Back in the day, when manufacturers actually TOLD you how they do things, instead of just a battery safety warning, a disclaimer, and referring to the online manual :p
I have that exact deck. I bought it new in 1999, along with a matching receiver, and 100 CD changer, surround sound speakers, sub box, and a 32" tube TV. The salesman at the store, could not understand why I wanted cassette deck. I had lots of tapes and lots of CDs at that point. I haven't used any of them in years. They are in the family room with the big screen TV that I replaced the 32" with. A TV I also don't use any more. I rarely even go in the room anymore, since my only child left home, is rarely home, and my wife can no longer descend the stairs to get there. I think I might have to go dust it all off one day.
I had the model or two down from this one, still an amazing tape deck. Wish I had it today! It had Dolby S but it didn't have any of the digital capabilities. EDIT: I think the ct-w604RS or 704rs is what I had. It had the BLE which I thought was so cool.
@@adcraziness1501 not if it wasn't a Sony. My 32 inch JVC D series is only about 95 pounds, so that's legitimately easy for two adults to lift. A 32 inch Trinitron though, oof, that goes from 40 pounds per person to 70+ fast.
All that stuff is worth a small fortune! Sell it is you don't plan to bring a new lease of life into it! Let someone get some enjoyment out of it and you will get some cash to make your lives better and knowing that your tech will get used by someone who cares about it!
George Benson's "On Broadway" is a great audio test. Listen to the people clapping in the background. In many audio compression and noise reduction systems, you'll hear the audience noise "pumping" as the system removes the "noise".
Sounds amazing, I can´t imagine what this deck can do with a Cr02 or Metal tape. You can hear the unit active filtering on the highs, when speech comes up; you can even hear the envelope release of the filter (with good phones). Great demo, thanks for sharing.
I got a CT-W606dr from my late brother. The first thing a played was a cassette with Kraftwerk-Autobahn album. I was immediately sold. What a pleasent warm sound through my recapped Sansui 771 which is a solid performer too! Last time i really listened to cassette’s must have been in the eighties. My brother was fond of music and equipment like this.
I actually have this same exact deck. I bought it at J&R Music World way back in 1996. I used to make compilation tapes to listen to for my car before I finally bought an in-trunk CD changer. The sound quality of the tapes I recorded surpassed the commercial prerecorded ones by far. Most people couldn't even tell if I was playing a CD or a recorded tape I made from the CD itself. I still use it from time to time to play some of my old tapes (that I recorded) dating back to the early 1970s, and also use it to make digital copies (from cassettes to computer) of some of the old stuff for archiving purposes.
A good tape deck using decent metal tapes and dolby c with a good recording can come so close to CD that most people won't be able to tell the difference. Dolby s takes that a step further... but both are of little help with prerecorded tapes. This deck however can be a lot of help for that, and for older (pre dolby c era) recordings.
Awesome explanation. I was lucky enough to stumble across one of these a few months ago hunting for a deck for the computer system. I have some old tapes a late friend of mine recorded in the seventies of local radio & tv, but his setup was discount tapes recording a transistor radio (or tv speaker) via a portable cassette recorder's external mic. This deck improves the hiss greatly and makes digitization practical.
They used this technology in their car radios too. Difference was noticably good when you turn that on. There was a sign in screen showing 1/f something when turned on.
Nice cassette deck, hard to find those old Pioneer digital models. That's back when they still made decent audio equipment, now it's pretty much all throw away. Thanks for the link to cassette deck maintenance. I miss CD 101.9. I used to listen to that station in the car years back, made my trips to & from work a little more pleasurable. Peter White, David Benoit, Sade, etc.
Just got my hands on a CT-606DR purely based on your review, I was that impressed (euro model, so with all the 616 buttons and features) with the audio on the video, and I must say it sounds even better in person! I am actually stunned the quality of the playback and the TDNS feature when dubbing. Its on a par with my other two three head single well decks (Sony) and whilst those both have Dolby S, you don't actually need it on this deck. Whilst IMHO Dolby B for the most part to my ears sounds dull and missing top end, on this deck it sounds superb with NO Dolby at all! But with B and C its even better, must be the FLEX kicking in bringing the top end to life. If you can find one of these decks (I had to get my shipped from Germany to the UK and it took a 10 day wait.. and was a gamble E-Bay purchase that it would be OK and survive the shipping) I would suggest you don't think twice and snap one up. Highly underrated decks and proves that a three head decks arn't the be all to end all!
I've since this weekend gone stripped and cleaned the interior, it appears to be a 1997 model, I put new belts on each mechanism and oiled the motor, set azimuth and used a couple of test tone tapes to get both decks playback speed spot on. It's a real easy deck to work on to do belts, much easier than my Sony ones at least!
I'm waiting on an ebay 606 Euro version too, described as tested-working. Any advice regarding order of steps to undertake to test functionality. Is the refurb process easy enough for a novice who hasn't taken down a deck before? Any interest in assisting if need be?
I have a 606 off the back of this video .. my main issue is the earsplitting Headphone volume ... does anyone know of a hack to add a pot to the rear so that the level can be controlled ...
for a type I that sounds very well! But i can hear some artifacts in the music, still an amazing way to listen to those old Tapes or transfer them to your PC.
I have a Pioneer minidisc deck with Digital Noise Reduction. It can be used as a stand alone noise reduction unit and DAC, too, so I don't need to be playing or recording a minidisc to use it. DNR works very well.
Try the Dragon from Nakamichi.at 0.019%. This is the weakest point of this Pioneer Deck at 0.09% And yes you can hear it on a well recorded piano alone.
@@seacampal1425 yes and no. This is the first cassette deck I've ever heard where I don't believe the specs or meters once I start actually listening, even though I know what the spec actually is. And even with the relatively low spec, it's still a huge bang for buck, and when you consider the vastly superior fidelity that it has over many older decks thanks to things like FLEX, it's a much more sensible way to get a high quality sound out of a cassette. Sure, they're cheap machines, but they're the pinnacle of cost vs performance in my opinion. Any deck that can fool people into thinking you're playing a CD is high end, and this one can certainly do that, even with piano music. And that's not even to mention the fact that there are a surprising amount of people (including me) who don't care about wow and flutter so much, since it's nostalgic in the way a damaged record has crackles. If I want to listen to audio without artifacts, I pull out my LG V20 or my LG V40. If I want to have as much fun playing the music as I do listening to it, then sometimes a waverly piano can be a part of that fun experience.
I had a deck almost exactly like that like 20 years ago. I still have the VSX-9300 receiver that I used with it though and it still works great. Pioneer made some excellent quality home audio equipment back in the 80s and 90s.
Great video and information. After watching, i scored a CT-W606DR for 75Euro incl. shipping via ebay classifieds. Arrived today, very well packed by the seller and everything works out of the box. So cool. Love your channel :)
I'm a tape freak, cassette or reel to reel. I came across a good condition Pioneer CTW806DR on the street a few days ago, and I paid 11 dollars for it. My God! I could never hv guessed they came up with this system. At the street buy, I thought the 20 bit system was for direct in of CDP, anf so I saif to myself, eh thus could be for a good relay play unit in my bedroom. Little did I know it was so so so so so so surprisingly good in actual use. No hiss at all on my tapes. It was not until I read its user's manual gotten from hifiengine.com that I realized this deck had Super BLE XD, ALCA, FLEX, and a defeatable digital NR! THESE WERE no gimmicks at all, contrary to some of my experience with Pioneer. This was the real deal, to play any tapes (except those recordings made with far off azimuth angles) well, even those made on my Nakamichi's with pre-1979 EQ curves. I'd go so far as to say, this deck my CTW806DR, and the 606, are over kills in a good way. Their major drawback could be IMHO, their Auto reverse heads that according to the user's manuals, are made of hard permalloy (PB/R heads) and ferrite (ER Heads), which may wear down quickly, despite the hard perm having excellent magnetic and thus sound performance.
That is why I bought the single deck no autoreverse back in the day. It needs no adjustment ever. They were so good that back then I remember that I had reused all my old casettes as the quality of the reconding was so great that it was better on a very old (low quality) casette than on my older (very good but older kenwood) tape recorder on a chrome casette.
I can clearly hear the main lack of that noise reduction system: although the SNR is good, the signal peaks sound noisy (a bit sandy/abrasive) and it's quite hearable if there's no high frequency parts in the samples - f.e. on voice. The noise reduction seems to be behaves like noise gate.
I have a Pioneer CT-W606DR. AWESOME cassette player! Used one to transfer a demo cassette to CD and was amazed at the time that I was dubbing it at the complete lack of tape hiss through the headphones I was using at the time. We also had a Sony CD burner at the time, as well. I've always been under the impression that it was just a really good quality recording/cassette that they used, but I'm sure it was mostly due to the tape deck I used.
Smooth Jazz radio stations.... *shudders with revulsion -- then puts on some August Burns Red, Demon Hunter and Metallica to erase the traumatic memory of it...* :P
I have a Pioneer dual deck similar to this, a model CT-W604RS, that I used for several years. Had great sound and was really quiet. Then one day it just died, no power. Since everything is now throw away junk we no longer have electronic repair shops locally so it's in by bedroom closet where it has sat for around ten years. Pioneer had some great ideas with their cassette decks that no one else had.
The REAL problem cassette decks had was not hiss (at least not since the advent of Dolby B) - it was tape misalignment aka 'azimuth' issues. Even the best decks I've owned (other than a Nakamichi Dragon) suffer from it. This can't be fixed digitally. Even quartz locked dual capstan decks can't fix a tape recorded on another misaligned deck.
I agree. Azimuth changes as the head ages because the contact path along the heads and other surfaces on the tape transport system may become off flat, leading to skewing and thus azimuth changes, even constant azimuth changes as the taoe goes. Solution: clean up, or replace heads and pinch rollers, then re-align.
Just a quick note about YT impressions. I watched this vid a LONG time ago, but YT just offered it up as "suggested". Considering your recent Tweet, it seems that you are still getting some love with your vintage vids.
I am so sensitive to tape defects that in my mind i've involuntarily seen crumpled tape and dirt on play head. But yeah, is good compared with other players.
Aside from the occasional residual artifacts of hiss remaining audible during portions of speech, the digital noise reduction seemed happy to oblige, cleaning up what would otherwise be a very noisy tape. Using this or a similarly qualified cassette deck would prove immensely useful when transferring out-of-print cassette tapes to CD or digital that weren't even recorded with Dolby B.
Whether it's the music itself or the particular qualities of tape, many of these tracks were extremely nostalgic for me. I know that we used to play tapes all the time, blasting gospel music through the house, and this makes me think of that precisely.
I really like the Pioneer CT series decks, they're not that expensive, easy to re-belt (I managed without even removing the mechs from the machine), a lot of the range uses interchangeable parts and MOST importantly the speed and level adjustment pots on the motherboard can easily be accessed while the machine is running making tuning them by ear not only possible but simple. Really the last era of electronics that was designed to be serviced rather than replaced when it broke.
Thanks for a great video! Great music selection. I have a KKSF 103.7 FM sampler tape that had many of those songs. Smooth jazz is a great type of music to showcase a cassette deck.
One more question, Is there any superior cassette decks than the models you mentioned in the description of this video: CT-W606DR, CT-W616DR, CT-W706DR, CT-W806DR, CT-05D, CT-07D, CT-S670D, T-WD5R, and T-D7 with these digital features or more?
Woohoo, thanks to this video (viewed earlier - didn't know about this tech) I found one (recognize it - thanks to this video) in a stack of (3 different brand) components, a woman sells it for $10! Actually I don't now the condition of the deck but hey, for $10 it is worth to try (and maybe to fix). I think this one is one of the best candidates to digitize cassettes. I have a lot of original radio/live recordings that I want to digitize in the best quality possible. This is really awesome, can't wait to try it. Thanks to you (and your video) I am able to recognize hidden gems. Thank you. Thanks. ;-)
I've been marathoning your channel trying to get caught up. I really enjoy your videos. I know this video is older. I am having a hard time finding this exact pioneer unit for sale in the US. Do you have any suggestions for another one of equal quality?
Nice demonstration! Pioneer made excellent decks in the 80's-90's. I'm listening on headphones and I hear the digital NR creating "breathing" artifacts during the DJ talk and the Billy Joel song on the CD 101.9 tape. I wish you would have demonstated some other pre-recorded cassettes and recorded a CD onto a High Bias or Metal tape.. or even a budget Maxell UR or TDK D. The main thing I disliked about most dubbing decks from the 80's and 90's was you couldn't adjust the recording volume for copying another tape. It was ether pre-set or they used an AGC circuit on many decks.
@@vwestlife Hi, a very informative video in so much I purchased one; the 606 UK version. I’ve also subscribed to your channel 👍 Do you know if there is a way to have this functioning with a remote via the SR control system as a standalone? Would the Pioneer MR-100 remote sensor work as the receiver with a universal remote as the transmitter, e.g the Logitech harmony remote?
Cassettes have made a comeback, falling more into favor than some music 🎶 formats of today. So have records. They're favored over CD's 💿 by many people. Your friend, Jeff.
Awesome video! You actually pushed me into buyinc this deck. First recording on type 1 without dolby sounds really promising. Looking forward to trying with different tapes and settings What settings do you usually use? Dolby or no dolby during recording? Digital and flex during playback? Or do you find it better to go defeat those functions?
I WANT THIS TAPE! If you live in Tampa.FL you know there used to be a Jazz station called WSJT 94.1 FM - that station was my childhood and is no longer on the air.
U're kidding me? Just look at the size of this deck. The tape mechanism itself is a very complicated thing, not to mention the electronics, pcbs, wires etc.
@@papasnejk87 Not as much a "complicated" thing as it was in the late 1970s or 1980s. Late 90s audio gear means no fancy 3-head, dual capstan, closed loop mechanisms but instead just a cheap belt driven tape transport from China. It may look complicated but all of the 'quality' is done in software with a big DSP chip on the board. But garbage in means garbage out, no matter how hard you try to fix it in post.
@@Stoney3K you're a decade too late for that. The "you can't get more quality than what you put in" myth is more embarrassing than ever, especially regarding video, when mainstream gaming channels are literally saying "use DLSS, trust me you won't notice the difference". And of course, the huge and very embarrassing elephant in the room: equalizers, a product that is literally designed to and is very successful in making music sound better than its source. Good gosh, people. I'm not saying that a cheap deck with high end digital features (very much not the case for this deck, by the way, please explain why you think that a 90s Pioneer deck would have been made completely in China) can compare to a very high end deck without. I'm just saying that you need to use a much more serious against digital processing than the face-palm worthy "digital can't make things sound better" myth. Seriously, how do you know this channel exists and don't know about professional digital remastering? It's literally an entire PROFESSION to make sound better via digital tools. And if you think that Nat King Cole always sounded CD quality on the master tapes, wow, have I got a bridge to sell you. All you have to do is Google around for songs that have original releases and remastered versions.
i love that pioneer era. my uncle and i got a pioneer private mini compo in japan in 2015. only 2000¥! that's less than 20 bucks. everything was broken except the amp and the cassette just ran in normal auto reverse. the rewind and ff were bad as well. easy to repair but it was to expensive to take it here to Peru. what an elegant and serious looking machine. still miss it :(
We used to have a Smooth Jazz station here on 104.9 but it changed to Urban AC (kinda like Kiss 107.5 WBLS in NYC), then tried Country, then Alternative, Country again, and is now a Sports station
GREAT VIDEO well presented and lots of great information and advice. Lovely cassette quality. Most of all thanks for posting cos this has increased my knowledge of retro HIFI when HIFI WAS hifi
For a dual cassette deck, I am surprised how good the CT-W616DR sounds. I bought a Pioneer CT-S 550 S in the 90s thinking that I would use it extensively, but I discovered MiniDisc and recording on CD was "the future of music" around the same time. As a result I have hardly used it. Whether there are many examples of this model 5 years on after a VWestlife video, who knows? Time to start using my 550 S again. Thanks VWestlife.
I have a cassette and 1+12 cd (12 disk is in the trunk) in my 1998 Cadillac Deville. The cassette is all sorts of dolby NR and the head unit has all sorts of digital manipulation where my cassette tapes sound the same as my cd's. The head unit sends a digital signal to the factory amp in the trunk where the output is sent to the 11 speakers. I recall the amp has like 100 wires going to it. 22 of those wires are for speakers 8 are inputs then 8 go to the cd player, data lines, car chime module has a few, power, onstar, mic for onstar, etc. old school audio was a crazy beast!
VWestlife, I bought the 606dr model sometime ago. As you know it has the digital processing but not the flex option. Is it worth upgrading just for the flex option? I actually think the 606dr sounds great.
Your 606 actually does have FLEX, it just doesn't have a button for it on the front panel. But if you're crafty with electronics, you can add the button yourself and get it working -- look it up!
After watching this video I purchased two (one for only 25 bucks). Needed FWD/REV belts and a simple alignment and they are great. Now if I can only find the CD sync cable for my Pioneer CD changer I'll be all set.
Hey, I have a W404R, I was wanting to tune it's speed which is a little slower but didn't found any way, didn't tried using the screw on the motor yet, is there any other way?
Boy did I get lucky... I found a similar model that looks just like this one with all the same features and I’ve never heard tape sound so good... to me, it sounds more natural than cd
Yeah I picked one up used at an electronics recycling facility for $5 and it works! I have to give a thumbs-up to the FLEX digital processing it plays my tapes better than my Nakamichi 3 header. It works best with pre-recorded tapes. The high frequencies are noticeably enhanced and the noise with Type 1 Dolby B tapes is suppressed to inaudibility even when playing with the amp volume turned up. FLEX seems to do intelligent noise gating function as the background tape hiss does audibly pump with the low level audio content, but the hiss is *always* less than what the straight Dolby B can do. As the video author says pressing the left and right Time button toggles the FLEX on and off and I would never listen with it off !!!!
VWestlife VWestlife thanks for your help! I went for the pioneer 606. Missing the flex feature but I think I will still be happy with it. Got it for around 50 with shipping. It will be replacing my JVC td- w209.
What a great deck! I'm still sticking with my CT550S, because well it's good enough for what I listen to, but if I ever see one for a great price, I'm gonna pick one up. Currently though, I don't need double decks, or even recording ability for that matter.. I just play tapes I order from Bandcamp.. That tape deck maintenance link is gold btw. Gonna invest in some stuff too keep my setup in shape. Thanks for sharing man, I appreciate it!
@@vwestlife If you connect this to your computer, will you be able to buy software on a Cassette tape and put the tape in the player and then press play to run a installation of whatever it was
I bought one of these in NY in J&R Shop and one DAT and other mini-disc. Very good with Dolby B C bx, HxPro.. What a times! The people now thinks the old tapes (CC, Reel-to-Reel) equipment don't sound good, but they don't have a idea ;)
I am a technician specialized in restoring and calibrating these Pioneer cassete decks. If someone needs assistance please let me know. I live in Brazil but can be useful through internet. And congratulations for the video, it show one of the best performing tape decks ever made, and at a suprisinly low price, although it is very hard to find nowadays.
Hi, do you know how to adjust the azimuth in this tape deck? There are now screws below the tape doors. I have some tapes whose volume seems to come and go during playback and I think this is because the head is no correctly adjusted and does not read with enough grip the tape itself. Thanks .
With a very small Phillips or JIS screwdriver you can adjust the azimuth by sticking it into the holes below the doors when the mechanism is in playback mode.
Very good cassette deck. I would never find something like that here in South Africa. But I must say I do use external audio processors to clean the audio up from my early 1980's Pioneer CT-520's and they sound very good (ferric tapes used). Also got a Pioneer CT-F500 and a AKAI F-110 that runs off the same system and I get pretty much the same result off them. Never the less I would love a deck like that!
If you have old recordings on your computer as mp3s, is it possible to pass signal to this deck without recording back to tape to get the digital processing used on it?
I'm picking up a CT-W806DR soon, for 15 euros. Have been out of cassettes for a while, but I've been wanting to build a small collection again, and these dual well decks seem great to me :)
Amazing specifications on this tape deck! The only down side is the lack of precision in the record level display, especially with this kind of S/N ratio. Sony TC-K61 etc. had segments for Inf. -40 -30 -20 -15 -10 -7 -5 -3 -2 -1 0 1 3 5 8 dB This Pioneer *absolutely* deserved a better record level meter!
On my Nakamichi the meters go all the way up to +10 dB. With the Pioneer only going up to +6 that means the meters are pegged a lot of the time when playing commercially pre-recorded tapes.
I have this machine, but the brightness of the display is SUPER dim. Are there any secret button combinations (like the one you showed to turn off the DNR) that you can use for increasing the brightness?
@@vwestlife Thanks for the info...I picked this deck up at the recycling center, completely filthy, and sounded awful, with really dirty heads--alcohol wasn't enough. I was about to give so I tried a small amount of "Brasso" on the heads, which finally cleaned, and hopefully not damaged them. Sounds great now, even with what I assume are original belts.
Not bad comparing to today's VST noise reduction plugins like Izotope and more although each noise reduction removes some ambience too so it does not sound very natural.
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Back in the day, when manufacturers actually TOLD you how they do things, instead of just a battery safety warning, a disclaimer, and referring to the online manual :p
I have that exact deck.
I bought it new in 1999, along with a matching receiver, and 100 CD changer, surround sound speakers, sub box, and a 32" tube TV. The salesman at the store, could not understand why I wanted cassette deck. I had lots of tapes and lots of CDs at that point.
I haven't used any of them in years. They are in the family room with the big screen TV that I replaced the 32" with. A TV I also don't use any more. I rarely even go in the room anymore, since my only child left home, is rarely home, and my wife can no longer descend the stairs to get there.
I think I might have to go dust it all off one day.
Damn a 32" tube TV? Hella dope B-)
I had the model or two down from this one, still an amazing tape deck. Wish I had it today! It had Dolby S but it didn't have any of the digital capabilities. EDIT: I think the ct-w604RS or 704rs is what I had. It had the BLE which I thought was so cool.
@@vileCR999 needed eight people to carry it
@@adcraziness1501 not if it wasn't a Sony. My 32 inch JVC D series is only about 95 pounds, so that's legitimately easy for two adults to lift. A 32 inch Trinitron though, oof, that goes from 40 pounds per person to 70+ fast.
All that stuff is worth a small fortune! Sell it is you don't plan to bring a new lease of life into it! Let someone get some enjoyment out of it and you will get some cash to make your lives better and knowing that your tech will get used by someone who cares about it!
I don't care if it was a commercial failure, DCC was badass. Thanks for the videos, i'm hooked on them!
I love how you always have classical music playing in the background. Combined with your voice, they're calming.
George Benson's "On Broadway" is a great audio test. Listen to the people clapping in the background. In many audio compression and noise reduction systems, you'll hear the audience noise "pumping" as the system removes the "noise".
I could actually listen to that tape all day
Sounds amazing, I can´t imagine what this deck can do with a Cr02 or Metal tape. You can hear the unit active filtering on the highs, when speech comes up; you can even hear the envelope release of the filter (with good phones). Great demo, thanks for sharing.
Impressive reduction in hiss. The artifacts remind me of when an analogue cable tv signal was trying to block out a stronger OTA one.
I got a CT-W606dr from my late brother. The first thing a played was a cassette with Kraftwerk-Autobahn album. I was immediately sold. What a pleasent warm sound through my recapped Sansui 771 which is a solid performer too! Last time i really listened to cassette’s must have been in the eighties. My brother was fond of music and equipment like this.
I actually have this same exact deck. I bought it at J&R Music World way back in 1996. I used to make compilation tapes to listen to for my car before I finally bought an in-trunk CD changer. The sound quality of the tapes I recorded surpassed the commercial prerecorded ones by far. Most people couldn't even tell if I was playing a CD or a recorded tape I made from the CD itself.
I still use it from time to time to play some of my old tapes (that I recorded) dating back to the early 1970s, and also use it to make digital copies (from cassettes to computer) of some of the old stuff for archiving purposes.
A good tape deck using decent metal tapes and dolby c with a good recording can come so close to CD that most people won't be able to tell the difference. Dolby s takes that a step further... but both are of little help with prerecorded tapes.
This deck however can be a lot of help for that, and for older (pre dolby c era) recordings.
Awesome explanation. I was lucky enough to stumble across one of these a few months ago hunting for a deck for the computer system. I have some old tapes a late friend of mine recorded in the seventies of local radio & tv, but his setup was discount tapes recording a transistor radio (or tv speaker) via a portable cassette recorder's external mic. This deck improves the hiss greatly and makes digitization practical.
Pioneer made the best components in the 90s. I always loved their yellow displays too.
They used this technology in their car radios too. Difference was noticably good when you turn that on. There was a sign in screen showing 1/f something when turned on.
Nice cassette deck, hard to find those old Pioneer digital models. That's back when they still made decent audio equipment, now it's pretty much all throw away.
Thanks for the link to cassette deck maintenance.
I miss CD 101.9. I used to listen to that station in the car years back, made my trips to & from work a little more pleasurable. Peter White, David Benoit, Sade, etc.
Phoenix used to have a station with a similar format, 95.5 KYOT. I miss it.
That moment when you see the thumbnail and think is a Techmoan video.
I like Vwestlife's videos far more tahn Techmoan ones. Techmoan videos lack that calming vibe that VWestlife's videos possess.
Tech Moan rocks and so does Maxxarcade,uxwbill, vw westlife , lgr, 8 bit guy
Eh, VWesstlife is fine, but Techmoan has far better production values, editing, camera work, audio and video quality.
Yeah, but Techmoan cuts the candle at both ends:-) Actually,Techmoan sounds like a Mancunian, rather than a Liverpudlian.
Luiz Fellipe Carneiro Holy shit I just made the same comment without noticing yours :'D
Back when pioneer cared. Super tuners, super cool temperature amplifiers, speakers made of thick paper cones and real wood.
I heard that they had some pretty Kick-Ass and well-calibrated CRT rear projection HDTVs in the early 2000s as well.
and the best plasma tvs ever made
ohh la la! i use a 70's pioneer KP-500 super tuner in my car. no need to get those fancy mp3 plastic crap. this radio will last my whole life! :)
IIRC they had a CD-ROM that used multiple laser heads to increase read speed. But that was so long ago!
Supertuners were great.
Just got my hands on a CT-606DR purely based on your review, I was that impressed (euro model, so with all the 616 buttons and features) with the audio on the video, and I must say it sounds even better in person!
I am actually stunned the quality of the playback and the TDNS feature when dubbing. Its on a par with my other two three head single well decks (Sony) and whilst those both have Dolby S, you don't actually need it on this deck.
Whilst IMHO Dolby B for the most part to my ears sounds dull and missing top end, on this deck it sounds superb with NO Dolby at all! But with B and C its even better, must be the FLEX kicking in bringing the top end to life.
If you can find one of these decks (I had to get my shipped from Germany to the UK and it took a 10 day wait.. and was a gamble E-Bay purchase that it would be OK and survive the shipping) I would suggest you don't think twice and snap one up.
Highly underrated decks and proves that a three head decks arn't the be all to end all!
I've since this weekend gone stripped and cleaned the interior, it appears to be a 1997 model, I put new belts on each mechanism and oiled the motor, set azimuth and used a couple of test tone tapes to get both decks playback speed spot on. It's a real easy deck to work on to do belts, much easier than my Sony ones at least!
I'm waiting on an ebay 606 Euro version too, described as tested-working. Any advice regarding order of steps to undertake to test functionality. Is the refurb process easy enough for a novice who hasn't taken down a deck before? Any interest in assisting if need be?
This trumps all my Naks, even the ZX-7! No kidding.
I have a 606 off the back of this video .. my main issue is the earsplitting Headphone volume ... does anyone know of a hack to add a pot to the rear so that the level can be controlled ...
Wow I really like that jazz sampler. Tapes like that are half the reason I'm into collect cassettes again.
Sounds great with a type 1 tape.
there is this one co's tape 1's sound better then all the type II or III's I have been given.
for a type I that sounds very well! But i can hear some artifacts in the music, still an amazing way to listen to those old Tapes or transfer them to your PC.
maybe added by youtube.com reencoding
I have a Pioneer minidisc deck with Digital Noise Reduction. It can be used as a stand alone noise reduction unit and DAC, too, so I don't need to be playing or recording a minidisc to use it. DNR works very well.
"I don't think anyone's going to be dubbing tapes anymore..." I'm literally dubbing tapes while I'm sitting here watching this.
Terrific sound and clarity. I don't think I've heard less wow and flutter from a cassette deck other than this.
Try the Dragon from Nakamichi.at 0.019%. This is the weakest point of this Pioneer Deck at 0.09% And yes you can hear it on a well recorded piano alone.
Seb strophyl Even Sony DD Walkmans have less, 0.07%.
@@HamtaroEL 0.019 is less than 0.07
@@seacampal1425 yes and no. This is the first cassette deck I've ever heard where I don't believe the specs or meters once I start actually listening, even though I know what the spec actually is. And even with the relatively low spec, it's still a huge bang for buck, and when you consider the vastly superior fidelity that it has over many older decks thanks to things like FLEX, it's a much more sensible way to get a high quality sound out of a cassette. Sure, they're cheap machines, but they're the pinnacle of cost vs performance in my opinion. Any deck that can fool people into thinking you're playing a CD is high end, and this one can certainly do that, even with piano music. And that's not even to mention the fact that there are a surprising amount of people (including me) who don't care about wow and flutter so much, since it's nostalgic in the way a damaged record has crackles. If I want to listen to audio without artifacts, I pull out my LG V20 or my LG V40. If I want to have as much fun playing the music as I do listening to it, then sometimes a waverly piano can be a part of that fun experience.
My first PC was a Tandy 1000 so my heart always skips a beat when I see your Tandy in the background. :-)
I own this deck and I can testify this is the best cassette deck ever made, not even Nakamichi can equal this deck, great review 🔈🔉🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊
I had a deck almost exactly like that like 20 years ago. I still have the VSX-9300 receiver that I used with it though and it still works great. Pioneer made some excellent quality home audio equipment back in the 80s and 90s.
I could listen to this all day. And thats saying something when you consider how I usually hate peoples radio choices!
Teac is always there for us! And RECODING THE MASTERS ALWAYS THERE FOR PROVIDING GOOD NEW TAPES!
Great video and information. After watching, i scored a CT-W606DR for 75Euro incl. shipping via ebay classifieds. Arrived today, very well packed by the seller and everything works out of the box. So cool. Love your channel :)
I'm a tape freak, cassette or reel to reel. I came across a good condition Pioneer CTW806DR on the street a few days ago, and I paid 11 dollars for it. My God! I could never hv guessed they came up with this system. At the street buy, I thought the 20 bit system was for direct in of CDP, anf so I saif to myself, eh thus could be for a good relay play unit in my bedroom. Little did I know it was so so so so so so surprisingly good in actual use. No hiss at all on my tapes. It was not until I read its user's manual gotten from hifiengine.com that I realized this deck had Super BLE XD, ALCA, FLEX, and a defeatable digital NR! THESE WERE no gimmicks at all, contrary to some of my experience with Pioneer. This was the real deal, to play any tapes (except those recordings made with far off azimuth angles) well, even those made on my Nakamichi's with pre-1979 EQ curves. I'd go so far as to say, this deck my CTW806DR, and the 606, are over kills in a good way. Their major drawback could be IMHO, their Auto reverse heads that according to the user's manuals, are made of hard permalloy (PB/R heads) and ferrite (ER Heads), which may wear down quickly, despite the hard perm having excellent magnetic and thus sound performance.
That is why I bought the single deck no autoreverse back in the day. It needs no adjustment ever. They were so good that back then I remember that I had reused all my old casettes as the quality of the reconding was so great that it was better on a very old (low quality) casette than on my older (very good but older kenwood) tape recorder on a chrome casette.
I can clearly hear the main lack of that noise reduction system: although the SNR is good, the signal peaks sound noisy (a bit sandy/abrasive) and it's quite hearable if there's no high frequency parts in the samples - f.e. on voice. The noise reduction seems to be behaves like noise gate.
That's cool! I never heard of this deck......that system was revolutionary from my point of view
NO RAP the 101.9 station have got my vote already.
Kenny G and George Benson sound just as good as it does from my cd's.
I bought one of these wonders recently and, man, on metal tape, you cannot hear any difference with a CD.
original studiotape-better than cold clean soulless cd. Tapesaund warmer natural silkysmoothness.
You need a better AMP, better speakers.
@@lucasrem yep I always think that even RUclips music would sound great on $250,000 Focal speakers
I have a Pioneer CT-W606DR. AWESOME cassette player! Used one to transfer a demo cassette to CD and was amazed at the time that I was dubbing it at the complete lack of tape hiss through the headphones I was using at the time. We also had a Sony CD burner at the time, as well. I've always been under the impression that it was just a really good quality recording/cassette that they used, but I'm sure it was mostly due to the tape deck I used.
Smooth Jazz radio stations.... *shudders with revulsion -- then puts on some August Burns Red, Demon Hunter and Metallica to erase the traumatic memory of it...* :P
I have a Pioneer dual deck similar to this, a model CT-W604RS, that I used for several years. Had great sound and was really quiet. Then one day it just died, no power. Since everything is now throw away junk we no longer have electronic repair shops locally so it's in by bedroom closet where it has sat for around ten years. Pioneer had some great ideas with their cassette decks that no one else had.
Spooky, that's the second comment I've seen mentioning that. Something to look forward to, yay.
The REAL problem cassette decks had was not hiss (at least not since the advent of Dolby B) - it was tape misalignment aka 'azimuth' issues. Even the best decks I've owned (other than a Nakamichi Dragon) suffer from it. This can't be fixed digitally. Even quartz locked dual capstan decks can't fix a tape recorded on another misaligned deck.
David, he said "other than a dragon".. i.e. he never had that problem on the dragon, only the others he's had.
the new age of cassette decks comes with calibration / measuring the spectrum response . that was the end of c. technology
John Morris: Comprehension fail. Reread comment.
Here was a screwdriver + headphones the best and cheapest solution ... or play only your cassetes on your own tapedeck/ -s.
I agree. Azimuth changes as the head ages because the contact path along the heads and other surfaces on the tape transport system may become off flat, leading to skewing and thus azimuth changes, even constant azimuth changes as the taoe goes. Solution: clean up, or replace heads and pinch rollers, then re-align.
Just a quick note about YT impressions. I watched this vid a LONG time ago, but YT just offered it up as "suggested". Considering your recent Tweet, it seems that you are still getting some love with your vintage vids.
Thanks! I just added subtitles and an end screen which will hopefully help it get recommended more as well.
that sounds very good you would not think its come from a tape.
I am so sensitive to tape defects that in my mind i've involuntarily seen crumpled tape and dirt on play head.
But yeah, is good compared with other players.
Great video. Thanks for the overview. I recently purchased a CT-W606DR off eBay and it too has the FLEX and BLE XD features. Manufactured date 2000.
Aside from the occasional residual artifacts of hiss remaining audible during portions of speech, the digital noise reduction seemed happy to oblige, cleaning up what would otherwise be a very noisy tape. Using this or a similarly qualified cassette deck would prove immensely useful when transferring out-of-print cassette tapes to CD or digital that weren't even recorded with Dolby B.
John Morris
Can you tell me what software you are referring to please?
Wow, what a heckin cool deck! I've never even heard of these.
If one wants to go old school, can they record using ordinary Dolby NR?
themaritimeman You could probably record regular Dolby NR on that deck if the Digital NR is turned off.
Yes, it supports Dolby B and C for both recording and playback.
That has incredible sound for a tape deck.
Whether it's the music itself or the particular qualities of tape, many of these tracks were extremely nostalgic for me. I know that we used to play tapes all the time, blasting gospel music through the house, and this makes me think of that precisely.
The meter ballistics. are exceptional. What a great deck.
Thanks for sharing.
I really like the Pioneer CT series decks, they're not that expensive, easy to re-belt (I managed without even removing the mechs from the machine), a lot of the range uses interchangeable parts and MOST importantly the speed and level adjustment pots on the motherboard can easily be accessed while the machine is running making tuning them by ear not only possible but simple. Really the last era of electronics that was designed to be serviced rather than replaced when it broke.
Thanks for a great video! Great music selection. I have a KKSF 103.7 FM sampler tape that had many of those songs. Smooth jazz is a great type of music to showcase a cassette deck.
Amazing! Thank you again for looking back and finding gems.
One more question, Is there any superior cassette decks than the models you mentioned in the description of this video: CT-W606DR, CT-W616DR, CT-W706DR, CT-W806DR, CT-05D, CT-07D, CT-S670D, T-WD5R, and T-D7 with these digital features or more?
Woohoo, thanks to this video (viewed earlier - didn't know about this tech) I found one (recognize it - thanks to this video) in a stack of (3 different brand) components, a woman sells it for $10! Actually I don't now the condition of the deck but hey, for $10 it is worth to try (and maybe to fix). I think this one is one of the best candidates to digitize cassettes. I have a lot of original radio/live recordings that I want to digitize in the best quality possible. This is really awesome, can't wait to try it. Thanks to you (and your video) I am able to recognize hidden gems. Thank you. Thanks. ;-)
Indeed..the darker the tape..the better the sound-quality..
Incredible punch & clarity! , I purchase one of PIONEER T-WD5 from yahoo auction of Japan after watch this video .
I've been marathoning your channel trying to get caught up. I really enjoy your videos. I know this video is older. I am having a hard time finding this exact pioneer unit for sale in the US. Do you have any suggestions for another one of equal quality?
In the description I list various other Pioneer models which have similar features (Digital NR and FLEX).
@@vwestlife Thank you. I just want to say I love the vintage electronics videos. I look forward to your videos.
man, that sampler tape makes me miss CD101.9... you really don't know what you've got til it's gone 😭
Nice demonstration! Pioneer made excellent decks in the 80's-90's. I'm listening on headphones and I hear the digital NR creating "breathing" artifacts during the DJ talk and the Billy Joel song on the CD 101.9 tape. I wish you would have demonstated some other pre-recorded cassettes and recorded a CD onto a High Bias or Metal tape.. or even a budget Maxell UR or TDK D. The main thing I disliked about most dubbing decks from the 80's and 90's was you couldn't adjust the recording volume for copying another tape. It was ether pre-set or they used an AGC circuit on many decks.
See the links in the description for examples of more tapes played using this cassette deck.
Ok thanks! BTW I've never seen a promotional tape for a radio station before.
@@vwestlife Hi, a very informative video in so much I purchased one; the 606 UK version. I’ve also subscribed to your channel 👍 Do you know if there is a way to have this functioning with a remote via the SR control system as a standalone? Would the Pioneer MR-100 remote sensor work as the receiver with a universal remote as the transmitter, e.g the Logitech harmony remote?
@@stephenmaneleys6983 Sorry, I don't know anything about its remote capabilities. Maybe look in the service manual for it.
@@vwestlife Thanks and noted. Linked it with the Pioneer SX-339 via the SR link which has IR. Keep posting these great videos 👍
I love that old Pioneer logo with the tuning fork.
Cassettes have made a comeback, falling more into favor than some music 🎶 formats of today. So have records. They're favored over CD's 💿 by many people. Your friend, Jeff.
Awesome video! You actually pushed me into buyinc this deck. First recording on type 1 without dolby sounds really promising. Looking forward to trying with different tapes and settings
What settings do you usually use? Dolby or no dolby during recording?
Digital and flex during playback? Or do you find it better to go defeat those functions?
So do these decks make original recordings with the digital signal processing or is the dsp just for playback/dubbing?
The DSP is just for playback.
I WANT THIS TAPE! If you live in Tampa.FL you know there used to be a Jazz station called WSJT 94.1 FM - that station was my childhood and is no longer on the air.
Ah, the 1990s, when audio gear had more pseudo-technical terms emblazoned in bright gold on the front panel than the equipment had parts inside of it.
U're kidding me? Just look at the size of this deck. The tape mechanism itself is a very complicated thing, not to mention the electronics, pcbs, wires etc.
@@papasnejk87 Not as much a "complicated" thing as it was in the late 1970s or 1980s. Late 90s audio gear means no fancy 3-head, dual capstan, closed loop mechanisms but instead just a cheap belt driven tape transport from China.
It may look complicated but all of the 'quality' is done in software with a big DSP chip on the board. But garbage in means garbage out, no matter how hard you try to fix it in post.
@@Stoney3K nah
@@Stoney3K you're a decade too late for that. The "you can't get more quality than what you put in" myth is more embarrassing than ever, especially regarding video, when mainstream gaming channels are literally saying "use DLSS, trust me you won't notice the difference". And of course, the huge and very embarrassing elephant in the room: equalizers, a product that is literally designed to and is very successful in making music sound better than its source. Good gosh, people. I'm not saying that a cheap deck with high end digital features (very much not the case for this deck, by the way, please explain why you think that a 90s Pioneer deck would have been made completely in China) can compare to a very high end deck without. I'm just saying that you need to use a much more serious against digital processing than the face-palm worthy "digital can't make things sound better" myth. Seriously, how do you know this channel exists and don't know about professional digital remastering? It's literally an entire PROFESSION to make sound better via digital tools. And if you think that Nat King Cole always sounded CD quality on the master tapes, wow, have I got a bridge to sell you. All you have to do is Google around for songs that have original releases and remastered versions.
i love that pioneer era. my uncle and i got a pioneer private mini compo in japan in 2015. only 2000¥! that's less than 20 bucks. everything was broken except the amp and the cassette just ran in normal auto reverse. the rewind and ff were bad as well. easy to repair but it was to expensive to take it here to Peru. what an elegant and serious looking machine. still miss it :(
We used to have a Smooth Jazz station here on 104.9 but it changed to Urban AC (kinda like Kiss 107.5 WBLS in NYC), then tried Country, then Alternative, Country again, and is now a Sports station
totally fascinating and amazing. really hope I can find this one sometime
You have the best vintage audio videos.
GREAT VIDEO well presented and lots of great information and advice. Lovely cassette quality. Most of all thanks for posting cos this has increased my knowledge of retro HIFI when HIFI WAS hifi
For a dual cassette deck, I am surprised how good the CT-W616DR sounds. I bought a Pioneer CT-S 550 S in the 90s thinking that I would use it extensively, but I discovered MiniDisc and recording on CD was "the future of music" around the same time. As a result I have hardly used it. Whether there are many examples of this model 5 years on after a VWestlife video, who knows? Time to start using my 550 S again. Thanks VWestlife.
Wow, That deck really sounds great!
I have a cassette and 1+12 cd (12 disk is in the trunk) in my 1998 Cadillac Deville. The cassette is all sorts of dolby NR and the head unit has all sorts of digital manipulation where my cassette tapes sound the same as my cd's. The head unit sends a digital signal to the factory amp in the trunk where the output is sent to the 11 speakers. I recall the amp has like 100 wires going to it. 22 of those wires are for speakers 8 are inputs then 8 go to the cd player, data lines, car chime module has a few, power, onstar, mic for onstar, etc. old school audio was a crazy beast!
VWestlife, I bought the 606dr model sometime ago. As you know it has the digital processing but not the flex option. Is it worth upgrading just for the flex option? I actually think the 606dr sounds great.
Your 606 actually does have FLEX, it just doesn't have a button for it on the front panel. But if you're crafty with electronics, you can add the button yourself and get it working -- look it up!
After watching this video I purchased two (one for only 25 bucks). Needed FWD/REV belts and a simple alignment and they are great. Now if I can only find the CD sync cable for my Pioneer CD changer I'll be all set.
Tapes has really a revival. My friend sold 20 vintage devices last month.
Hey, I have a W404R, I was wanting to tune it's speed which is a little slower but didn't found any way, didn't tried using the screw on the motor yet, is there any other way?
Boy did I get lucky... I found a similar model that looks just like this one with all the same features and I’ve never heard tape sound so good... to me, it sounds more natural than cd
Cassette deck must comeback again
Hi VWestlife, what are your thoughts on the Pioneer CT-W806DR?
Wow, I swear Pioneer used that power button or variations of it on EVERYTHING. My DVL-909 Laserdisc player has basically the same power button.
Do you know where I could get a laserdisc player cheap, I need a new one
Yeah I picked one up used at an electronics recycling facility for $5 and it works! I have to give a thumbs-up to the FLEX digital processing it plays my tapes better than my Nakamichi 3 header. It works best with pre-recorded tapes. The high frequencies are noticeably enhanced and the noise with Type 1 Dolby B tapes is suppressed to inaudibility even when playing with the amp volume turned up. FLEX seems to do intelligent noise gating function as the background tape hiss does audibly pump with the low level audio content, but the hiss is *always* less than what the straight Dolby B can do. As the video author says pressing the left and right Time button toggles the FLEX on and off and I would never listen with it off !!!!
Beautiful Deck-unlike the “more modern” Pyle and ion models,you have featured elsewhere on your channel !!
Is this deck, (I found a 606dr) worth purchasing to digitize cassettes or better to get one like the technics rs-b12 you showed some years ago?
The Pioneer is much better because of its Digital NR feature.
VWestlife VWestlife thanks for your help! I went for the pioneer 606. Missing the flex feature but I think I will still be happy with it. Got it for around 50 with shipping. It will be replacing my JVC td- w209.
What a great deck! I'm still sticking with my CT550S, because well it's good enough for what I listen to, but if I ever see one for a great price, I'm gonna pick one up. Currently though, I don't need double decks, or even recording ability for that matter.. I just play tapes I order from Bandcamp.. That tape deck maintenance link is gold btw. Gonna invest in some stuff too keep my setup in shape. Thanks for sharing man, I appreciate it!
I never considered half of those songs jazz (or "smooth" jazz). Though I don't often listen to jazz so maybe I am wrong.
Most smooth jazz formats included a mix of soft R&B and pop music, as well as jazz.
more like easy listening pop :)
@@vwestlife If you connect this to your computer, will you be able to buy software on a Cassette tape and put the tape in the player and then press play to run a installation of whatever it was
I bought one of these in NY in J&R Shop and one DAT and other mini-disc. Very good with Dolby B C bx, HxPro..
What a times! The people now thinks the old tapes (CC, Reel-to-Reel) equipment don't sound good, but they don't have a idea ;)
I am a technician specialized in restoring and calibrating these Pioneer cassete decks. If someone needs assistance please let me know. I live in Brazil but can be useful through internet. And congratulations for the video, it show one of the best performing tape decks ever made, and at a suprisinly low price, although it is very hard to find nowadays.
Hi, do you know how to adjust the azimuth in this tape deck? There are now screws below the tape doors. I have some tapes whose volume seems to come and go during playback and I think this is because the head is no correctly adjusted and does not read with enough grip the tape itself. Thanks .
With a very small Phillips or JIS screwdriver you can adjust the azimuth by sticking it into the holes below the doors when the mechanism is in playback mode.
How I miss the good old times when music was good and the audio-equipments and sound where real..and high quality..
Very bright 's of voices ! I always buys more cassette tapes on 1990 ! Sweet dreams!
Very good cassette deck. I would never find something like that here in South Africa. But I must say I do use external audio processors to clean the audio up from my early 1980's Pioneer CT-520's and they sound very good (ferric tapes used). Also got a Pioneer CT-F500 and a AKAI F-110 that runs off the same system and I get pretty much the same result off them. Never the less I would love a deck like that!
If you have old recordings on your computer as mp3s, is it possible to pass signal to this deck without recording back to tape to get the digital processing used on it?
No.
I'm picking up a CT-W806DR soon, for 15 euros. Have been out of cassettes for a while, but I've been wanting to build a small collection again, and these dual well decks seem great to me :)
Amazing specifications on this tape deck!
The only down side is the lack of precision in the record level display, especially with this kind of S/N ratio. Sony TC-K61 etc.
had segments for Inf. -40 -30 -20 -15 -10 -7 -5 -3 -2 -1 0 1 3 5 8 dB
This Pioneer *absolutely* deserved a better record level meter!
On my Nakamichi the meters go all the way up to +10 dB. With the Pioneer only going up to +6 that means the meters are pegged a lot of the time when playing commercially pre-recorded tapes.
LakeNipissing Kind of reminds of the meters used in the Nakamichi ZX-9/ZX-7.
Back when music had dynamic range. Sigh..
And Now W1200 BACK IN PRODUCTION 💖😉
I have this machine, but the brightness of the display is SUPER dim. Are there any secret button combinations (like the one you showed to turn off the DNR) that you can use for increasing the brightness?
No, but some people have had success at restoring dim vacuum fluorescent displays.
@@vwestlife Thanks for the info...I picked this deck up at the recycling center, completely filthy, and sounded awful, with really dirty heads--alcohol wasn't enough. I was about to give so I tried a small amount of "Brasso" on the heads, which finally cleaned, and hopefully not damaged them. Sounds great now, even with what I assume are original belts.
in the '80 my stepfather had a pioneer ct 1040 w.that was a amazing peace of equipment .look it up ,
That sounds great, still has the nice warm tape sound to the music. Might try pick one up
This got me breaking out the 0ld Tapes and enjoying them 0nce More :) QC
Not bad comparing to today's VST noise reduction plugins like Izotope and more although each noise reduction removes some ambience too so it does not sound very natural.
Do these things have a volume control for headphones? I've got my Dad's pioneer ct-07d, but when I tried it with headphones it was extremely loud.
Use headphones with an inline volume control, or add one to headphones that don't.
Thanks