you´re right i also have kenwood decks because since ever i notice a higher quality of sound in decks since the 70´s ,even had a car radio cassette player that i bought in mid 80´s and only took it from my car in 97 when i bought cheap a MD player from sony for the car, 40€ new at the time

i have used SF tapes since ever and they sounded great in several diferent brands high-end decks i own, i even liked when they were released in a blue shafire or similar ,i would buy them more than the SA or SA-X, but in the 90´s with the brown transparent casing they did sound not so good as the SA too, i started to buy more SA-X and UX-PRO from Sony, but with the two kenwood decks i own from swecond half of the 80´s and the one before the top end model in 95 if memory doesn´t fail me they did recorded very good but i´m not sure of all because i stoped using cassettes when in 96 i bought for half the money i was going to spend in a cassette deck ,i bought the MD deck from sony ,the first under ES, only in 2017 i restored one cassette deck and i notice that some types of music that weren´t that good when recorded in minidisc they did stay perfect on a good cassette deck, and because a friend of mine worked in a warehouse from one of those big surfaces that sell all were going to incenerate all cassettes and minidiscs ,i put my mercedes from 71 a 350SE or the biggest car i had and filled it only leaving my seat empty with boxes of TDK SA; SA-X or Sony UX-PRO and also minidisc´s from TDK all black so i don´t need to buy them now at looking like a horror movie prices, and i have given a lot of boxes to friends who still record cassettes

i forget to refer that most of the decks had tdk metal cassettes as standart tape, never the SA, the SF, it is as very good tape and cheaper ,yes a couple of € and in the 90´s the SF was the SA of the 80´s, but it´s a high-quality cassette, since it appeared, if not with auto-bias it records like if it was a TDK MA-X or XG,if automatic calibration exists and you don´t use it it´s like if you were using it´s standart tape or a tdk type IV, it comes in the manual not my opinion, and i never used dolby ,in the best decks it limits their sound quality, and this deck wasn´t that cheap ,it was the best 2 head deck,but in the 90´s some have 3 heads ,i have the CT-S630S to have the flex function which is handy to hear old recording done in good decks , much better than play trim if owning only this deck the flex should be always on, to play always the best sound of the cassette played, the manual explains it

i do have several cassette decks from diferent brands , the calibration is in every deck made from factory to include the best sound in any type but with calibration automatic or not one can do it the best possible to the cassette in use,that´s a plus, the deck you refer as automatic calibration and i have one that records perfectelly in what concerns to it´s specifications but in higher reference decks ,the sound for sure is better but sometimes not working with perfection so when i insert a cassette recorded in the CT-959 or CT-93 ,it plays with perfect sound using the flex that is supposed to be always on , the nakamichi component you say you have if it´s the one i´m thinking is to be used on easrly 70´s cassette decks that had not a good noise cancelling system and calibration can be done by making the cassette with already recording sound by using it´s monitor the most close to the source, but i wouldn´t use it with a CT-S420 that already as auto BLE as the autobias in kenwood decks , but when using diferent cassette from diferent brands or C-60 or C-90 cassettes it makes the deck fastly out of it´s perfect tune, the ideal is choose a well built cassette and only use it on the deck ,this makes one deck work flawlesslly for more time, but it´s rare to do so and today even more being all cassettes old from the 90´s or earlier, the XLII released in the 90´s with light grey casing are not good to any deck it sounds perfect after recorded but it makes any deck work perfect for a lot less amout of time, normally one changes the belts and it starts to work again with perfection but also need to be aligned, so it can work with a good brand cassette without destroying it ,i notice that because i had a lot of sealed cassettes from BASF only super II and maxima I, II or IV, they for sure sound good if not while making the BLE flashes the message error ,but only saw that in a deck i bought first with the insert of the cassette in the midle and not in the left side of the front , in the manual as i refered before it even says ,do not use basf cassettes ,normally they writte in the end of the manual of each deck which are the best cassettes to use .This, one has to see the year of the deck release because cassettes change with the years and what could be a perfectelly built cassette can change in the next years

i never saw UD XLII only UDI or UDII or XLII or XLII-S or even my favorite the XLI-S ,i do prefer good ferric tapes as i use to do in the 70´s with reels, but only have good chrome or cobalt cassettes today

OH, and i never use dolby ,since ever ,so having dolby S or not doesn´t make it better,my first tape recorder was a X-165D from Akai 1970 catalog (reel deck)and records perfect today using only ferric tapes ,and not any deck can record with it´s quality ,don´t even known which to refer and i own 47 cassette decks,between mine and my father´s that came to me when he died already a year ago or almost, the reason why i have so many nakamichi´s ,mine and the one´s from my father between other great decks as the B215 from revox and a Teac that is incredible good. also this deck if cassettes aren´t well built or bad calibrated from factory ,this regarding the tape and the casing if demanding extra power from the engine that rolls the tape inside the casing ,in the BLE automatic function it detects the extra strenght made by the engine and to do not put it out of tune it stops and gives the message error ,in the first one i owned it even said, do not use BASF cassettes and they were right i´ve found a lot of problems on basf cassettes bought since last monthes of 1985 and in the 90´s they had good tapes but the cassette itself were badly built and could destroy any new deck,i´ve done that with some 7 basf super II and maxima I, II, IV that had very good sound but after using them i couldn´t calibrate any TDK cassette on a CT-959, this new after being bought, but it last years working only with good basf tapes ,like the ones i refer or UR and MX from maxell or HF from sony or even tdk D , AD, AD-X and AR, the SA and SA-X were impossible to use there without being destroyd as some sony UX-PRO or Metal master, the TDK MA-XG is the standart cassette for this last deck i refer so no need to calibrate only if some like a lot of high´s they could increase the bias knob for the left(this comes in the deck manual)

the CT-95 does record andplays perfect but built much more cheap than older top end pioner cassette deck that i have a lot of them ,only didn´t bought the CT-95

@@RUfromthe40s a parte il costo,il CT-95 e' un'ottimo registratore,ho avuto occasione di vederlo,anche internamente,e ascoltarlo,tecnicamente impeccabile,poi questo modello e' uno degli ultimi pioneer top level

@@giuseppelavecchia775it´s the just before the CT-95 ,i also had it at home from a friend but i had already very good decks so i didn´t bought it for me but i wanted one with the flex function ,bought the CT-S630S which is great but not as the CT-95, CT-959 or CT-91a, but meanwhile some of my friends ofered me theirs because they needed the space and would putrthem on the garbage or in a strore room with lot´s of humidity ,so i also have the CT-S420 and the CT-S430S but i never use dolby so having dolby S or not doesn´t make me happy also have the digital dolby in a pioneer MD deck the something 707and also don´t use it and hiss was never a problem if heads demagnatised and clean. i have in totall 48 cassette decks since i bought my first one in 75 the CT-F2121 because i bought a car that had cassette player ,before only had 8-track player and because they sold them in fairs pirated for a cheap ptrioce to listen in the car i was enough happy with it, in 77 my father gave me his CT-F1000, because he had bought a complete Revox B series system ,even bought some extra Studer big speaklers and the B215 cassette deck when released being already with some Revox with stands that were very good and still are, later he bought the compactdisc player with the same design as other Revox components, everything is mine now he died almost two years ago and left me his entire hi-fi colection with records and reels, i´m from a family that all liked music and played instruments and Pioneer adicted ,so i had already a big colection of components ,now even bigger ,my luck is that i bought in 2015 a big house that i restored built in the late 40´s, so enough room to store all or my better half would have killed me in my sleep, i even almost purpose to her to sleep in diferent rooms and only when needed i or her would use eachothers rooms, but then i thinked twice and the result could be the same i refer to earlier