[78-L] Best Cassette Machine?

[jsalerno@earthlink.net]

That helps, Sammy.

I have a TASCAM 102, and it's good (not great). Flutter is not as low as 
my Sony ES deck. For music, of course a low flutter spec is desirable. 
For the tapes recorded on portable machines, I don't imagine it would 
make a whole lot of difference. The music tapes may be the deciding 
factor, but if only you are going to hear them, you may have to decide 
if it is worth it to you. Maybe it is if you have money burning a hole 
in your pocket.

My formula is to divide the number of HQ tapes to Xfer into the 
difference in price of an inexpensive machine and the better one. That's 
how much the better machine is costing you per tape Xfer.

A Naka would be sweet, but could be expensive, and if it needs repair, 
is there someone near you who could do it?

Joe Salerno

On 7/28/2014 11:28 AM, Sammy Jones wrote:
>
> Joe,
>
> The content is mostly originals of my local big band radio show from 2001
> and 2001 (which I assure you, no one will want to hear but me...and even
> that's debatable!).  Also recordings of me and my brothers and cousins when
> we were kids, and some OTR shows.
>
> The big band airchecks were made on the station's Tascam with Dolby B, so
> the quality is pretty good.  I seem to remember that deck had some pitch
> problems, though.  Could probably be fixed with a deck with variable speed
> or in the digital domain.
>
> The homemade recordings were made on everything from a portable Panasonic
> recorder, a Radio Shack karaoke machine, to a Pioneer consumer cassette deck
> (that was actually pretty decent).  No Dolby on anything except the stuff
> made on the Pioneer.
>
> I stopped collecting OTR on cassettes many years ago, and have tried to
> replace important stuff with CDs.  I still like to listent to some old shows
> on cassette every once in a while, but those tapes are not at the top of my
> list for transfer.  Nothing unique there.
>
> A machine like the Tascam 122 is probably the range of machine I'm
> interested in.  Just wondering what the group's recommendations would be...
>
> Is a Nakamichi Dragon overkill?
>
> Sammy
>
>
> Perhaps if you gave more details about the content of your cassettes,
> other than being home made.
>
> Do they contain music? Or just spoken voice?
>
> Were they recorded on decent equipment of the day (whatever decent
> means) or on battery operated machines?
>
> Joe Salerno
>
> On 7/28/2014 1:31 AM, Sammy Jones wrote:
>>
>> Mike Biel was talking about cassettes and cassette machines on his radio
>> show on YesterdayUSA tonight.
>>
>> It reminded me that I really need to do something about my small (but
>> unique) collection of homemade cassettes.
>>
>> What is the wisdom of this group about the best machine to get?  I have a
>> Tascam 122.  Is it worth it to upgrade to something?
>>
>> Sammy Jones
>>
>
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