I spent some time making my own cassettes for use in my wifes car, she has a toyota that has the cd/tape combination.
I buy blank C90 Maxell tapes for $1.25 and ive just recorded Glen Grays Greatest Hits from lp to tape, i have 2 tape decks i rescued a Yamaha and a technics, think i paid $30 for both machines.
I used the Yamaha to record off my Zenith console, id forgotten how nice Cassette can sound if done on a good machine, i played back on the Technics, using my
1957 RCA HF191 as the amp.
I think i will be doing myself some compilations as im using my wifes old car daily and upto now the cassette deck didnt get used.
Nice to keep the old mediums alive.

Good quality cassettes recorded on a well functioning high-end deck can sound excellent. I've found it is best to record without Dolby noise reduction to maintain good machine-to-machine playback compatibility, especially if the cassettes are to be used in car players that don't have this feature.

Dave

In all the years i used cassette i have never used the Dolby function.
Only settings i used was the chrome and metal as i had those tapes back in the day.
I remember being able to buy C120 cassettes (60mins per side) i always heard warnings about those tapes, jamming and chewing up, i used to buy them from
Tandy (RadioShack) in the UK they where there own brand and i never had issues in any deck or in the car.

I've been making mixed tapes again, too. I recently joined a band (after a very long break!) and need to brush up on my drum skills, so I take the tapes downstairs with me to do practice sets.

What I was originally going to do (and I thought this was clever) was just put a stack of 45s on upstairs, and bring my wireless headphones down with me, but I realized that I'd be totally stuck if a record fell incorrectly or got stuck. LOL

Other than that, I've been making mixes to enjoy while upstairs too. My wife has a couple she loves to put on on cleaning day. I find that normal bias tape is fine for most pop and rock, while jazz and vocals benefit greatly from the CrO2 tapes (or metal, but I can't find those anymore!!) I do use the Dolby settings, though. Generally "B" if I'm taking the tape somewhere else, and "C" if it's just meant for me.

I had a nice TEAC deck once with DBX on it. Nice machine. My current is a late 80's Luxman, but I'd love to find one of the old Technics decks I used to have.

Eric

These are my 2 Cassette decks i paid $30 for the pair.
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The Technics is close to what I had. I had the double auto reverse. It had the coolest feature where you could hook it up with a sync cable to the CD changer, then program the songs you wanted and enter the tape length you were using. When you hit play, the tape would start recording. During the CD changing process, the tape would be paused until the disc was ready again. When it came to a point where the next song wouldn't fit on that side, the changer would pause until the tape reversed. Very cool and wowed my friends.

Eric

I'm glad you fellows can like cassettes. Since I am a lifelong reel-to-reel guy, they were always of no more than tangential interest to me at best (not to speak of 8-track).

I never confided anything of long-term interest to either format, and I confided nothing else if I could help it.

Larry

I have interest in all formats i have a couple of 8 track players and tapes, i also have a 1961 Korting (Scheinder) reel to reel player, i intend to get a proper stereo reel to reel player.
I have a big interest in music i think its important to keep all the old formats alive, cd is just cd, its ok i have some cds but it has never really done it for me.

Went to Atlanta GA a few years back for the "Fabulous FOX Weekend" to celebrate the Moller organ in the FOX Theatre. Took along my Sony WM-D6 pro Walkman, a decent one-point mic, and a load of TDK metal tapes. Found a sweet spot in the balcony, and proceeded to make some of the absolute best sounding cassettes I ever recorded. Using Dolby C, there is no noise, and the sound is amazing. Too bad the metal and CrO2 tapes are no longer available.

I paid far too much to have a Nak RX-505 fixed. However, it's about as good as cassette gets. Doesn't have the nasty alignment setting issues of the Dragon. CDs or vinyl recorded with Maxell XLII are hard to beat. Record with Dolby B, playback with it off.

When you record with Dolby and playback with it off, the EQ is seriously affected with a treble boost on low level passages which changes as the dynamics change resulting in an unnatural sound. It defeats the purpose of using Dolby.

Dave

Dave, people have been recording with Dolby ON and playing back with Dolby OFF since the 1970's. Sure, they're getting a "treble boost," but at the expense of mucking with the authentic dynamics of the music. I'm with you. I think it's a mistake.

Sigh.

Fred
owner
Classic Audio Repair
"still hung up on high fidelity"

What I did:
Maxell metal tape recorded on a modified Onkyo cassette deck outfitted with high-perf. low-noise op amp chips along with a recalibrated record bias circuit proved to yield some very impressive recordings. They rival the 10" open reel recordings on my Studer Revox full-track deck! Virtually no audible difference between source audio and tape playback.

FWIW, Dolby B is a compromised or watered down Dolby so that units without Dolby can play Dolby tapes without sounding too terrible. I find Dolby mutes the treble too much. I'm going to audition some tapes now that I have my Tannoy Oxfords in good shape and see how it compares. Maybe I'll record some vinyl too and see how that goes.

I think what you're referring to was Dolby-S. Dolby-B is real Dolby, just limited to one frequency band rather than multi-band as in the case of Dolby-A.

-David

I always found Dolby B and C to be fine as long as the tapes were played on the same machine that they were recorded on. A properly aligned and calibrated machine will not reduce treble. But it seems like there were always problems with tracking and level incompatibilities when played on other machines with Dolby switched on. So you wound up with a tape that sounded bad with Dolby on or off when using other machines for playback. My best results were achieved by using good tape, properly tweaked recording bias for each tape used, and no Dolby.

I believe Dolby also invented a process that extended headroom by increasing recording bias on peaks but I can't remember what it was called. It was compatible any machine for playback. But it was not a noise reduction process although it could be used along with Dolby noise reduction.

Dolby A was a professionsal recording studio standard.

Dave

I think that was called "Dolby HX Pro" (Headroom Extension?) You're right, it does transfer between decks well, but you have to record the tape hotter (averaging +3 dB, at least, depending on tape handling ability)

Eric

When it comes to cassette decks, although I buy and sell a large number of refurbished Sony's, I've become a strong fan of Nakamichi.

Even their entry-level BX-1 will stomp on nearly every other cassette deck made. You can take the BX-1 and stack it up against a Pioneer CT-F9191 or CT-F1250, both "glamor machines," and when you play them you will be able to tell instantly that the Nakamichi is better.

Buy a BX-1, and replace the little reel table idler (available from Marrs Communications) along with the capstan belt. You WILL be pleased.

Fred
owner
Classic Audio Repair

Pioneer CT-S709. Here is a link to the same cassette deck I have. http://www.vintagecassette.com/pioneer/ct-s709 Bought it new, and it works great, especially for recording your own cassettes. I used Maxell and TDK type II (CrO2) tapes mostly, and they all sound great today. The automatic calibration for each new blank cassette was a nice feature to help set up recording. You could even shut off the display lights if you found them too bright

It is amazing how good cassettes sound. (store bought excluded ... if you can still get them to spin, you're lucky). Amazing too, when you consider how slow the tape is going. Something like 1.9 inches per second, which is half of the 3.75 slow speed of a reel to reel. And I don't hear the other channel playing faintly in reverse when there is a pause between songs, like I do with my reel to reel. Mind you, you need headphones turned up to hear that on the r2r). (AKAI GX-210D reel to reel). The r2r is still more fun to watch play, though. Love those reels going around.

Being a former Nakamichi salesman, I can testify to how good they are. Fred's post above about the BX-1 is spot on. They were the best $300 cassette deck money could buy when they were new. I owned one for 20 years and the only repair necessary was the idler.

However, there are a number of other brands of cassette decks that sound very, very, good. Tandberg, Teac, Aiwa (before their quality control went to hell), high end Pioneer, and especially Yamaha made outstanding cassette decks.

Yamaha had an issue with some of their cheaper decks in the very early eighties with transport controls. It embarrased them so much that for years their decks were miles ahead of anything in the same price range, including some Nakamichi models, and they were reliable, not something that some Nakamichi's were famous for. IMHO Tandberg probably made the best cassette deck available for the money but they were not cheap. Not Nakamichi Dragon expensive but you could buy 2 really good Yamahas for one great Tandberg.