds better that any cassette deck I've owned previsouly, and I have been playing pre-recorded tapes for the past week in analog heaven. Finally a deck that sounds amazing on Dolby B with commercial tapes.

I also won a Dragon for a good price on auction and will send this out for restoration as needed.

Anyone else into cassettes as an alternative form of analog heaven? Some of those mid to late 80s recordings really have wonderful punch and extension.
stevecham
chazro's avatar
chazro
635 posts
 
Used to own and love a BX300 back in the day. I always enjoyed recording compilation tapes, I still do but now I use a Tascam CD recorder (just made one last night;). I recorded many 100's of tapes on the BX300 from LP's & CD's that really sounded great. In my experience though, commercially pre-recorded tapes were inferior, I only owned a handful.
glenfihi
525 posts
 
Yes indeed, have a NAK DR-8. It makes my tapes sound great, even the ones recorded on other decks. Most of the tapes are transfers from my LP's, R2R. Now used only for playback.
dudeone
13 posts
 
I am the original owner of a Nakamichi CR 7A. I recently had it serviced by Willy Herman. This work of art brings joy to my ears.
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tonykay
1,301 posts
 
I have three Nakamichi decks and thousands of cassettes, along with several CD/DVD players and a high-end turntable. I find the sound from the recently serviced cassette players to be very easy to listen to and preferable to CDs when I listen through tube Stax headphones. Also, you can find cassettes at thrift stores for a quarter. Cassettes and cassette players get ridiculed on this forum, but I'm keeping mine.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,179 posts
 
I have a 90's vintage Yahama cassette deck on my rig that I use on occasion. Sounds better than ever these days in that my setup is the best I have ever had as well by far.

I have not recorded any new casettes since the 80's though when I dabbled with hifi VHS as well. I use my tape players mainly for old tapes I recorded back then and in college in the 70's. These are blasts from my past and a lot of fun to listen to still. SOund is not tech perfect, especially noise levels and high end, but still very enjoyable, more than ever. I have "ripped" a few of these to digital as well and play these now on my music server rather than via the tape decks. That enables me to do fast and easy a/b comparisons in sound quality between those tracks that I recorded originally to cassette on my college system years ago (using an Aiwa AD6550 cassette deck I bought while working at Tech HiFi back then) and tracks ripped from other sources. Lots of fun.
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