Best Cassette Recorder? Hidden Gems?

[Tubetec]

Aiwa did some fairly good cassette decks back in the day , A three head machine is good if you can find it . Its handy if you want to record on tape and transfer to digital in the same pass , as the signal comes back off tape with a short delay , which can be compensated for in software . A two head machine cant do that .
Direct drive does seem to out last belt drive . I worked in domestic hifi servicing for a while , mainly on cassette decks .
A hifi buddy gave me a direct drive technics tape machine a while back , it powered up and went into play mode but shut off a moment later , everything else worked fine . I realised that the tape counter wasnt counting , Theres a little reflective and black patern on the tape take up spindle , turned out dust had accumulated on the surface and was preventing the opto circuit sending a pulse , a quick swab with a cotton bud and we were back in business .
I still have an old Marantz deck , SD4000 ,a tank of a thing , in the pink champagne . Wasnt quite top of the range , but the decks above it were all logic controlled not piano key . Also runs at double speed with slightly better bandwidth and s/n ratio .

Another good tip for servicing older tape decks is use some contact cleaner on the record/playback switch , its a multicontact switch on the PCB board , its mecahnically actuated when you press the record button . poor contact here can cause all kinds of weirdness .

 

[Goblin]

Isn't that what cassette had been all about ? Everything in the red, punching holes... Well, for some of the people I know it sure was

Yeah, coloration due to overdrive is usually sought after. It's what I was looking for. Just a tiny bit of it, and to glue my mix.

If I remember well, I did pull off successfully the recording from my DAW to the stereo. Wasn't exactly the sound I was looking for, but It was ok. Wouldn't do it again with the same stereo. This was for a release when I was playing live. Punk-Rock and Noise Sessions.

The problem is that I was using a 90's consumer all in one hi-fi, you know, the 90's tower ones, so it didn't had a nominal level, zero level out. Like a dedicated out. It only had the speakers out, which I was not gonna mess around with, so I took the phones out and hooked it up to my interface with a stereo cable. So everything was dependent on the main volume of the stereo going out the headphones out.

I used volume measuring tools and everything that could help me, but it simply didn't work out. Too much volume the eq would overdrive those bands, just the band, so it sounded bad, no eq volume was off, pull the volume up on the main knob it sounded bad, pull the gain up in the interface too much hiss. It was a 90's consumer Hi-Fi that facilitated everything for people only wanting to listen to music and just plugin in stuff like a cd-in and a phono in and turn it on and start listening, the turntable came with the hi-fi, it was made to make it easy on the consumer to do these things.

The volume is a big knob, even the slightest touch, or a brush, would throw off the gain I had set up for it. It was almost like touch sensitive was invented in the 90's lol.

And since I couldn't find what was zero level for the stereo, every time I did a test, the eq's would mess the recording, in a bad way. So I was juggling between, interface gain, stereo main volume, and stereo eq. After like 3 days of non stop tries and failures I stopped and came back next week to it, but it was really useless. If it had a nominal level or zero level out, or had a volume reference, or If I could find a manual for it, it would have been a lot easier.

The cassette decks broke shortly after. If I had that deck working would I go through that super stressful "gain staging" part of the process and try to get a good sound from it? Absolutely yes lol. I use *everything* I can get my hands on. I'm sure I can find an use for that stereo in my semi home studio. For sure it's gonna be hooked up when my new PC arrives in one of the aux sends. I have hardware digital reverb units and so on but I try to use everything that makes a sound or that changes a sound. Or that records it.

 

[Goblin]

Aiwa did some fairly good cassette decks back in the day , A three head machine is good if you can find it . Its handy if you want to record on tape and transfer to digital in the same pass , as the signal comes back off tape with a short delay , which can be compensated for in software . A two head machine cant do that .
Direct drive does seem to out last belt drive . I worked in domestic hifi servicing for a while , mainly on cassette decks .
A hifi buddy gave me a direct drive technics tape machine a while back , it powered up and went into play mode but shut off a moment later , everything else worked fine . I realised that the tape counter wasnt counting , Theres a little reflective and black patern on the tape take up spindle , turned out dust had accumulated on the surface and was preventing the opto circuit sending a pulse , a quick swab with a cotton bud and we were back in business .
I still have an old Marantz deck , SD4000 ,a tank of a thing , in the pink champagne . Wasnt quite top of the range , but the decks above it were all logic controlled not piano key . Also runs at double speed with slightly better bandwidth and s/n ratio .

Another good tip for servicing older tape decks is use some contact cleaner on the record/playback switch , its a multicontact switch on the PCB board , its mecahnically actuated when you press the record button . poor contact here can cause all kinds of weirdness .

Hey, those are some good tips, thanks Tubetec.

From what I read, to record and release, it is imperative the use of direct drive systems.

The 3 heads technique as far as I know is used just like a tape machine. It's super useful. Thanks for reminding me of that one, it will sure help me.

 

[Goblin]

Teac C3 might be a good option. I think the bigger limitation is that any reasonable duplication is going to need a whole boatload of decks!

lol for sure! or a hella lot of time! lol

I've seen people who have small labels just hooking up deck after deck after deck in a chain. It cracked me the hell up. For me that's the closer ring of hell, every cassette will sound differently, and at a different level. That can drive me crazy.

If you see the pictures of it, all the different brands of decks stacked on top of each other, it cracks you up, funny as hell. It's really a sight to see "home made cassette recording" factory style lol

But hey, if ya got or your buddies got a bunch of cassette decks, your starting out, it works for you, it's a good option. Zero money spent on startup. And you got something running.

 

[Goblin]

Yeah - vinyl is pretty much loved. People love the 'sound' and the 12" square LP format for artwork. You just can't get the same physical impact on the artwork with a CD and definitely not a cassette. Gatefold Cassette anyone ? And the quality vinyl that is being put out now is in a different league to the flimsy nonsense that was being sold when CDs were taking over.
The remaining record stores where I live are focussed on it now as CD sales decline and vinyl is rather £££s.
Hardly anyone really loves cassettes for the music though. Shed oxide and strewn tape from jammed car players...
Some great imagery around it though - "Ghettoblasters" etc and from my own town:
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Right I'm off to power up a MiniDisc

Yeah, a lot of people who buy cassettes buy them bc of the novelty or because it is like a piece of art. People do buy them bc they like the sound of them and the whole medium. Case Inlay art, portability, etc.

I do like the sound of cassettes. The sound of different cassette tapes. I know a lot of people do. Degrading of sound its quicker than other mediums, tape mangling and all of that stuff correlates to like a scratch on a cd or a vinyl, or a corrupted lossless file, or like buying a 700$ DAC and finding out the parts that were specified were replaced by non-brand types. Everything is relative.

Plus, have you seen a big a** CD BoomBox??? (Yes lol)

 

[Goblin]

major snippage

I would recommend the Technics RS-B565 I have one myself and it sounds great and is very reliable. Should be available on eBay. Here is a basic spec:

Technics RS-B565 Stereo Cassette Deck Manual | HiFi Engine

Cheers

Ian

Thanks Ian, that model looks super durable and desirable. Plus works with metal tapes, and two other ones, super useful. For sure will look for it and keep an eye on that model.

 

[Goblin]

Marantz, Nakamichi, Tascam 122 etc. are all good decks but if you're looking for something $100 or less, Goodwill might be a good option for you. Old Japanese hifi decks are usually well made. There are even some solid ONKYO hifi decks that are chock full of Nichicon audio grade capacitors that can be found very, VERY cheap... some were made in China but with good components and others in Japan.

Yeah, Goodwill would be like the salvation army for me at this moment. I know I could find a dirt cheap cassette deck that is **undervalued** at Goodwill. Meaning a good decent deck for dirt cheap.

I love Greyhound busses so a day of looking at Goodwill stores in close by towns would be like a field trip for me.

 

[Goblin]

But it's just not a competently written article is it ?
tbh the editor/sub-editor who let this make it to publication should be pulled up on it.
Consider these gems:

"Because tapes pick up everything in the room during the recording process, the sound can have a bit of a hiss."

"But in a digital recording, there are no harmonics. You’re listening to the dominant frequency at each millisecond.”

I was trying to understand this:

"But in a digital recording, there are no harmonics. You’re listening to the dominant frequency at each millisecond.”

And couldn't figure out what his angle was, what he was referring too, even if it's mistaken. Anyone has a clue?

Maybe he was referring to sample rate, slices of samples per time? Each millisecond takes a "screen grab" of the sound so it's not like a "consecutive recording"?? idk

 

[Brian Roth]

As I mentioned, that article I linked had many problems, but the point I wanted to make was that cassettes are not a totally dead format.

Bri

 

[Goblin]

As I mentioned, that article I linked had many problems, but the point I wanted to make was that cassettes are not a totally dead format.

Bri

I mean, probably he was trying to convey an idea with this, but we don't see it clearly, or as he sees it. Maybe it's a short explanation of a theory he has or of a fact. Maybe it's just incorrect.

"But in a digital recording, there are no harmonics. You’re listening to the dominant frequency at each millisecond.”

 

[calaverasgrande]

Back in the 90s when everyone was going digital I went analog instead.
Was able to pick up a Tascam 8 track 1/2" deck and mixed down to a very good Sony cassette.
Lofi but some standards but I was able to carve out a respectable signal to noise ratio.
It also suited the punk rock and hip hop type stuff we were doing.
We sold a lot of cassettes because tape decks were in every car and almost everyone had at least one tape deck at home.
In 2022 they are around, but not ubiquitous.


However I do know a lot of Metal, Punk and Noise acts, even some of the more experimental House/Techno artists, are using cassettes for releases.
However, they back it up with a download code on the tape packaging.
So a lot of folks buy the tapes and display them on a bookcase at home.
But they still listen to the music by digital means.

This also reminds me of the late 80s tape trader scene. Lots of kitchen sink productions with very small batch releases. Like 2 or 3 dozen copies.
I was in to that when I was in HS and college. Did some stuff under 'Normal Bias' and 'Boris'(no relation).
That was all facilitated by the classified sections in Factsheet 5, Maximum Rock and Roll, Flipside etc.
I still have some wild tapes from Eastern Europe and S. America. As well as a lot of punky-new wavey American stuff.

These days people just use Bandcamp. It kind of takes the mystique out of it.
Nothing like getting a package in the mail with that tell tale rattle.

As far as good decks, I think the mid to high end Sony and Tascam/Teac is pretty good.
I've had a few of the old Sony decks with the vacuum FL displays and pretty well specced audio path.
The last had a programmable VCA so you could do fade outs and fade ins. I have no idea why that was a product feature in the 80s!
Replacing belts is going to be a common thing. Lots of these can be found on Ebay
The larger problem is that when anything else fails you may have a hard time tracking down parts or diagrams.
I spent a month trying to fix my old Sony, but gave up after I damn near re-capped the whole thing.

 

[Goblin]

Back in the 90s when everyone was going digital I went analog instead.
Was able to pick up a Tascam 8 track 1/2" deck and mixed down to a very good Sony cassette.
Lofi but some standards but I was able to carve out a respectable signal to noise ratio.
It also suited the punk rock and hip hop type stuff we were doing.
We sold a lot of cassettes because tape decks were in every car and almost everyone had at least one tape deck at home.
In 2022 they are around, but not ubiquitous.


However I do know a lot of Metal, Punk and Noise acts, even some of the more experimental House/Techno artists, are using cassettes for releases.
However, they back it up with a download code on the tape packaging.
So a lot of folks buy the tapes and display them on a bookcase at home.
But they still listen to the music by digital means.

This also reminds me of the late 80s tape trader scene. Lots of kitchen sink productions with very small batch releases. Like 2 or 3 dozen copies.
I was in to that when I was in HS and college. Did some stuff under 'Normal Bias' and 'Boris'(no relation).
That was all facilitated by the classified sections in Factsheet 5, Maximum Rock and Roll, Flipside etc.
I still have some wild tapes from Eastern Europe and S. America. As well as a lot of punky-new wavey American stuff.

These days people just use Bandcamp. It kind of takes the mystique out of it.
Nothing like getting a package in the mail with that tell tale rattle.

As far as good decks, I think the mid to high end Sony and Tascam/Teac is pretty good.
I've had a few of the old Sony decks with the vacuum FL displays and pretty well specced audio path.
The last had a programmable VCA so you could do fade outs and fade ins. I have no idea why that was a product feature in the 80s!
Replacing belts is going to be a common thing. Lots of these can be found on Ebay
The larger problem is that when anything else fails you may have a hard time tracking down parts or diagrams.
I spent a month trying to fix my old Sony, but gave up after I damn near re-capped the whole thing.

However, they back it up with a download code on the tape packaging.


That was all facilitated by the classified sections in Factsheet 5, Maximum Rock and Roll, Flipside etc.
Totally awesome.

 

[Newmarket]

I was trying to understand this:

"But in a digital recording, there are no harmonics. You’re listening to the dominant frequency at each millisecond.”

And couldn't figure out what his angle was, what he was referring too, even if it's mistaken. Anyone has a clue?

Maybe he was referring to sample rate, slices of samples per time? Each millisecond takes a "screen grab" of the sound so it's not like a "consecutive recording"?? idk

Don't bother. The person who said this simply does not know what they are talking about or is giving deliberately misleading information.
It reflects badly on the publication that it published the article containing it.

 

[cyrano]

There was a professional cassette duplicator (master to 10 copy decks simultaneously) for sale over here a few months ago for only 250€. I sent the ad to a friend who sells cassettes of his music after the show. He didn't buy it. Unfortunately, it's gone.

He sells way more cassettes than CD's. Duplicates these himself with two decks running in parallel.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

my personal school of thought shifted towards or rather stayed in the Philosophy that people who do Masters only Master and people who Mix only Mix. Mostly was like that until the late 90's or so

At the time, mastering was not what it is today.
It was first and foremost a technical job, destined to make the original master fit into the medium.
For vinyl, the crucial aspect was the necessary limitation of lateral and vertical excursion, the former because it limits the playing time, the latter in order to prevent the cutter to jump off the groove.
In addition, careful attention had to be brought to HF level, for fear of frying the moving coils.
For CD, mastering was a complex task involving transferring digital data to video machines, assembling and editing in real-time (no waveform on screen then) and editing the various codes for conformity to the Red book.
Of course, the ME was supposed to put the final artistic touch with a pinch of compression here and a whiff of EQ there, and he gave the final approval, because he had a monitoring system that was supposed to be better than any recording studio, and he had a self-proclaimed diploma in superior audition.
To day, most ME's do only the latter part.

BTW, most of the ME's I knew at the time were mediocre mix engineers and worse recording engineers (mainly for lack of the necessary human interactive skills).

 

[JohnRoberts]

I was trying to understand this:

"But in a digital recording, there are no harmonics. You’re listening to the dominant frequency at each millisecond.”

And couldn't figure out what his angle was, what he was referring too, even if it's mistaken. Anyone has a clue?

Maybe he was referring to sample rate, slices of samples per time? Each millisecond takes a "screen grab" of the sound so it's not like a "consecutive recording"?? idk

techno-babble, just stringing together some buzz words. I used to have a sales manager like that, he'd pick up a few buzz words then spray them around like he knew what they meant.

JR

 

[Newmarket]

techno-babble, just stringing together some buzz words.

It's actually worse than that imo. Talking about "every millisecond" - Mmmm...what - sampling at 1kHz so a BW limited at <500Hz
Now I know it could be seen as a figure of speech but best not to use terms / units which have actual meaning in the field being discussed.

There is a arguably humorous side to this nonsense of course.
Not quite the same but some years ago now a programme in UK BBC Radio 4 decided they would cover "Compression" in audio. The interviewer, though well liked in general, clearly wasn't knowledgeable or well-briefed in the subject. He was basically discussing "Data Compression" as in MP3 etc. Meanwhile the interviewee - Bob Stanley (Of St Etienne fame and a well known Producer) was clearly discussing "Compression" in terms of Dynamic Compression and the "Loudness War". Sort of Tragic and Funny at the same time.

 

[JohnRoberts]

That sales manager I mentioned followed me around at his first AES show. Memorized every word I said that sounded techy and repeated it in his bloviating. I had to follow around and clean up after him because at the AES show most people understood what those words really meant.

JR

 

[Tubetec]

We had a guy in HIFI sales who'd latch on to buzzwords too , then he'd start gobshiteing on to customers without an iota what he was on about . He was firmly repremanded by the manager and told either learn the meaning of the terminology or STF up about it in front of customers . Nice ould chap all the same , bit of a bluffer , I think he got into custom installs on board ocean going motor cruisers some years back , but suffered some kind of amnesia in recent years , he forgot he had split up with his ex and that he had a new girlfriend with his child . nightmare scenario

 

[Goblin]

At the time, mastering was not what it is today.
It was first and foremost a technical job, destined to make the original master fit into the medium.
For vinyl, the crucial aspect was the necessary limitation of lateral and vertical excursion, the former because it limits the playing time, the latter in order to prevent the cutter to jump off the groove.
In addition, careful attention had to be brought to HF level, for fear of frying the moving coils.
For CD, mastering was a complex task involving transferring digital data to video machines, assembling and editing in real-time (no waveform on screen then) and editing the various codes for conformity to the Red book.
Of course, the ME was supposed to put the final artistic touch with a pinch of compression here and a whiff of EQ there, and he gave the final approval, because he had a monitoring system that was supposed to be better than any recording studio, and he had a self-proclaimed diploma in superior audition.
To day, most ME's do only the latter part.

BTW, most of the ME's I knew at the time were mediocre mix engineers and worse recording engineers (mainly for lack of the necessary human interactive skills).

Yeah, thing is today if you talk to most Mastering E, and I'm talking about the sham and scam ones, about "too much bass" for a release on vinyl you get for a response "Uh?", and if you talk about different compression algorithm's and different Lufs for different streaming platforms you get another "uh?" back, or you get a product that's not made for what you asked and then you gotta get your money back, if there was an advance. So no digital or analogue knowledge whatsoever. Neither. They Master, Mix, Record, play the guitar solo because your song needs one, bring you coffee, do the art for your release and throw you a release party. And are seasoned at playing all genres of music. For real? No.

So it's difficult to find a good Mastering E. Once I went to the studio of a supposed Mastering E down here, he was a Mixing Engineer, I had a project going and needed communication with the Master E, so after a two hour tour of a super basic studio, he told me "well, I really never mastered, but I bought this Mastering plugin last week, and check this out! If you push these three buttons in, you get the drum Zeppelin Sound!". I was out the studio no kidding 15 seconds later. After he said that, I was like "men, I have to go" lol. I didn't and still don't know if to laugh get mad or cry out of frustration. That's what you really call "lost two hours of my life". People download softwares and call themselves what the software is for. I never called myself a title till publications and bars/venues/festivals started calling me a title.

I have a few really really bad stories of people saying they do or know something in the Audio industry and they are just a scam.

Good thing is that the excellent stories totally outweigh those.