So I recently dug up my old Aiwa ADF880 cassette deck, just to demonstrate to my 14 y/old son. He was interested as he saw Guardians of the Galaxy and wanted to make a mix-tape :). A trip down memory lane, allthough looked like a dead-end as the deck was in almost complete no-motion. It wiggled a little but didn't start playback. Sure enough, the belt set was toast, completely liquified. Yes, a project! Found the belts, ordered and got to work with son. Great exercise, trying to scrub liquid rubber off the flywheel. It worked out well, he made a mix-tape on a brand-new cassette I still had (yes, taking off the wrapper, hmm). If you have been playing around burning your own CDs in the late nineties, then moving to MP3 players and finally into the todays streaming age, it's kinda neat doing this again. Great history lesson! But practical? Not really
I was making mix dvds after ripping audios from my dads huge cd collection & selecting my favourite tracks then converting them to mp3 & burning them to 4.7gb dvds that i would play at home or in dad's car. The last one i did was in 2015 & i was 12yo backthen. I still have the last dvd & two reels of sealed dvds & cds i will probably never open in next 30yrs.
Likewise! I have a RS-TR575 Dual Cassette Deck which was high-end back in '94-ish.... still works perfectly - no head wear, and even has auto tape callibration so it can adapt to various types of tape nicely.... It's not a top-quality 3-head machine sadly, but it still makes fantastic recordings, and only cost me about £100 brand new a year or so ago...(and you should see the dual heavyweight flywheels on each deck!!)......so good as that Tascam/Teac machine is, there are still some fabulous 'retro' bargains to be had....
Two years later, I still found this review very useful. One aspect of the 202 MkVII which you overlooked was the tape-to-PC digital conversion. There seems to be an industry agreement designed to deter illegal duplication of digital audio CDs, limiting their digital output to 128kbps MP3 (i.e. the TASCAM CD-A580). Because this unit and the TEAC W-1200 only use analog cassette sources, the USB digital output can support higher-resolution file types such as WAV and FLAC. As for sound quality, I think this unit is comparable to most entry-level cassette decks of the 1980s including dual-well unit, which is to say it's a pretty good stereo deck if not TOTL. The well-used vintage TOTL decks from the "good old days" are going to be very hard and expensive to repair due to lack of parts and shrinking number of qualified repair techs, but this TASCAM and TEAC will probably be easily maintained and supported for many years to come. If I wanted a brand-new deck, I'd buy the W-1200.
I stopped short of buying a vintage machine off of eBay because let's face it, those machines from the late 70's really weren't designed to last 50 years. Like anything else, they wear out and become too fragile. I want a new model, but will wait a couple of years to see if we get any better choices. I might get a MiniDisc thru eBay just for the fun factor.
I am expecting mine this month. I ordered it a year ago. It is my intention to put this to use transferring my cassette and record collection to digital and onto flash drives. All of my vehicles have CD players and USB unputs. My Nakamichi needs to be warmed up and then it may just quit. I look forward to enjoying the 300+ 90 minute Maxell UD xl tapes I recorded so many albums on through the 80's and 90's.
Unboxing videos are not stupid. They are very enjoyable to watch and are useful to potential buyers. It's very therapeutic and relaxing to watch somebody unbox a product. It's useful to see what accessories come with the product as well as how the product is packaged, especially if someone is considering having the item shipped. Also to see what kind of setup is required if you are planning to buy it as a gift.
@@vwestlifeI see that your post is 5 years ago 😊, I just wanted to share my experience concerning type IV tape. I bought a couple (literally a 2 pack) just to try them out. Personally my hearing wasn't good enough to distinguish the difference between type II and type IV. Anyway on to my experience trying them. Mine as mentioned a two pack brand new. The deck if memory serves was a Radio Shack Optimus single well auto reverse "I think" SCT-88. As I did my research for belt replacement (yep, the original turned to tar/black goo). It was essentially a rebranded Awia RD-40. It couldn't completely blank the type IV (if I re-recorded it), however the initial recording was great. As I understood type IV's main purpose was to archive recordings because the tape formula was not as prone to fade (loose the recorded signal) or be damaged by potential stray magnetic fields.
Well, CoolDudeClem, luckily your hope is going to be granted. In fact, it already has been. NAC is churning out literally millions of cassettes, blank and pre-recorded every year. There are thousands of new fans all over the world every day when they discover they can hold something in their hands that contains the music.... Humans will always be humans and somehow, they like things they can hug...
Very true CabinDoor. A thousand downloads is worth nothing really. What can be touched and held up has value. "Virtual" is not real by definition, soi here we have a software version of "a miss is a good as a mile". Hang on to that music collection of yours.
+CabinDoor A vinyl or cassette collection has value mainly because of its replacement cost. Vinyl and blank cassettes cost something to manufacture, and vinyl cost depends on the price of petroleum oil. It's not the distorted, imperfect audio stored on these media that has value (except for its value as intellectual property).
The spec may not be the best we have seen. But i believe the points are; as of 2018, we can actually buy a brand new double cassette deck that is reliable on this planet, and for us to know some company still care and have balls and passions to produce cassette deck. love your unboxing video by the way.
*JOY* MUSIC yes, that fact that you can buy a brand new deck that isn’t a cheap piece of crap is a good thing even some features that some people want are missing. None of these missing features a absolute must haves in my opinion.
Definitely the way to go. I don't even have any of my old cassettes anymore, but I've been watching the hell out of Techmoan and he's making me want to get all the components and build a super hi-fi.
That's just over $200 in late 80s or early 90s money. $200-300 back then would get you a nice - but not amazing deck and you would be looking at $1000+ in today's money for something really high end. So I think the price is fair considering low volumes they must be selling but some outlets are trying to push them for $599 which I think is going a bit too far.
This was great. I'm the only person I know that still has a cassette deck in the rack. I was curious about this Tascam and was delighted to see your review. Many thanks for the guided tour!
My main studio recording deck is a Denon from 96. The fun ones are the Califone library deck with 7(!) headphone outs, Landscape HC-TT, which is a motorless hand cranked tape instrument (Human Controlled Tape Transport) and a Panasonic tabletop player. The Califone I have for the pitch control, the Landscape is for vinyl type scratching and I sometimes mic up the speaker on the Panasonic. All of this is in my music studio, which also includes a reel to reel and a cheap 4 track porta studio. About to order this 202 Mk VII. The pitch control (very rare) and simultaneous playback sound fun. Too bad there's no third head and monitoring for echo effects.
You definately are not the only one. I still have 4 cassette decks - Teac V-1050, Aiwa AD-S950, Yamaha KX-580 and Technics RS-BX501. All but the Technics are connected and in still in use (no more room for this).
abraham oriowo, When my reel-to-reel died, I started using a hi-fi VCR for my long recordings. Just don’t turn on the TV. Even though I have digital recording equipment, and I don’t use my Super VHS for audio anymore, I’ve added three more reel-to-reels. I love the things.
I suppose a major advantage with this deck over old decks is that it has a built-in A-to-D converter. The pitch control is certainly great too especially for playback of older cassettes recorded on myriad of decks and recorders. If these were sold in volume, I'm sure the prices would drop too.
Just wanted to say, I've been watching your videos for some time now. I have no idea about audio equipment, but I really appreciate the time you take in being very thorough in your reviews. It's more education than people get nowadays when it comes to even basic electronics.
You know… i just recently made a mixtape for a girl. And even if she has no tapedeck it was still kindly & happily appreciated as a gift. 90 Minutes of well selected music arranged in a particular order with the goal to give one heck of a FANTASTIC listening experience. Making the playlist is great. But nothing beats the moment of actually recording it :)
A friend of mine is a big Greenday fan. Still. I wouldn't do that if I were her but still, the band makes her happy. I wanted to get her something she didn't have yet so I got her the original 1992 Dookie tape. She didn't have a cassette deck so I added a walkman, batteries, earbuds and I sent the whole package of the UK (which is there the tape came from to start with, oh well :D). She adored the gift. Good!
You are re-living the magic that I had in 1990/1991 with regards to Tape Decks. My GF (eventually My Wife) didn't appreciate CrO2 or Dolby or what not, but she loved the selected music arranged in a particular order. And Playback was awesome. I listened on Hi-Fi Stereo and in the Car; she had a Midland Boombox at her home that blew away all the competition at the time. Great Bass Response, Plus ''Stereo-Wide'' on it as well. Glory Days for sure.
Yeah this is probably what i'm gonna do as well :) Picking a good walkman (or personal stereo) with a pair of good headphones and giving it to her. So she won't pick up some crap like these "mp3 conversion" thingies with the tapehead glued to the "play" button....
Those were some of the more happy days of my life and I am sure you will help her to choose well. My GF/Wife already had the Midland Boombox but I could not, for the life of me, believe how well the sound emanated from that early '90's Boombox. Midland, after all, was known to manufacture CB Radio's. But this Boombox was unsurpassed and unparalleled back in its day. It made Bose and Boston Acoustic (things that came after it) sound lame (at a fraction of their price). And MP3 Files... well they are Compressed anyway. Always have been and always will be. Until the FLAC format finally kills off MP3, a lot of the ''unsuspecting'' will continue to listen to Compressed Audio. A pity. Give me 2 Loudspeakers, a CARVER AMP, A Couple of Hundred WATTS, along with some DQ-10's, and until then......... ;-)
What I love about cassettes is when they stay stopped and start at the exact same place in the recording. I also have hundreds of cassette tapes, both commercial and home recorded.
I was impressed with the sound quality of the recording you made on that Fuij tape. Even without noise reduction, there was hardly any noise in the sound at all. The highs also seem to sound pretty decent.
Thanks for the really detailed review. The audio quality was apparent; even though it uses the Tanashin mechanism, the heads and audio circuitry must be higher quality than in the boomboxes you see for sale nowadays. Plus, like you mentioned, the availability of parts and maintainability of the deck should be good. Edit: The only thing missing for the review that I could see would have been a mention of the specifications, like the frequency response and signal/noise ratio.
WOW! You can tell this is actually made for the more serious Tape user. Having the ability to record on BOTH decks at the same time, having a recording and a 1st generation quality duplicate tape that either serves as a archival backup or copy for a friend, is absolutely fantastic! Dude, i think you just sold me to this deck :D
Serious tape users don't use double decks though. It's a mid-low end seperate. It's not bad, but it's very much entry level. This is about as bad as cassette gets after about 1985. Which makes it even weirder that people seem to hate on it so much. They just have no idea.
at this point i'm glad they even offer something like this. Sure the price range is a little hefty but i'm sure this price will drop very soon (maybe even down to 250) and the more they flood the market with easy maintainable and new parts & machines, the better. At least this deck can record.
I doubt very much you will see much of a price change on this. If there is enough demand, they would likely sell a CHEAPER version under the TEAC name rather than lowering the price in the TASCAM line.
@@rollingtroll professional sound guys use double decks all the time we do use other things but tape is the best thing for recording something temporarily.
Have always been a fan of cassette machines. I still use my 1974 model Sony CF 420L. It might be 46 years old but is in mint condition and still going strong!! They were really well made in those days (full metal chassis). The belts have been changed once.
I was a broadcast bench tech for 20 years, built my own home recording studio and had dozens of Nakamichi among others that I'd get for free and fix up. It's hard to believe I'm looking at buying this way as they are long gone and have some old stuff on cassette
Well at least it's not bad. If my old jvc cassette deck decides to give up, i would definetly buy this or the upcoming budget version. Just because it's new with factory warranty and probably will last for at least 5-10 years. Thanks for the great review West.
I bought those Fuji DR II Chrome slim cassettes by the gross. They sounded awesome, the slim design meant you could put two of them in the space of a standard cassette in a cassette holder. I never had a problem. Fuji Made good tapes then. Nice touch with Shango, and Techmoan In the beginning. I love those guys.
Good one! 0:18: Techmoan! 0:21: Shango066! The only big downside of this cheap cassette mechanism, is that the don't use a sleeve bearing at the back of the flywheel. Besides that, they work pretty well, as seen in many cheap stereosystems. Philips even used two plates of iron as a flywheel in their 80's stereosets, which is nice and good for the wow and flutter.
*UPDATE:* The TEAC W-1200 cassette deck (the same thing as the TASCAM 202mkVII minus the Special Playback feature and rack mounting ears) is now available in the U.S. for $399 or less.
The TEAC and TASCAM decks are identical except for minor differences in features and the TASCAM having rack mounting rails while the TEAC does not. The doors should be removable on all of them.
I wasn't TOO shocked with the sticker price...I was guessing $699.99...but it actually turned out to be LESS! Great looking deck and the quality looks to be great too! It should serve you MANY MANY years of great quality playback/recording
@@walter-ly4dyand for that $100 you’ll get it home and find it doesn’t work, experienced this multiple time with VHS players from garage or estate sales
What a great review! Very informative. I've always had a love affair with audio electronics but I never used them for anything other than simple recording and playback, meaning most of the specialized features went unused. This is def a pretty solid looking unit, and considering the market for new cassette decks, dual or not, is so small, I'd say the higher price is well worth it even just for nostalgia!
This is a great video...it's good to see a review from a non-biased person: so many so-called audiophiles condemn these decks without ever seeing or using one. I had seen this, and the Teac AD-850 available for a while and was curious about them, and after first seeing this review several months ago, I decided to go for the AD-850 - I wanted a decent cassette deck with CD player to simplify recording albums to tape, rather than using using one of my turntables and getting static/clicks/pops/groove damage noises from my LP's (I have a range of turntables from and AT-LP3, AT-LP120USB, Rega RP1, Project Primary w/acrylic platter...but so many new LP's come with groove damage from new - 'no-fill' in the grooves being the worst!) Also to eliminate having a second CD player connected... save on plugs and wiring!! So yeah... I got the AD-850 and my word, it plays good quality pre-recorded tapes beautifully....sounds fantastic! CD playback is flawless of course: it's a good CD player. CD recording works well, but you have to be careful now with so many CDs being overly compressed and 'brick walled'... but when you get the record levels just right, the tape recording sounds fantastic! I guess ultimately, all I'm trying to say here is that these 'cheap' Tanishin (sp?) cassette mechanisms are robust, perform well, and long may they last making them.. it's good to know that there's someone out there still who has decades of history with making them...and cheap as they are, they still work bloody well...!! :-)
In the 80's and 90's this deck would have been a very middle ground cassette deck and probably would have sold for around or under $250. I'd like to hear how the DNS can handle a cassette with lots of hiss or DC bias rumble. UPDATE: Now in December 2019 Amazon's price has dropped to $349.99.
Ok, go to westegg . com/inflation/, (the inflation calculator), put there $250, year let's say 1990.. and the result?: "What cost $250 in 1990 would cost $475.92 in 2017."
I love the flavour that cassettes contribute to the music. Every tape gives the recording another flavour and makes it unique. I think it's great tha cassettes are not dying completely off
It's great that they seem to at least be trying as best they can with the limits of the mechanisms available, I'd say they ended up making something rather nice there, leaps above the "boombox" style new decks you can buy new today. Oof, pricey though.
The reason for Metal tapes was due to residual magnetism of the playback head erasing the high frequencies of regular tapes. Metal tapes required a much higher recording force to record or delete signal to/from tape. This made residual magnetism unable to delete the delicate high frequencies. My last cassette deck was the fabulous Onkyo TA-2090 which I purchased around 1986 for $500. I accidentally fed it 220 volts which killed it. Wish I could purchase another NIB.
Beautiful gear. Remember the Nakamichi RX-202 and RX-505 auto-reverse units that would open the door, flip the tape 180 degrees, and close the door? It was like magic.
Nice video! I agree, compared to what you can get on ebay (high end tape decks from the 90s, many even fully serviced), this is ridiculously expensive for what it offers. And no Dolby for recording is just sad, even though I can understand they do not want to license it for how many decks they probably sell. Just get something like a used Pioneer deck with Dolby S (CT-900S, CT-S 820S or whatever), make sure it has been serviced (new belts etc.) and you will have yourself a nice tape deck which will smoke these "new" decks in every regard, and it will most likely be cheaper. The situation is pretty much the same as when you want to start with analog photography - instead of buying some plastic camera which is produced/sold right now, it will be far better to go on ebay and buy a used high end Canon/Nikon from the 90s (EOS-1v, EOS-3, Nikon F4/F5/F100) which can be had for $200-300 (and cost $2000-3000 back then).
You can't even get a license for Dolby NR for cassette tapes anymore. From what I've heard, Dolby does not actively license it anymore as the actual NR chips aren't being made anymore, and Dolby has no intention of getting back into cassette NR.
+Neko Suki (nice name btw!) True, there simply is not enough demand from the general public for brand new tape decks/cassettes. So it is either these cheap Chinese mechanics, which can also be used in $20 stereos for the kitchen, or super high end hand-crafted devices which can be sold for thousands of dollars and so are profitable even when produced in single digit numbers (although I know of no actual tape decks which are produced that way these days, only reel-to-reel tape recorders - google "Ballfinger reel to reel"). That's why, as everybody who follows like this one or Techmoan knows, the best way to get a good tape deck these days sadly is to look on eBay for decks from the golden age in the 90s. What you can buy brand new today is pretty much the Crosley record players in tape deck form.
Unfortunately the same goes for blank tapes. Try getting your hands on a fresh chrome or metal tape these days. But since vinyl, reel-to-reel and analog photo are on the return, I suspect cassettes will follow. As long as it doesn't involve hipsters being cool with cheap fake Walkmans which have USB.
normal and chrome tapes are still available e.g. on Amazon (although in the case of chrome tapes probably just leftover stock), but yes, sealed/unused metal tapes are pretty much impossible to get these days. Luckily I never threw away my tapes from the 80s/90s, so I still have a lot of used TDK MA etc. I can record over. You can still get metal tapes on ebay (of course all used) at a reasonable price - of course you then have to hope they were stored correctly etc.
If someone designed a new high-end cassette mechanism today it would be a *lot* more expensive. Just like the Technics SL-1200/1210 series turntables -- back when they were in mass production they cost around $500 to $700. Technics recently reintroduced new versions of it, and they now cost $1700 to $4000.
The problem with these new cheaply made decks is people will assume this is the limit to cassette as for sound quality and wow and flutter. Until they've heard a top of the line deck (3 head dual capstan with proper bias and level calibrations) they don't know how good cassette can really perform.
steve bennett I think we can blame that on the China mindset that stereo sound is a luxury and it costs too much. If you don't believe me. Just check out some led projectors for an example. Some are stereo in ,but mono out. They can even only have half stereo out, or only have one speaker installed although it can handle full stereo. As we know people have been brainwashed into thinking mp3's are top quality, and watching a movie on a cell or tablet screen is high quality entertainment. I would not convert any media into mp3's without a high quality original if I could. People have really forgotten what real quality is. What I would like is to have movies fully uncompressed with updated audio and bluray on laserdisc.
That is a very good review. You covered a lot of stuff, and explained it well. Thanks for the inside view of the circuit board (it looked like a lot of full sized ICs) and it's adjustment pots, and tape drive mechanism.
Through hole conponents are still found in switch mode power supplies and also some analog equipment like conputer speakers or headphone amps. Nothing really special and there is a ton of SMD in there.
Thanks for the review of this tape deck. I have the Tascam MD-CD1 for listening to minidiscs and cds and it’s my favorite music playback device. I bought the Record Store Day release of Prince’s The Versace Experiment last weekend on cassette. The last cassette I bought was Smashing Punpkins’ Melon Collie and Infinite Sadness double album back in the 90s. I’m really excited that Tascam is still making tape decks. As soon as I’m done watching your review I’m gonna buy the deck online.
I know it's an older vid, but still thanks for this more than excellent review. I am considering buying either the TEAC W-1200 or AD-850 (single cassettte deck with CD player. I guess/assume the cassette deck itself would be comparable to the one of the W-1200?), as I didn't have any luck with second hand purchases of vintage gear in the past and I - unlike many seriious tapeheads , it seems - applaud TEAC's effort to at least work with the components that are available nowadays and understand that prices need to be high for this niche hobby. I miss the nostalgia of cassette decks and have lots of pre-recorded tapes that I would love to listen to. Maybe I'll record some tapes myself as well eventually.
A Floyd Indeed, considering that making even limited numbers of encoder/decoder chips would be very cheap today with current manufacturing abilities. Plus they'd get free advertising through the consumer market as people have forgotten about Dolby Systems including professionals even.
Not enough demand probably,. Especially if there's only one company(Tascam), making only one high quality cassette deck(the one in the video). Basically not worth it, Dolby makes all its bucks from the movie industry these day
Ray Dolby passed away on September 12, 2013. Dolby had become a publicly-traded corporation. As a big company, it's likely that others in Dolby's corporate management wanted to kill off the money-losing NR licensing some years earlier. They likely refrained from doing so while the company's founder and namesake was still alive. This scenario has played out many times before in corporate America, such as relocating the corporate HQ or changing the corporation's name shortly after the founder's death.
Along with dbx-2231 eq, i am a Proud owner of a SONY tc-wr350z full logic dual cassette player(no rack mount) w/ dolby A/B, remote and added pitch control that amazingly recreates the mood/atmosphere & pitch of whatever cassette i record or play, been a Fan - still a Fan since childhood.
It's been 16 years since I bought a cassette 📼 tape for the last time. Gotta say this one sound superb ! I would say this receiver sound almost like my Sony hi fi receiver!
I still use cassettes for my radio recordings and Tascam still sell cassette decks in 2018 for making cassettes and MP3 converter with USB. And they still sell cassette tapes at walmart.
your lucky since cassette tapes aren't sold in uk supermarkets anymore, the only place I know they might sell cassettes here is in a store called Wilko/Wilkinsons……….
Seems like a stupid answer to the Dolby question, because the patents for Dolby B and C NR are EXPIRED. The only thing to license is the trademark. So they could 100% legally copy the circuit in order to RECORD AND PLAY. They just don't want to.
I really don't understand all the people in forums around talking about how crap this machine is compared to their decks from the 90s. I don't think people sitting at home with their Nakamichi deck and Martin Logan electrostatic speakers while studying specs are Tascams target customers for this cassette deck. It's mainly for professional use, and in this case professional does not mean a consumer deck with even better specs. Tascam list karaoke bars, houses of worship and schools as some of the applications for this deck. If someone want to sing in a karaoke bar, a cassette deck without a mic input is useless regardless of how many heads and motors the deck has. Similar, the reliability and durability that a simple transport mechanism (hopefully) offer is far more important for a school than an advanced and probably more fragile transport mechanism.
As happy as I am to see a cassette deck still on the market, I thought it stumbled on the Pat Coil test recording with noticeable flutter on the piano parts. I do find it interesting that they enabled both decks to record. Surely by now all the patents have expired on Dolby noise reduction for cassettes, so it probably comes down to trademarks and the lack of available ICs at this point. I wonder if perhaps some competitor's system, like JVC's ANRS, would be available for licensing.
Agree - lack of IC most probably.... I thought this deck is cost reduced. Record knob does not adjust L/R levels independently. A must feature. And MIC input should really be stereo inputs these days. Lack on metal recording really hurts this deck.... is this targeted to professionals?
@@uncatila All the tape types? Reel to Reel and 8-Track Too? What about SVHS? (a Great Audio recording choice in its time) And even my Phone,.. Has Dolby ATMOS. ...get with the times people 😂...
@@jimwilliams8858 I know I'm a year late, but -- it's not really a must 22:12. I would prefer just one record level knob anyway, personally. With those internal pots, you still get access to the separate L and R levels
I hope their next step in the evolution of both this deck and its TEAC-branded sibling will be to shield the power transformer properly and to make noise reduction available for recording as well as playback.
My sister's foster dad worked for the Ford dealership here in town, so I do know about the reference cassette for their JBL audio systems. It may be obscure to others, though, as my experience is only anecdotal.
It's funny to see people in comments complaining about no support for metal tape. Why Tascam want to support metal tape, if there is no new production for metal tape anymore.
Faisal Kadal+ Because in 2018, people expect current production analog equipment to be re-engineered for state-of-the-art performance. In the absence of metal tape, you can't engineer a cassette deck possessing state-of-the-art fidelity, and you shouldn't price your product as if it did.
watched it right through. At first I was dissappointed with the lack of features and dolby modes, however I was impressed with the amount of nominally high standard tapes you used and the thoroughness of your review. I've been purchasing and reconditioning/repairing a few cassette decks with higher functionality like multi cassette changer and another with Dolby S. It was really nice to see the gleaming facia of a brand new unit, its motivated me to see just how clean and dust free I can make my second hand units look like. I would have liked so see you flick the noise reduction switch within camera shot so we can hear the difference of the dynamic noise reduction. I do wonder if your reference tape was accurate to within half a percent as its subject to tape stretch like any other tape... in short the speed of the unit was probably correct and the pitch knob adjusted slightly left. Thanks for a look at a new unit. I do recall the TEAC A250 that we had and the full size headphones that we used as Dad did not buy an amplifier for a while afterwards.. Teac lost its integrity a little after the 70s as it made some cheap portable players, however they've certainly remained a mainstay of cassette technology.
The Ford/JBL premium sound system in my ‘93 Lincoln Mark VIII sounds terrific. The factory amplifier took a crap, so I replaced the factory head unit with a limited production Pioneer MVH-S501BS and wired all the internal speakers to it. I used a crossover filter so the tweeters only got the frequencies they’re supposed to, and I added 2 JBL 12” subs powered by a Fosgate 600 watt amp. It sounds GREAT. The 26 year old Ford/JBL speakers still sound excellent, no buzzing or rattles etc. Doesn’t surprise me they offered a quality recorded tape to show off the systems of the era. Nice!
The pitch control is a very compelling feature for me. I've never understood why so many cassette decks, even the higher-end ones, lack this feature even though it was a common feature on turntables at almost every price point.
Just $500? I was honestly expecting you to say that this thing costs $800-$1200. My uncle bought an Onkyo deck around 1985 for around that same price (which is $1066.40 in 2018), which he gave to me, because he hardly ever used it.
I have over $1500 in cassettes, and I have never wanted to change over to CD's; which are nothing but small records. Cassettes are almost indestructible, and always reliable. The problem with todays cassette decks is, you never know what you'll get, not like in the 70's & 80's they were always with top durable parts. I have an older, JVC TD-W307 Stereo Double Cassette Deck, which is still working great.
Great review. I purchased the Tascam 202 MkV back in 2010. To this day I'm not really sure why I purchased this deck since I already owned a very good Marantz SACD player bought around the same time. I guess one of the reasons why, was that I received a very generous Pension from my previous job after a a job lay-off. I had a little money to blow, so I decided to upgrade my stereo system with this deck. Since cassette decks were a dying breed, I wanted to get my hands on one of the last cassette decks being made which was the Tascam 202. The only poblem, was that my SACD blew every piece of equipment I owned out of the water, so I didn't see any point into making, or listening to recordings that didn't measure up. So my Tascam cassette deck sat there for years, looking pretty on the shelf while garnering all sorts of ooh's and ah's from friends, and not being used. It wasn't even connected to my Yamaha Amp(for 10 years !). It was only recently after retiring , that I decided to play with it. I bought myslef some empty Metal tapes and Chrome tapes, but unfortunately after thougroughly reading the manual only to realize that this machine does not record on Metal tape, my only hope was to record on Chrome tape and maybe listen to prerecorded metal tapes. This review at least gave me some hope that I did not totally waste my money ($499.99) back then. I also own a Luxman 406 casssette deck that does record on metal tapes and has dbx noise reduction system. The Luxman is really a jewel, but unfortunately it makes a loud hissing sound once in a while out of nowehere and for no reason. So serious recording work with this machine is out of the question unless/until I can get it fixed if possibe. Right now it sits like a collectors item on my shelf.
I remember looking at the 10-pack box of TDK MA-110s in the D & R catalog and thinking, "They're going to stop making these things, I should buy up a bunch . . ."
Tom Mahoney I used to think my Nak obsessed buddies were strange, then I trash picked a studio deck (was a bench tech) and man oh man, I had never known just how good a cassette could sound, Nakamichi was really THAT good.
You would think that with only one maker these days the deck would be loaded rather than basic. How much dearer would it be to make a head that can do type 1,2&4 compared to just 1&2 when the r&d was paid for decades ago. Same with Dolby etc...
I have this Tascam unit for 3 years, and I do hear a low grade hum sometimes on deck #1 but most of the time I don't hear any hum at all on deck #1 Maybe I got a better shield or something, but anyway It seems to be intermittent for hum on my machine, for whatever reason ,and I listen for it too A great tape machine and I love when there is no hum, just quiet tape hiss and that's most of the time on my unit Thank You for this video I love cassettes and 4 track cassette recording
The intermittent hum was caused from a small electric fan I have on top of the Tascam With the fan switched off there is no hum When the fan is switched on there is humming sounds on both #1 and #2 The fan also gets moved around sometimes Makes perfect sense now
We badly need Dolby Labs to start licensing their Noise Reduction again. My collection of 900+ tapes is recorded in Dolby C and these new decks don't look too bad.
dp vn03 Honestly how hard would it be to reproduce the discrete dolby chips today. I think it would be a boon for Dolby Systems at least in terms of getting renewed interested from the consumer and professional alike. Lots of "free" advertising by way of consumers.
rasz: No, that is DNR, something completely different. As the basic Dolby "B" noise reduction is basically a treble booster while recording and a muffler when playing back, it is kind of compatible to DNR, but it has nothing to do with the compander-based 2-way noise reduction that Dolby C is and that is proprietary. waterhed44: exactly. I wouldn't be able to produce one of these chips in my garage though :P
Dolby might still license it if one is willing to pay the $$$, but there may not be any manufacturer still making the proprietary Dolby NR chips these days. Apparently there's no metal bias capable heads been made now. The Tanashin decks themselves, it's really beggars can't be choosers.
Which tells you where cassette really stands as a format. The speed variation in that playback of the Sheffield CD was pretty obvious to my ears, as was the "splashy" treble. It would have been advantageous to hear the difference between the actual CD and the playback off the Tascam. My bet is that there's considerable degradation. Basically this strikes me as what would have been considered a real run of the mill tape deck back in the mid 70's. Given that it can handle anything but Type I and II tape, and the NR is inferior to Dolby B, we're talking a machine that might compete with an old Advent 201. The cheapest Nakamichi would walk all over it. At least the vinyl revival can bring us turntable performance equal to what we saw in the 80's when the format started losing support. No technical effort at all is being put into reviving cassette.
Loved the review! I recently have been getting into cassettes as they are much cheaper then vinyl (for now at least) and there is something charming about their form factor. Do you have any favorite websites for information on tape decks and other related audio equipment? There are tons of models out there and I find myself googling receiver model numbers at the thrift store often and just hoping for some solid info. Your channel is great and it is always nice to see youve posted a new video. Thanks!
This is about as bad as it gets. Cassettes were always good, just not the prerecorded ones. Home recording always sounded this good on seperate decks, unless you used really shitty tapes (the tape used in the video is super cheap, they can be still had for about 1,50 brand new) or unless you never cleaned your machine. Or just had no idea what you were doing. Cassette was always great.
yup, a self recorded cassette would always sound superior to any pre-recorded cassette. Unless the tapehead azimuth was totally miss-adjusted on your recording and playback deck. Then it sounded dull and bad, regardless how good the tape quality was.
And yet 90% of cassettes that have ever existed are junk, because of an almost infinite number of factors: super cheap tapes recorded on cheap boomboxes or china junk stereos is what most people have ever known of.
Bogdan Serban MFSL used to make them in real time. And then they went to 8 times speed which became the North American standard by 1988. Before that 32× speed was common on normal tape with no Dolby B. I use to make high quality cassettes like this all the time. Any mid price 2 head tape deck from the 90's with Metal tape would sound like this. Unfortunately a lot of people were using type 1 tape, recording at too low a level on some $200 dubbing deck and then making a high speed copy of that. And then complaining about the sound. I never understood the need for this high speed dubbing nonsense. I told one friend in 1988, "You are better off buying two low priced cassette decks for $200 each than some $300 dubbing deck. Assuming you used good tape and a healthy signal; Your copies will be very good if not perfect.." He took my advice and never looked back.
Watching this while listening to a Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers cassette on my TASCAM CD-A500 in the background. Manufactured in Jan 2001. Amazing CD player and Cassette deck combo.
I like the reference audio tape. A selection of fine examples of early 90s digital synthesizers, some of which used 8 bit samples, the others 16 but cramming all their waveforms into 4MB of ROM. :-D
+Stoney3K VWestlife said the tape is from around 1991. The Roland JV-1080 wasn't out yet. In fact the whole JV product line wasn't introduced yet. Some of the sounds do indeed have a 'Roland' feel to them. I would say they are probable from a D70 and/or U20/U220. Although there might have been some Korg M1 in there too. :D
I was convinced the JV range was already out by the early 90s, but it could have been a D-70 or other ROMpler from that series as well. The Korg M1/X5 sample set sounds different.
+Stoney3K The first JV synth was the JV-80. That one was introduced in 1992. I owned one at the time, it was a nice synth. Virtually al it's sounds were also available in the later XP-50 / JV-1080. The sounds from the tape do not sound like anything I directly recognize from the JV-80. The piano sound is different for sure. It could also be that they used a Roland sampler like the S-750/770 and used some of Roland's sound library. I always wanted one of those back then, but couldn't afford it. :)
I have one on order ---- looking forward to it. I was considering getting a vintage unit but they all need the caps replaced and other servicing to make them up to spec. The price is reasonable I think.
Insane! Look at how many awesome cassette decks you can buy on the second hand market. More than there's people interested in buying them. So why offer a new one for $500 when that same price can buy you a much better machine?
Hi Everyone, I think that everyone should make as much noise as possible in order to let the audio companies know that there is an active market for the return of high end cassette decks and type II cassette tapes. During the cassette deck/tape era a large percentage of buyers were young people with limited resources, and they tended to use low end tapes and equipment. But there have always been the consumers who are interested in the ability to make warm, full frequency response, analog recordings, using the same equipment that was in use at the time. I think that the market is still there, in fact, there is now a new generation of buyers interested in learning about, and using, the cassette tape medium, and they are searching for the cassette decks and tape resources that are not easy to find! This product is the first step towards a possible resurgence. We need to show that there is an active market for these products!! Lary
So I recently dug up my old Aiwa ADF880 cassette deck, just to demonstrate to my 14 y/old son. He was interested as he saw Guardians of the Galaxy and wanted to make a mix-tape :). A trip down memory lane, allthough looked like a dead-end as the deck was in almost complete no-motion. It wiggled a little but didn't start playback. Sure enough, the belt set was toast, completely liquified. Yes, a project! Found the belts, ordered and got to work with son. Great exercise, trying to scrub liquid rubber off the flywheel. It worked out well, he made a mix-tape on a brand-new cassette I still had (yes, taking off the wrapper, hmm). If you have been playing around burning your own CDs in the late nineties, then moving to MP3 players and finally into the todays streaming age, it's kinda neat doing this again. Great history lesson! But practical? Not really
Awesome. I love cassette tapes
I was making mix dvds after ripping audios from my dads huge cd collection & selecting my favourite tracks then converting them to mp3 & burning them to 4.7gb dvds that i would play at home or in dad's car. The last one i did was in 2015 & i was 12yo backthen. I still have the last dvd & two reels of sealed dvds & cds i will probably never open in next 30yrs.
I love the irony of an alignment cassette with a misaligned label.
This is probably one of the best modern cassette decks that uses the Tanashin mechanism in terms of features.
I wish Technics will start producing cassette decks.....
Still have my 1990 Technics dual cassette deck.
A used Pioneers a good bet- ebay or similar.
Just bought a 1986 Technics the other day for $5. Love it
Likewise! I have a RS-TR575 Dual Cassette Deck which was high-end back in '94-ish.... still works perfectly - no head wear, and even has auto tape callibration so it can adapt to various types of tape nicely.... It's not a top-quality 3-head machine sadly, but it still makes fantastic recordings, and only cost me about £100 brand new a year or so ago...(and you should see the dual heavyweight flywheels on each deck!!)......so good as that Tascam/Teac machine is, there are still some fabulous 'retro' bargains to be had....
Just never buy a NAD cassette deck. They've made some beautiful amps and CD players but boy their cassette decks 😳👀
One of my favorite things about listening to tapes when I was young was when I loaded the tape in, it felt like i was loading a gun lol
Hulk Slayer me like closing car door
Hulk Slayer stop taking the drugs, lol
You haven't tried using a camcorder in the 90s and swapping out rechargable batteries, and imagining you are handling ammo clips.
😆 true, true!!
Two years later, I still found this review very useful. One aspect of the 202 MkVII which you overlooked was the tape-to-PC digital conversion. There seems to be an industry agreement designed to deter illegal duplication of digital audio CDs, limiting their digital output to 128kbps MP3 (i.e. the TASCAM CD-A580). Because this unit and the TEAC W-1200 only use analog cassette sources, the USB digital output can support higher-resolution file types such as WAV and FLAC. As for sound quality, I think this unit is comparable to most entry-level cassette decks of the 1980s including dual-well unit, which is to say it's a pretty good stereo deck if not TOTL. The well-used vintage TOTL decks from the "good old days" are going to be very hard and expensive to repair due to lack of parts and shrinking number of qualified repair techs, but this TASCAM and TEAC will probably be easily maintained and supported for many years to come. If I wanted a brand-new deck, I'd buy the W-1200.
but is it as good as a Nakamichi MR-2?
@@defiverr4697 IMHO, No.
I stopped short of buying a vintage machine off of eBay because let's face it, those machines from the late 70's really weren't designed to last 50 years. Like anything else, they wear out and become too fragile. I want a new model, but will wait a couple of years to see if we get any better choices. I might get a MiniDisc thru eBay just for the fun factor.
I am expecting mine this month. I ordered it a year ago. It is my intention to put this to use transferring my cassette and record collection to digital and onto flash drives. All of my vehicles have CD players and USB unputs. My Nakamichi needs to be warmed up and then it may just quit. I look forward to enjoying the 300+ 90 minute Maxell UD xl tapes I recorded so many albums on through the 80's and 90's.
Unboxing videos are not stupid. They are very enjoyable to watch and are useful to potential buyers.
It's very therapeutic and relaxing to watch somebody unbox a product. It's useful to see what accessories come with the product as well as how the product is packaged, especially if someone is considering having the item shipped. Also to see what kind of setup is required if you are planning to buy it as a gift.
But there are plenty of other kinds of videos you can get your ASMR from.
@@vwestlifeI see that your post is 5 years ago 😊, I just wanted to share my experience concerning type IV tape.
I bought a couple (literally a 2 pack) just to try them out. Personally my hearing wasn't good enough to distinguish the difference between type II and type IV.
Anyway on to my experience trying them. Mine as mentioned a two pack brand new. The deck if memory serves was a Radio Shack Optimus single well auto reverse "I think" SCT-88. As I did my research for belt replacement (yep, the original turned to tar/black goo). It was essentially a rebranded Awia RD-40. It couldn't completely blank the type IV (if I re-recorded it), however the initial recording was great.
As I understood type IV's main purpose was to archive recordings because the tape formula was not as prone to fade (loose the recorded signal) or be damaged by potential stray magnetic fields.
Good ol' cassette tapes, I hope this format never dies for good.
Agreed. But at the same time, I wish it never makes a massive comeback with cheap china junk stuff like the way records have.
Well, CoolDudeClem, luckily your hope is going to be granted. In fact, it already has been. NAC is churning out literally millions of cassettes, blank and pre-recorded every year. There are thousands of new fans all over the world every day when they discover they can hold something in their hands that contains the music.... Humans will always be humans and somehow, they like things they can hug...
Marc Hugo Hitachi for being considered low in back then was actually better than what some other manufacturers were producing.
Very true CabinDoor. A thousand downloads is worth nothing really. What can be touched and held up has value. "Virtual" is not real by definition, soi here we have a software version of "a miss is a good as a mile". Hang on to that music collection of yours.
+CabinDoor A vinyl or cassette collection has value mainly because of its replacement cost. Vinyl and blank cassettes cost something to manufacture, and vinyl cost depends on the price of petroleum oil. It's not the distorted, imperfect audio stored on these media that has value (except for its value as intellectual property).
I’ve been enjoying cassette tapes since I was a teenager in the late 70’s and still enjoy using them ❤️🌈☮️
Very well made review. Cassette playback sound is surprisingly impressive.
I love the smell of a freshly opened new cassette
HDXFH cassettes are awful.
smell of cancer
@Proteus Hellene you can get new ones from wallgreens in the use, just feric though
I think that’s “I love the smell of oxide in the morning”
I'm your 147th who agree with you :-)
The spec may not be the best we have seen. But i believe the points are; as of 2018, we can actually buy a brand new double cassette deck that is reliable on this planet, and for us to know some company still care and have balls and passions to produce cassette deck. love your unboxing video by the way.
*JOY* MUSIC yes, that fact that you can buy a brand new deck that isn’t a cheap piece of crap is a good thing even some features that some people want are missing. None of these missing features a absolute must haves in my opinion.
Five hundred dollars or a hundred dollars is still too costly for such a cheesy basic cassette player I would definitely go with a vintage high end.
Definitely the way to go. I don't even have any of my old cassettes anymore, but I've been watching the hell out of Techmoan and he's making me want to get all the components and build a super hi-fi.
That's just over $200 in late 80s or early 90s money. $200-300 back then would get you a nice - but not amazing deck and you would be looking at $1000+ in today's money for something really high end. So I think the price is fair considering low volumes they must be selling but some outlets are trying to push them for $599 which I think is going a bit too far.
This was great. I'm the only person I know that still has a cassette deck in the rack. I was curious about this Tascam and was delighted to see your review. Many thanks for the guided tour!
Randy Novick i still use a tape dec. i use it to recoard music.
its a technics m11 tape dec an it works well. vary well
Randy you, not the only one I even still have my VHS recorder too
My main studio recording deck is a Denon from 96. The fun ones are the Califone library deck with 7(!) headphone outs, Landscape HC-TT, which is a motorless hand cranked tape instrument (Human Controlled Tape Transport) and a Panasonic tabletop player. The Califone I have for the pitch control, the Landscape is for vinyl type scratching and I sometimes mic up the speaker on the Panasonic. All of this is in my music studio, which also includes a reel to reel and a cheap 4 track porta studio. About to order this 202 Mk VII. The pitch control (very rare) and simultaneous playback sound fun. Too bad there's no third head and monitoring for echo effects.
You definately are not the only one. I still have 4 cassette decks - Teac V-1050, Aiwa AD-S950, Yamaha KX-580 and Technics RS-BX501. All but the Technics are connected and in still in use (no more room for this).
abraham oriowo, When my reel-to-reel died, I started using a hi-fi VCR for my long recordings. Just don’t turn on the TV. Even though I have digital recording equipment, and I don’t use my Super VHS for audio anymore, I’ve added three more reel-to-reels. I love the things.
I suppose a major advantage with this deck over old decks is that it has a built-in A-to-D converter. The pitch control is certainly great too especially for playback of older cassettes recorded on myriad of decks and recorders. If these were sold in volume, I'm sure the prices would drop too.
Just wanted to say, I've been watching your videos for some time now. I have no idea about audio equipment, but I really appreciate the time you take in being very thorough in your reviews. It's more education than people get nowadays when it comes to even basic electronics.
You know… i just recently made a mixtape for a girl. And even if she has no tapedeck it was still kindly & happily appreciated as a gift. 90 Minutes of well selected music arranged in a particular order with the goal to give one heck of a FANTASTIC listening experience. Making the playlist is great. But nothing beats the moment of actually recording it :)
A friend of mine is a big Greenday fan. Still. I wouldn't do that if I were her but still, the band makes her happy. I wanted to get her something she didn't have yet so I got her the original 1992 Dookie tape. She didn't have a cassette deck so I added a walkman, batteries, earbuds and I sent the whole package of the UK (which is there the tape came from to start with, oh well :D). She adored the gift. Good!
You are re-living the magic that I had in 1990/1991 with regards to Tape Decks. My GF (eventually My Wife) didn't appreciate CrO2 or Dolby or what not, but she loved the selected music arranged in a particular order. And Playback was awesome. I listened on Hi-Fi Stereo and in the Car; she had a Midland Boombox at her home that blew away all the competition at the time. Great Bass Response, Plus ''Stereo-Wide'' on it as well. Glory Days for sure.
Yeah this is probably what i'm gonna do as well :) Picking a good walkman (or personal stereo) with a pair of good headphones and giving it to her. So she won't pick up some crap like these "mp3 conversion" thingies with the tapehead glued to the "play" button....
I find it irksome when people call a cd compilation a ¨mix tape¨.
Those were some of the more happy days of my life and I am sure you will help her to choose well. My GF/Wife already had the Midland Boombox but I could not, for the life of me, believe how well the sound emanated from that early '90's Boombox. Midland, after all, was known to manufacture CB Radio's. But this Boombox was unsurpassed and unparalleled back in its day. It made Bose and Boston Acoustic (things that came after it) sound lame (at a fraction of their price). And MP3 Files... well they are Compressed anyway. Always have been and always will be. Until the FLAC format finally kills off MP3, a lot of the ''unsuspecting'' will continue to listen to Compressed Audio. A pity. Give me 2 Loudspeakers, a CARVER AMP, A Couple of Hundred WATTS, along with some DQ-10's, and until then......... ;-)
I may not have lived in the generation, but I appreciate and listen to cassettes on the daily
What I love about cassettes is when they stay stopped and start at the exact same place in the recording. I also have hundreds of cassette tapes, both commercial and home recorded.
And that smell of newly-opened audio equipment. God I love that.
I was impressed with the sound quality of the recording you made on that Fuij tape. Even without noise reduction, there was hardly any noise in the sound at all. The highs also seem to sound pretty decent.
Less than 30 seconds in and I already hear the voices of 2 of my favorite youtubers
OMG they’re still making cassette decks? I still have mine. It’s maybe10-15 years. Glad I never got rid of it.
Hang on to that machine. Cassettes from decades ago still play.
I cannot believe how good this Tape deck sounds. I wanted a good quality machine that required no repairs. Worth every penny
Thanks for the really detailed review. The audio quality was apparent; even though it uses the Tanashin mechanism, the heads and audio circuitry must be higher quality than in the boomboxes you see for sale nowadays. Plus, like you mentioned, the availability of parts and maintainability of the deck should be good. Edit: The only thing missing for the review that I could see would have been a mention of the specifications, like the frequency response and signal/noise ratio.
From the User's Manual:
Frequency response
Chrome tape (Type II): 30 Hz - 15 kHz (±4 dB)
Normal tape (Type I): 30 Hz - 13 kHz (±4 dB)
Total S/N ratio: 59 dB (during maximum recording level input, A-weighted)
WOW! You can tell this is actually made for the more serious Tape user. Having the ability to record on BOTH decks at the same time, having a recording and a 1st generation quality duplicate tape that either serves as a archival backup or copy for a friend, is absolutely fantastic! Dude, i think you just sold me to this deck :D
Serious tape users don't use double decks though. It's a mid-low end seperate. It's not bad, but it's very much entry level.
This is about as bad as cassette gets after about 1985. Which makes it even weirder that people seem to hate on it so much. They just have no idea.
at this point i'm glad they even offer something like this. Sure the price range is a little hefty but i'm sure this price will drop very soon (maybe even down to 250) and the more they flood the market with easy maintainable and new parts & machines, the better. At least this deck can record.
I doubt very much you will see much of a price change on this. If there is enough demand, they would likely sell a CHEAPER version under the TEAC name rather than lowering the price in the TASCAM line.
@@rollingtroll professional sound guys use double decks all the time we do use other things but tape is the best thing for recording something temporarily.
@@catsbyondrepair Easy dubbing. Also they are generally cheaper to buy new. They are never the better option though.
Wow, Vwestlide went in deep on this cassette deck. Good job in going into details & even taking it apart to show the internal. 👍
Have always been a fan of cassette machines. I still use my 1974 model Sony CF 420L. It might be 46 years old but is in mint condition and still going strong!! They were really well made in those days (full metal chassis). The belts have been changed once.
I was a broadcast bench tech for 20 years, built my own home recording studio and had dozens of Nakamichi among others that I'd get for free and fix up. It's hard to believe I'm looking at buying this way as they are long gone and have some old stuff on cassette
Why do I watch a 20 minutes review of a cassette deck I'll never intend to buy ? Just for the sake of good old times .. :-) Thank you for the video !
Well at least it's not bad. If my old jvc cassette deck decides to give up, i would definetly buy this or the upcoming budget version. Just because it's new with factory warranty and probably will last for at least 5-10 years. Thanks for the great review West.
I bought those Fuji DR II Chrome slim cassettes by the gross. They sounded awesome, the slim design meant you could put two of them in the space of a standard cassette in a cassette holder. I never had a problem. Fuji Made good tapes then. Nice touch with Shango, and Techmoan In the beginning. I love those guys.
Good one! 0:18: Techmoan! 0:21: Shango066!
The only big downside of this cheap cassette mechanism, is that the don't use a sleeve bearing at the back of the flywheel. Besides that, they work pretty well, as seen in many cheap stereosystems.
Philips even used two plates of iron as a flywheel in their 80's stereosets, which is nice and good for the wow and flutter.
The simpler transport mechanism,the less stuff that can go wrong,plus for the first bird of casette deck comeback it is not bad at all.
I love the smell of Hi Bias in the morning!
I love the smell of metal even better. Ferro chrome smells like crayons.
*UPDATE:* The TEAC W-1200 cassette deck (the same thing as the TASCAM 202mkVII minus the Special Playback feature and rack mounting ears) is now available in the U.S. for $399 or less.
so it is back in 2018 ? i heard compact discs is going to be gone very soon
The TEAC and TASCAM decks are identical except for minor differences in features and the TASCAM having rack mounting rails while the TEAC does not. The doors should be removable on all of them.
Going back to 1991 ... for 350€, Pioneer sold the excellent CT-757, the successor to the already-great CT-737 Mk.II. Good times to be a music lover.
VWestlife do you reel to
Do you have reel to reel tape recorder and player
I wasn't TOO shocked with the sticker price...I was guessing $699.99...but it actually turned out to be LESS! Great looking deck and the quality looks to be great too! It should serve you MANY MANY years of great quality playback/recording
You can probably get something second-hand for about 100$ that's about the same quality.
Probably $10 for a superior quality...
@@walter-ly4dyand for that $100 you’ll get it home and find it doesn’t work, experienced this multiple time with VHS players from garage or estate sales
What a great review! Very informative. I've always had a love affair with audio electronics but I never used them for anything other than simple recording and playback, meaning most of the specialized features went unused. This is def a pretty solid looking unit, and considering the market for new cassette decks, dual or not, is so small, I'd say the higher price is well worth it even just for nostalgia!
Hi Kevin congratulations on one million views. It’s a testament of how excellent your videos are!!
This is a great video...it's good to see a review from a non-biased person: so many so-called audiophiles condemn these decks without ever seeing or using one.
I had seen this, and the Teac AD-850 available for a while and was curious about them, and after first seeing this review several months ago, I decided to go for the AD-850 - I wanted a decent cassette deck with CD player to simplify recording albums to tape, rather than using using one of my turntables and getting static/clicks/pops/groove damage noises from my LP's (I have a range of turntables from and AT-LP3, AT-LP120USB, Rega RP1, Project Primary w/acrylic platter...but so many new LP's come with groove damage from new - 'no-fill' in the grooves being the worst!) Also to eliminate having a second CD player connected... save on plugs and wiring!!
So yeah... I got the AD-850 and my word, it plays good quality pre-recorded tapes beautifully....sounds fantastic! CD playback is flawless of course: it's a good CD player. CD recording works well, but you have to be careful now with so many CDs being overly compressed and 'brick walled'... but when you get the record levels just right, the tape recording sounds fantastic!
I guess ultimately, all I'm trying to say here is that these 'cheap' Tanishin (sp?) cassette mechanisms are robust, perform well, and long may they last making them.. it's good to know that there's someone out there still who has decades of history with making them...and cheap as they are, they still work bloody well...!! :-)
Good review,,Can you explain what 'brick walled'..means please? Thanx
Your videos keep the format alive! Thanks for being you, VWestlife!
In the 80's and 90's this deck would have been a very middle ground cassette deck and probably would have sold for around or under $250. I'd like to hear how the DNS can handle a cassette with lots of hiss or DC bias rumble. UPDATE: Now in December 2019 Amazon's price has dropped to $349.99.
Ok, go to westegg . com/inflation/, (the inflation calculator), put there $250, year let's say 1990.. and the result?: "What cost $250 in 1990 would cost $475.92 in 2017."
I doubt, no Dolby, very bad mechanism, one can hear wow effect at recorded tape, nooooooooooo
I paid 850$ to amazon last week for this Tascam.
I Would've liked to have this Deck back in the Mid 70's when the Disco Music Mixes were in Full Swing Saturday Nights on WBLS and in WKTU
It is a time machine. Forget the good old days of cassette, just enjoy the feeling and the simplicity of analogue format.
I love the flavour that cassettes contribute to the music. Every tape gives the recording another flavour and makes it unique. I think it's great tha cassettes are not dying completely off
It's great that they seem to at least be trying as best they can with the limits of the mechanisms available, I'd say they ended up making something rather nice there, leaps above the "boombox" style new decks you can buy new today.
Oof, pricey though.
Wow, one of the very best reviews I've seen in youtube. Thank you for the information.
Awesome video. The only complaint I have is that you didn't smell that brand new cassette when you opened it! Dammit! :D
True! I always did that as a kid and in my early teens. New sony tapes smelled particularly sweet to my taste.
Lol that brings back some happy memories xD
😘😁😁😁😁😁😁
There's opportunity for a whole new RUclips channel here......
Complaint ???
You have NO IDEA,.. where he "Stashed" it. smuggling it from China.
Let's just say, Moist Towelettes were involved 😂
The reason for Metal tapes was due to residual magnetism of the playback head erasing the high frequencies of regular tapes. Metal tapes required a much higher recording force to record or delete signal to/from tape. This made residual magnetism unable to delete the delicate high frequencies. My last cassette deck was the fabulous Onkyo TA-2090 which I purchased around 1986 for $500. I accidentally fed it 220 volts which killed it. Wish I could purchase another NIB.
Beautiful gear. Remember the Nakamichi RX-202 and RX-505 auto-reverse units that would open the door, flip the tape 180 degrees, and close the door? It was like magic.
Nice video! I agree, compared to what you can get on ebay (high end tape decks from the 90s, many even fully serviced), this is ridiculously expensive for what it offers. And no Dolby for recording is just sad, even though I can understand they do not want to license it for how many decks they probably sell. Just get something like a used Pioneer deck with Dolby S (CT-900S, CT-S 820S or whatever), make sure it has been serviced (new belts etc.) and you will have yourself a nice tape deck which will smoke these "new" decks in every regard, and it will most likely be cheaper.
The situation is pretty much the same as when you want to start with analog photography - instead of buying some plastic camera which is produced/sold right now, it will be far better to go on ebay and buy a used high end Canon/Nikon from the 90s (EOS-1v, EOS-3, Nikon F4/F5/F100) which can be had for $200-300 (and cost $2000-3000 back then).
You can't even get a license for Dolby NR for cassette tapes anymore. From what I've heard, Dolby does not actively license it anymore as the actual NR chips aren't being made anymore, and Dolby has no intention of getting back into cassette NR.
+Neko Suki (nice name btw!) True, there simply is not enough demand from the general public for brand new tape decks/cassettes. So it is either these cheap Chinese mechanics, which can also be used in $20 stereos for the kitchen, or super high end hand-crafted devices which can be sold for thousands of dollars and so are profitable even when produced in single digit numbers (although I know of no actual tape decks which are produced that way these days, only reel-to-reel tape recorders - google "Ballfinger reel to reel"). That's why, as everybody who follows like this one or Techmoan knows, the best way to get a good tape deck these days sadly is to look on eBay for decks from the golden age in the 90s. What you can buy brand new today is pretty much the Crosley record players in tape deck form.
Unfortunately the same goes for blank tapes. Try getting your hands on a fresh chrome or metal tape these days.
But since vinyl, reel-to-reel and analog photo are on the return, I suspect cassettes will follow. As long as it doesn't involve hipsters being cool with cheap fake Walkmans which have USB.
normal and chrome tapes are still available e.g. on Amazon (although in the case of chrome tapes probably just leftover stock), but yes, sealed/unused metal tapes are pretty much impossible to get these days. Luckily I never threw away my tapes from the 80s/90s, so I still have a lot of used TDK MA etc. I can record over. You can still get metal tapes on ebay (of course all used) at a reasonable price - of course you then have to hope they were stored correctly etc.
If someone designed a new high-end cassette mechanism today it would be a *lot* more expensive. Just like the Technics SL-1200/1210 series turntables -- back when they were in mass production they cost around $500 to $700. Technics recently reintroduced new versions of it, and they now cost $1700 to $4000.
Man, that play engagement sound is so satisfying...
It screams 'cheap plastic!' though :D.
The problem with these new cheaply made decks is people will assume this is the limit to cassette as for sound quality and wow and flutter. Until they've heard a top of the line deck (3 head dual capstan with proper bias and level calibrations) they don't know how good cassette can really perform.
steve bennett I think we can blame that on the China mindset that stereo sound is a luxury and it costs too much. If you don't believe me. Just check out some led projectors for an example. Some are stereo in ,but mono out. They can even only have half stereo out, or only have one speaker installed although it can handle full stereo. As we know people have been brainwashed into thinking mp3's are top quality, and watching a movie on a cell or tablet screen is high quality entertainment. I would not convert any media into mp3's without a high quality original if I could. People have really forgotten what real quality is. What I would like is to have movies fully uncompressed with updated audio and bluray on laserdisc.
Yes, regarding sound quality, it's amazing nowadays how many people are quite happy to listen to their music for hours on a tiny phone speaker!
when he said tape mechanism is the same as some aldi cheap retro box, my heart dropped.
That is a very good review. You covered a lot of stuff, and explained it well. Thanks for the inside view of the circuit board (it looked like a lot of full sized ICs) and it's adjustment pots, and tape drive mechanism.
The return of the cassette deck. Who would've thunk it. I still have my old jvc. Maybe I won't get rid of it after all. Thanks for the review.
It´s amazing how many through-hole components can be in a 2018 device! Those PCBs look like an Atari 2600 board :-D Love it!
Through hole conponents are still found in switch mode power supplies and also some analog equipment like conputer speakers or headphone amps. Nothing really special and there is a ton of SMD in there.
I do not think I wil ever buy a cassette deck but I enjoyed watching your review
I really miss the live analog sound of the cassette tapes!
Thanks for the review of this tape deck. I have the Tascam MD-CD1 for listening to minidiscs and cds and it’s my favorite music playback device. I bought the Record Store Day release of Prince’s The Versace Experiment last weekend on cassette. The last cassette I bought was Smashing Punpkins’ Melon Collie and Infinite Sadness double album back in the 90s. I’m really excited that Tascam is still making tape decks. As soon as I’m done watching your review I’m gonna buy the deck online.
I know it's an older vid, but still thanks for this more than excellent review. I am considering buying either the TEAC W-1200 or AD-850 (single cassettte deck with CD player. I guess/assume the cassette deck itself would be comparable to the one of the W-1200?), as I didn't have any luck with second hand purchases of vintage gear in the past and I - unlike many seriious tapeheads , it seems - applaud TEAC's effort to at least work with the components that are available nowadays and understand that prices need to be high for this niche hobby. I miss the nostalgia of cassette decks and have lots of pre-recorded tapes that I would love to listen to. Maybe I'll record some tapes myself as well eventually.
Yes bring back more cassette decks! Also I'm glad it's not autoreverse.
Why would Dolby not want to make money from licensing their B noise reduction? It makes no sense.
A Floyd
Indeed, considering that making even limited numbers of encoder/decoder chips would be very cheap today with current manufacturing abilities.
Plus they'd get free advertising through the consumer market as people have forgotten about Dolby Systems including professionals even.
Not enough demand probably,. Especially if there's only one company(Tascam), making only one high quality cassette deck(the one in the video). Basically not worth it, Dolby makes all its bucks from the movie industry these day
Ray Dolby passed away on September 12, 2013. Dolby had become a publicly-traded corporation. As a big company, it's likely that others in Dolby's corporate management wanted to kill off the money-losing NR licensing some years earlier. They likely refrained from doing so while the company's founder and namesake was still alive. This scenario has played out many times before in corporate America, such as relocating the corporate HQ or changing the corporation's name shortly after the founder's death.
Cassette decks, are still available in market. I wish I had one. A huge thanks to you and your channel for acquaint this to me.
Along with dbx-2231 eq, i am a Proud owner of a SONY tc-wr350z full logic dual cassette player(no rack mount) w/ dolby A/B, remote and added pitch control that amazingly recreates the mood/atmosphere & pitch of whatever cassette i record or play, been a Fan - still a Fan since childhood.
It's been 16 years since I bought a cassette 📼 tape for the last time. Gotta say this one sound superb ! I would say this receiver sound almost like my Sony hi fi receiver!
I still use cassettes for my radio recordings and Tascam still sell cassette decks in 2018 for making cassettes and MP3 converter with USB. And they still sell cassette tapes at walmart.
Brian 1610 AM DX same
your lucky since cassette tapes aren't sold in uk supermarkets anymore, the only place I know they might sell cassettes here is in a store called Wilko/Wilkinsons……….
wclifton968 I find them at thrift stores / garage sales for next to nothing
You get them on Amazon and Ebay brand new.
Davaro Smith okay thanks, I'll keep that in mind
Expensive deck but you did a great review on this. Product. I was impressed a 2018 deck sounded amazing.
Almost impossible to get hold of now and not clear if they are still pumping them out. Great video!
Seems like a stupid answer to the Dolby question, because the patents for Dolby B and C NR are EXPIRED. The only thing to license is the trademark. So they could 100% legally copy the circuit in order to RECORD AND PLAY. They just don't want to.
I really don't understand all the people in forums around talking about how crap this machine is compared to their decks from the 90s. I don't think people sitting at home with their Nakamichi deck and Martin Logan electrostatic speakers while studying specs are Tascams target customers for this cassette deck. It's mainly for professional use, and in this case professional does not mean a consumer deck with even better specs. Tascam list karaoke bars, houses of worship and schools as some of the applications for this deck. If someone want to sing in a karaoke bar, a cassette deck without a mic input is useless regardless of how many heads and motors the deck has. Similar, the reliability and durability that a simple transport mechanism (hopefully) offer is far more important for a school than an advanced and probably more fragile transport mechanism.
0:19 Techmoan?
Claro1993 shanago66 as well :)
I believe so!
Yeah, that's him alright. I did a double-take trying to figure out who's channel I was watching
Oh when you peeled open that new cassette, it took me back to old times of tape faith and dependence :)
As happy as I am to see a cassette deck still on the market, I thought it stumbled on the Pat Coil test recording with noticeable flutter on the piano parts. I do find it interesting that they enabled both decks to record.
Surely by now all the patents have expired on Dolby noise reduction for cassettes, so it probably comes down to trademarks and the lack of available ICs at this point. I wonder if perhaps some competitor's system, like JVC's ANRS, would be available for licensing.
Agree - lack of IC most probably.... I thought this deck is cost reduced. Record knob does not adjust L/R levels independently. A must feature. And MIC input should really be stereo inputs these days. Lack on metal recording really hurts this deck.... is this targeted to professionals?
I just lokated my Sony D6c in the garage of a friend. That thing is now highly sought after. It played all the tape types.
@@uncatila
All the tape types?
Reel to Reel and 8-Track Too?
What about SVHS?
(a Great Audio recording choice in its time)
And even my Phone,.. Has Dolby ATMOS.
...get with the times people 😂...
@@jimwilliams8858 I know I'm a year late, but -- it's not really a must 22:12. I would prefer just one record level knob anyway, personally. With those internal pots, you still get access to the separate L and R levels
I hope their next step in the evolution of both this deck and its TEAC-branded sibling will be to shield the power transformer properly and to make noise reduction available for recording as well as playback.
$500 for a deck that doesn't support recording to metal tape? WTF???? I used metal tapes all the time back in the day.
Considering that it's made in China is a deal-breaker for me as well!
Super dealbreaker indeed, no metal is no reason tot buy...
Maybe the teac model is better
thespeez spezio , the iPad or phone you used to type your message is made in China too, what is not these days?
Metal tapes has long stopped being made.
My sister's foster dad worked for the Ford dealership here in town, so I do know about the reference cassette for their JBL audio systems.
It may be obscure to others, though, as my experience is only anecdotal.
Tremendously thorough review, highly enjoyable
to watch.
It's funny to see people in comments complaining about no support for metal tape. Why Tascam want to support metal tape, if there is no new production for metal tape anymore.
Faisal Kadal+ Because in 2018, people expect current production analog equipment to be re-engineered for state-of-the-art performance. In the absence of metal tape, you can't engineer a cassette deck possessing state-of-the-art fidelity, and you shouldn't price your product as if it did.
watched it right through. At first I was dissappointed with the lack of features and dolby modes, however I was impressed with the amount of nominally high standard tapes you used and the thoroughness of your review. I've been purchasing and reconditioning/repairing a few cassette decks with higher functionality like multi cassette changer and another with Dolby S. It was really nice to see the gleaming facia of a brand new unit, its motivated me to see just how clean and dust free I can make my second hand units look like. I would have liked so see you flick the noise reduction switch within camera shot so we can hear the difference of the dynamic noise reduction. I do wonder if your reference tape was accurate to within half a percent as its subject to tape stretch like any other tape... in short the speed of the unit was probably correct and the pitch knob adjusted slightly left. Thanks for a look at a new unit. I do recall the TEAC A250 that we had and the full size headphones that we used as Dad did not buy an amplifier for a while afterwards.. Teac lost its integrity a little after the 70s as it made some cheap portable players, however they've certainly remained a mainstay of cassette technology.
The Ford/JBL premium sound system in my ‘93 Lincoln Mark VIII sounds terrific. The factory amplifier took a crap, so I replaced the factory head unit with a limited production Pioneer MVH-S501BS and wired all the internal speakers to it. I used a crossover filter so the tweeters only got the frequencies they’re supposed to, and I added 2 JBL 12” subs powered by a Fosgate 600 watt amp. It sounds GREAT. The 26 year old Ford/JBL speakers still sound excellent, no buzzing or rattles etc. Doesn’t surprise me they offered a quality recorded tape to show off the systems of the era. Nice!
Excellent presentation. Well done!
The pitch control is a very compelling feature for me. I've never understood why so many cassette decks, even the higher-end ones, lack this feature even though it was a common feature on turntables at almost every price point.
Just $500? I was honestly expecting you to say that this thing costs $800-$1200. My uncle bought an Onkyo deck around 1985 for around that same price (which is $1066.40 in 2018), which he gave to me, because he hardly ever used it.
That's way too much thouch. A deck like this should be 250-300. It's almost as cheap as it gets.
Yep, I was expecting $1200.
I have over $1500 in cassettes, and I have never wanted to change over to CD's; which are nothing but small records. Cassettes are almost indestructible, and always reliable. The problem with todays cassette decks is, you never know what you'll get, not like in the 70's & 80's they were always with top durable parts. I have an older, JVC TD-W307 Stereo Double Cassette Deck, which is still working great.
Great review. I purchased the Tascam 202 MkV back in 2010. To this day I'm not really sure why I purchased this deck since I already owned a very good Marantz SACD player bought around the same time. I guess one of the reasons why, was that I received a very generous Pension from my previous job after a a job lay-off. I had a little money to blow, so I decided to upgrade my stereo system with this deck.
Since cassette decks were a dying breed, I wanted to get my hands on one of the last cassette decks being made which was the Tascam 202. The only poblem, was that my SACD blew every piece of equipment I owned out of the water, so I didn't see any point into making, or listening to recordings that didn't measure up.
So my Tascam cassette deck sat there for years, looking pretty on the shelf while garnering all sorts of ooh's and ah's from friends, and not being used. It wasn't even connected to my Yamaha Amp(for 10 years !). It was only recently after retiring , that I decided to play with it. I bought myslef some empty Metal tapes and Chrome tapes, but unfortunately after thougroughly reading the manual only to realize that this machine does not record on Metal tape, my only hope was to record on Chrome tape and maybe listen to prerecorded metal tapes.
This review at least gave me some hope that I did not totally waste my money ($499.99) back then. I also own a Luxman 406 casssette deck that does record on metal tapes and has dbx noise reduction system. The Luxman is really a jewel, but unfortunately it makes a loud hissing sound once in a while out of nowehere and for no reason. So serious recording work with this machine is out of the question unless/until I can get it fixed if possibe. Right now it sits like a collectors item on my shelf.
You can actually record on Type IV metal tape on this deck. It will sound a bit bright (too much treble), but will work.
That music on the Pontiac VIP Trans Sport Casette Tape is awesome. Wish I could find some digital versions of the songs.
I'll stick with my Nakamichi DR-10 . Thank you for the vid. I bought up all the metal tapes from Tower records back in 2002 .
I remember looking at the 10-pack box of TDK MA-110s in the D & R catalog and thinking, "They're going to stop making these things, I should buy up a bunch . . ."
Tom Mahoney I used to think my Nak obsessed buddies were strange, then I trash picked a studio deck (was a bench tech) and man oh man, I had never known just how good a cassette could sound, Nakamichi was really THAT good.
@@jeffreystroman2811 It was incredible. Indistinguishable from a CD... maybe better?
You would think that with only one maker these days the deck would be loaded rather than basic. How much dearer would it be to make a head that can do type 1,2&4 compared to just 1&2 when the r&d was paid for decades ago. Same with Dolby etc...
I still listen to cassette tapes in my van. Yep, you read that right.
When I bought a 1994 Escort for a puttabout I promptly installed an NOS Clarion ARX 7470 and CD changer.
I have this Tascam unit for 3 years, and I do hear a low grade hum sometimes on deck #1 but most of the time I don't hear any hum at all on deck #1
Maybe I got a better shield or something, but anyway It seems to be intermittent for hum on my machine, for whatever reason ,and I listen for it too
A great tape machine and I love when there is no hum, just quiet tape hiss and that's most of the time on my unit
Thank You for this video I love cassettes and 4 track cassette recording
The intermittent hum was caused from a small electric fan I have on top of the Tascam With the fan switched off there is no hum
When the fan is switched on there is humming sounds on both #1 and #2 The fan also gets moved around sometimes Makes perfect sense now
We badly need Dolby Labs to start licensing their Noise Reduction again. My collection of 900+ tapes is recorded in Dolby C and these new decks don't look too bad.
patents expired long time ago, "noise reduction" switch on this deck is just that
dp vn03
Honestly how hard would it be to reproduce the discrete dolby chips today. I think it would be a boon for Dolby Systems at least in terms of getting renewed interested from the consumer and professional alike.
Lots of "free" advertising by way of consumers.
rasz: No, that is DNR, something completely different. As the basic Dolby "B" noise reduction is basically a treble booster while recording and a muffler when playing back, it is kind of compatible to DNR, but it has nothing to do with the compander-based 2-way noise reduction that Dolby C is and that is proprietary.
waterhed44: exactly. I wouldn't be able to produce one of these chips in my garage though :P
Dolby might still license it if one is willing to pay the $$$, but there may not be any manufacturer still making the proprietary Dolby NR chips these days. Apparently there's no metal bias capable heads been made now. The Tanashin decks themselves, it's really beggars can't be choosers.
Which tells you where cassette really stands as a format. The speed variation in that playback of the Sheffield CD was pretty obvious to my ears, as was the "splashy" treble. It would have been advantageous to hear the difference between the actual CD and the playback off the Tascam. My bet is that there's considerable degradation. Basically this strikes me as what would have been considered a real run of the mill tape deck back in the mid 70's. Given that it can handle anything but Type I and II tape, and the NR is inferior to Dolby B, we're talking a machine that might compete with an old Advent 201. The cheapest Nakamichi would walk all over it. At least the vinyl revival can bring us turntable performance equal to what we saw in the 80's when the format started losing support. No technical effort at all is being put into reviving cassette.
Loved the review! I recently have been getting into cassettes as they are much cheaper then vinyl (for now at least) and there is something charming about their form factor. Do you have any favorite websites for information on tape decks and other related audio equipment? There are tons of models out there and I find myself googling receiver model numbers at the thrift store often and just hoping for some solid info. Your channel is great and it is always nice to see youve posted a new video. Thanks!
Techmoan has done several good videos about cassettes and also there are forums like www.tapeheads.net
I have never heard tape sounding so good.
This is about as bad as it gets. Cassettes were always good, just not the prerecorded ones. Home recording always sounded this good on seperate decks, unless you used really shitty tapes (the tape used in the video is super cheap, they can be still had for about 1,50 brand new) or unless you never cleaned your machine. Or just had no idea what you were doing.
Cassette was always great.
yup, a self recorded cassette would always sound superior to any pre-recorded cassette. Unless the tapehead azimuth was totally miss-adjusted on your recording and playback deck. Then it sounded dull and bad, regardless how good the tape quality was.
And yet 90% of cassettes that have ever existed are junk, because of an almost infinite number of factors: super cheap tapes recorded on cheap boomboxes or china junk stereos is what most people have ever known of.
Bogdan Serban MFSL used to make them in real time. And then they went to 8 times speed which became the North American standard by 1988. Before that 32× speed was common on normal tape with no Dolby B.
I use to make high quality cassettes like this all the time. Any mid price 2 head tape deck from the 90's with Metal tape would sound like this. Unfortunately a lot of people were using type 1 tape, recording at too low a level on some $200 dubbing deck and then making a high speed copy of that. And then complaining about the sound.
I never understood the need for this high speed dubbing nonsense. I told one friend in 1988, "You are better off buying two low priced cassette decks for $200 each than some $300 dubbing deck. Assuming you used good tape and a healthy signal; Your copies will be very good if not perfect.."
He took my advice and never looked back.
The Rolling Troll HEY EVERYONE, LISTEN TO THIS GUY. HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT!
Watching this while listening to a Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers cassette on my TASCAM CD-A500 in the background. Manufactured in Jan 2001. Amazing CD player and Cassette deck combo.
Love looking at audio equipment made of substance. Lately, I've seen downsized, recyclable plastic, resembles a toy equipment on the retail shelves.
I like the reference audio tape. A selection of fine examples of early 90s digital synthesizers, some of which used 8 bit samples, the others 16 but cramming all their waveforms into 4MB of ROM. :-D
Sounded suspiciously like a Roland JV-1080 to be honest.
+Stoney3K VWestlife said the tape is from around 1991. The Roland JV-1080 wasn't out yet. In fact the whole JV product line wasn't introduced yet. Some of the sounds do indeed have a 'Roland' feel to them. I would say they are probable from a D70 and/or U20/U220. Although there might have been some Korg M1 in there too. :D
I was convinced the JV range was already out by the early 90s, but it could have been a D-70 or other ROMpler from that series as well. The Korg M1/X5 sample set sounds different.
+Stoney3K The first JV synth was the JV-80. That one was introduced in 1992. I owned one at the time, it was a nice synth. Virtually al it's sounds were also available in the later XP-50 / JV-1080.
The sounds from the tape do not sound like anything I directly recognize from the JV-80. The piano sound is different for sure. It could also be that they used a Roland sampler like the S-750/770 and used some of Roland's sound library. I always wanted one of those back then, but couldn't afford it. :)
Vinyl's back, cassette tapes are back... Dayum! I wish LaserDisc also comes back!!
I have one on order ---- looking forward to it. I was considering getting a vintage unit but they all need the caps replaced and other servicing to make them up to spec. The price is reasonable I think.
Insane!
Look at how many awesome cassette decks you can buy on the second hand market.
More than there's people interested in buying them. So why offer a new one for $500 when that same price can buy you a much better machine?
Hi Everyone, I think that everyone should make as much noise as possible in order to let the audio companies know that there is an active market for the return of high end cassette decks and type II cassette tapes. During the cassette deck/tape era a large percentage of buyers were young people with limited resources, and they tended to use low end tapes and equipment. But there have always been the consumers who are interested in the ability to make warm, full frequency response, analog recordings, using the same equipment that was in use at the time. I think that the market is still there, in fact, there is now a new generation of buyers interested in learning about, and using, the cassette tape medium, and they are searching for the cassette decks and tape resources that are not easy to find! This product is the first step towards a possible resurgence. We need to show that there is an active market for these products!! Lary