What features and specs do you look for in a cassette deck? Features? Build-quality clues? specs on sound?

Thanks,

Paul

Paul, this is going to sound trite, but I look first for the words 'Nakamichi' or 'Revox' or occasionally 'Tandberg'. Obviously, there's a few others.

Why? Any vintage deck that you buy today will be in need of an overhaul. It makes no sense to spend the rework $ on something that won't give really great performance, and last another 20 years. It's true that there are lots of decent sounding decks out there for not much $, but they're not worth restoring, and won't last.

The only cassette deck I have left is a Nakamichi Dragon. Eventually, I'll have it overhauled, for the shear joy of watching it work and the wonder of how much technology they applied to make an inferior medium fully listenable. To me, that's all these are for any more, as even just average digital recording and playback will sound better.

Even if you have a large collection of cassettes, they're deteriorating, and there's nothing you can do to rejuvenate them. Even a Studer won't make them sound wonderful.

Just my 2c, and I apologize for not really answering your question.

wow and flutter (the lower the number the better) signal to noise ratio (the higher the number the better) frequency response ( the wider the better)

Negotiable, your answer is valid and appreciated.

I've got some Akai decks that I've been happy enough with for ages, to me and my needs, they are just fine and to my liking.

I know about the models built by Nakamichi and Revox- the Dragon is legendary, of course, and the Revox units seem to be found in many a professional's setup. I haven't heard or read much about the Tandberg units.

I have a few decks with the features I generally look for- single deck units with dual motors, bias control and dolby b & c. And bouncy meters.

I find three heads to be of no personal use to me, as I only use my decks to transfer cassette to CD, rarely use it to record anything, and never use it to play back while recording.

Also, dual decks are not much use to me- I never dupe tapes- haven't for over 10 years.

I've got a bunch of decks, just figuring out what to keep before I let the others go. I'll list in AK classifieds if I decide any are worth saving from a lesser glamorous fate.

The best cassette decks that are still widely available in the used market are the Nakamichi's and the Aiwa's. There's an Aiwa AD-F850 awaiting pickup at my store which is truly a gem.

I consider minimal dropouts and low wow-and-flutter to be the most important characteristics. For psychoacoustic reasons, a playback head should NOT be aligned to maximize high-frequency response, but rather to minimize the phase error between left and right channels using a 6-8kHz test signal.

Finally, go for a deck where it's easy to clean the heads, guides, capstans and pinch roller(s).

Best,

Fred Longworth