I’ve been trying to figure out what the best cassette deck for my use would be I wonder if anyone could help sorry if this is the wrong sub forum I’m very new here I only want to do minimal recording maybe a few mixtapes but I only want a single cassette deck I’ve heard some double use cheaper more breakable parts. I want it to have Dolby NR B I want it to look nice as well that’s just me being picky tho I don’t know much about decks so any help would be appreciated My price range is anywhere up to £100
Tape decks used to be the forgotten part of audio but that's changed over the last year or so. I was looking in your price range and that seems to be where a working 3 head decks starts in price now a days. I really like my AIWA AD-F810 but I might have paid around $10.00 USD a few years ago. Keep your eyes open, November and December are always slow on ebay and things will go for a fraction of normal bidding cost. I've gotten mine from thrift stores and garage sales, but three-head decks were high cost back then and kind of rare now so I only have a few and most are in storage except for the AIWA. I don't know of a three-headed dual deck, there may be some out there but when dual decks came out, the market was flooded by extremly flimsy versions. There are some nicer models but the price to build a quality dual deck kept it out of the mainstream market.
@Ace I recommend you start by searching on facebook marketplace or gumtree for cassette decks. Then if their is one that interests you, type the model name in the hifi engine website Try to ask the seller if their are any problems. (i.e does it work?) If it doesnt work, then come back to the forum and I'm sure the community will help guide you to fixing a deck. They usually only need a new pair of belts, some oil, a good clean to the moving parts and presto!
If your just getting into cassettes, I'd stay away from the 70's decks mainly because of maintenance issues. The rubber rollers get really hard and the sliding metal parts need to be cleaned and relubed. If I saw that Sony on the shelf, I'd probably keep walking, it looks like it's from 1974, very early in the world of cassettes. If you get it for cheap, it might be a good unit to learn about the maintenace items before moving up. If you like the big analog meters, I've always liked JVC's Tape Decks from the 80's. I've got a few around here and I really like the build quality and looks, AIWAs can be a good deck and even some Sonys are surprising. This website lists a lot of decks and the build years. https://www.vintagecassette.com/
I'd search for a begginer 3-head single deck from the 90s and brands like Pioneer, SONY, Yamaha, DENON or AIWA. Avoid 2-head decks (which don't have a 'monitor' button to switch from source to tape) and avoid dual well decks, with much lower sound quality. If you like to learn the basics of tape calibration and get the most out of your deck, then one with assisted calibration system would suffice, like a SONY TC-K590 or a Pioneer CR-737. If you don't mind to learn to calibrate by your self -by ear- with no assistance, then any good deck with a bias (and also preferable an Rec EQ) knob will be enough. And cheaper, like a SONY TC-K570 or many others. You should learn the basics of calibration, though. If you prefer a portable deck, definitely go for a Marantz PMD-430. If you don't mind about the sound quality and the result, then you can go for a basic 2-head deck. The difference is that every cassette has it's own characteristics. If you simply put them in and hit Rec, the input signal will be always the same, but the result will be different. If you use a 3-head deck and calibrate for each tape, the result will be almost the same, no matter which tape you used this time. That makes the resulting recording much better and faithful to the input. I suggest you watching this video I made some time ago: Anyway, you can post your questions here and we'll try to help.
Ok so I’m sold on the idea of a 3 head deck because I’ve decided I want to make some mixtapes.still unsure on what bias is ? Is Dolby s actually that useful? I’m not sure but if I played a type one tape dolby B tape and recorded it onto a type two tape with Dolby s would the recorded tape be better quality than the original or would it sound muffled due to the mixture of different Dolby NR variants ? Im now looking for a cassette deck from the early 90s with Dolby s three heads that’s it really any further suggestions of models would be greatly Appreciated.
Definitely Not! But as “linnies” (of Linn Audio) say: “garbage-in, garbage-out” Nowadays if one obsesses with background noise, we have MP3/hi-res digital players: why would you want to compromise true analog sound with any kind of compression, be it Dolby B, C, or S? Just record onto a better quality Type II and enjoy true analog bliss!!!
Bias is a non-audible signal that is mixed with the music and allows you to calibrate the tape response to the deck, so the response is flat. The aim is to reach a recording that is an exact copy of the original. I also sent you a video I made, above. Yes, it's useful. You should not mix dolby variants. If you record it with Dolby S, play it with Dolby S. Dolby system is only meant to reduce the background hiss, and it works very well if you follow the rules. If you don't then you probably still reduce the hiss but the music will clearly degrade. So if you encode with Dolby B, better decode with Dolby B. Another thing you should take in mind is that there are some incompatibilities between decks and walkmans. It's a common problem that if you do a recording with Dolby B or C in a deck and then play it with another deck/walkman/boombox with the same Dolby you probably experience a muffled sound. Tha't because some misalignment between different units. When you know it's going to be played in another unit, it's better to avoid Dolby, so incompatibility problems dissapear. I already sent you some suggestions in a previous reply above. It all depends on how much you're willing to pay...
Bias is very interesting. Because of the nature of magnetism, when the tape passes over the playback head ( a fine tuned magnet) and because of the way tape is made ( which is metallic tape dipped in magnetic fluid) during this process the particles are not evenly distributed onto the tape. When they are played back you hear frequencies which don’t belong, which sounds like a hissing noise. So engineers found a way to manage these unwanted frequencies by adding a tiny voltage to the recording, and this mitigates the hissing. This is bias control. The hissing is caused in the part of the tape which is leaving the influence of the magnet as the tape is in motion. By adding a voltage this zone of influence is made tighter. Most tape decks are calibrated similarly but across the different machines there can be audible differences, so a tape from one machine may sound different on another but it’s very fine details rather than huge differences which a trained ear will notice. Normal bias settings are fine in nearly all instances, but if you get yourself a vintage tape, or an expensive metal holy grail then fine tuning is mandatory! Why treat such a thing badly? Dolby is another story altogether!
As far as I know, bias is not that thing. Bias is a high frequency signal that is mixed with the music to lower the distortion, but it has nothing to do with hiss. When a sine signal passes through zero, there is no current -> there's no magnetic flow applied to the tape. In that exact moment, the distortion gets high, so distortion is constantly going up and down. Bias current keep the distortion down even when the signal crosses zero, but it doesn't make the hiss lower, although it can allow a stronger signal with a lower distortion, causing a perception that the hiss is lower. Correct me if I'm wrong
I suggest you to read this, which to me is the bible of the bias ;-) (let's hope this PDF file uploads well)
