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Cassette Decks?


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Building a new system, I would like to know for the money what is the best cassette deck to buy? The stores (BestBuy, Circuit City and HH Gregg) have a limited selection to choose from. I am looking for a dependable deck for under 200 bucks. I have alot of cassettes, that i don't and won't replace with cds.

Another question is whats going to win out DVD audio or SACD or will the old cd be the mainstream, wanting to purchase another cd player also.

Happy New Year

Ron

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Just a FYI but I noticed a blurb about a new Panasonic player that will be the first of its kind sold in the US that plays both DVD-A & SACD. There is already a Pioneer like it that is sold in Japan. Don't think a price was listed though. On the cassette deck I've seen the best reviews on Yamaha's decks or you might wanna look into a used Nakamichi. I'm sure people are ditching those left and right. I bet you could get a pretty nice model if you shop around.

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AMC CD8b CD Player

Toshiba 3108 DVD Player

Klipsch KG 4.2s(main)

2 Dynaco A-10/V IIs(centers)

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DK-

I've got an old Yamaha K-1020 (duh-look below) all in it's original condition from 1987. Sendust heads, three motors and sounds fantastic. The door and the LED display is all made of glass, no plastic here. Not sure if it measures up to the K-2000 of the early 80's (it had auto biasing) but this sure wasn't too far behind. You may be able to pick one of these up used somewhere.

This week I plan on taking it in to have it cleaned, tuned up and all the belts replaced. If that runs a few hundred bucks to do to this old tank it would be well worth it. After all, I still refuse to put an after market stereo (read- with a cd player) in my car.

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Tom

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McIntosh MVP-841 CD/DVD

Rotel RB-1080 Amp

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Stanton 999SS Cartridge

Yamaha K-1020 Cassette

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Enough empty boxes for a fire hazard!

This message has been edited by tblasing on 01-04-2002 at 01:15 PM

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I also agree with tblasing&Cruzer as the original owner of a Yamaha K-1020-it is one nice cassette deck.It was almost identical to the K-1200 the only difference being a wired remote verses a infared remote (remember this was the mid to late 80s).

I had it serviced in the mid 90s and accordind to the tech and the repair order it was made with Nakamichi guts which probably explains the performance compared to the Dragon. Jeff

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No one will ever beat a good Nakamichi casette deck. If you can find a used one in good repair for the $ your asking, ****** it up. Nak is also selling new Casette decks in the US again (not the cheap Nakamichi named stuff that was briefly available in Best Buy and you should avaoid like the plague). Unfortunately, new prices are beyond your stated maximum price.

In addition to some of the last, high end yammys, I would also add used Denon three head decks to your list. Denon still makes casette decks too.

As for the DVD-Audio vs SACD debate, I haven't heard anything new since an article I read in September based upon a listening the reviewers had about a year ago. I'm sure newer/better units are now available, but at that time they were saying that DVD-Audio was a clear and convincing winner in Audio reproduction. They also said that SACD was wonderful, but the DVD-A was multitdes better. No opinion was given about which format would pervail though. Keep in mind, BETA offered better picture quality than VHS.

I've been waiting until a trend developed before I made a commitment to DVD-A.

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DVD-A "multitudes" better than SACD? What magazine printed that nonsense?

Like Big Bean says, our old analog cassette decks may be the only way we'll be able to make dubs of copyrighted material in the near future. At least, if the recording industry has their way.

And speaking of the scum-bag recording industry, are they the greediest, most short-sighted conglomeration of near-humans to ever crawl out of a frog pond or what? They want our money sooo bad, but they can't stand the thought of us actually owning a recording after they sell it to us! Their wet-dream scenario would be a computerized, Orwellian world where every time anyone so much as hums a copyrighted tune of theirs, money would be electronically transfered into their coffers. They actually believe that EVERY time someone copies a song from a CD onto tape or CD-R, that they are being deprived of a sale. What total nonsense.

Oops...guess I'm straying from the topic. Ex-cuuuse me!cwm32.gif Anyhoop, the point, regarding SACD vs DVD-A, is that unless common sense can somehow prevail, they (previously mentioned scum-bag recording industry) will probably kill off both of them.

Point of clarification: Yes, I know there are some good guys in the record bid'ness who care about their customers and about quality sound, but I'm afraid they are a tiny minority.

Good Day

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JDMcCall

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