"I have this tape that came with the 1992 Lincoln Continental" he states like it's completely a normal item to own.

Oh my, that Lincoln tape's side two. Saxophone _and_ DX7. It's like early 90s in a box!

I like the irony of the "If you wanna enjoy it, you gotta pay for it!" argument, cos, if I'm correct in thinking, having bought a pre-recorded medium, I've paid for it, and can enjoy it with personal copies wherever I like, because I paid for it... :P

0:10 The record industry "dinosaurs" have changed very little in 30 years... I remember how the record industry tried to implement DRM on digital formats, such as DAT, Minidisc, and later, recordable CDs.

"Is it live, or is it Memorex?" . (squeak... squeak...) . ... It's Memorex

TIL that copying a tape is as bad as showing up to someone's house with a gun and demanding money

This is one of the few types of content I can watch these days. No mention of how f-ed up everything outside is, no stupid flashy useless gadgets with a 2-month lifespan, no fetishistic transitor-sniffing audiophile nonsense. Interesting stuff.

Man that Pioneer sugar jingle was one heck of a toe tapper!

WOW. In all my time with mixed tapes, high speed dubbing and so on, I never had ANY idea that something like this existed.

That brought back a lot of memories. I bought the Memorex version over here in UK from Tandy when I was about 16. Not a top end model, but I had to save up to buy it and I loved it. It felt like 'proper' hifi. Great to see one in action again, thanks for the video.

'get a car, get a truck, get an suv....' 4xtimes dubbing synchro

For being a realistic deck, that sounds really good. Especially the 4x speed dubbing

My uncle had a very similar Realistic tape deck, but his was silver. He used to make tape copies for my family of songs he recorded off MTV or a local radio station!

Wow & flutter specs may not be particularly great, but them being accurate not just when new but after 30 years with no maintenance work, not even new belts, is really remarkable. I'm impressed.

I see VWestlife, I'm clicking on it. Never been disappointed. Absolute quality as always.

I loved when you pulled out the actual Radioshack catalog! Didn't realize anyone still had those in physical form, but it's cool to see.

In the early 80s we had a neighborhood mail/copy store that was way ahed of its time. And thay had this pull out drawer with a commercial grade high speed cassette copy machine. I had a copy made just to watch it in action. it took less than a minute for whole the side! It amazed me

Any chance of a full recording of the instrumental side of the Lincoln Continental tape?

That's a lousy frequency response for 200.00 in 89. Great video. Thanks. Still have many cataloged from RS . I go through them once in a while.

The music you choose to avoid the KZfaq copywrite is so non-sequitur , its awesome!

Okay, at THIS point they surely could have given you autoreverse...

Man, that ending commercial really makes me want to get a car, get a truck, or an SUV now

And if you don't match your tape sizes exactly, you're going to have a very long leader on the B side since you're not pulling it out, rewinding it to the beginning before starting again.

'Get a car, get a truck, get an SUV' ... that lit up my late night with a smile. Always love your videos especially if it comes to these rare neat devices. Common back then, rare nowadays.

LOL, I burst out laughing to the lincoln tape when the DX7 synth came in, so cheesey! Laughed when you noted it! sounds even more utter 80s cheese with the sax. The pioneer sugar tune sounds really 80s too, love it! That deck is pretty awesome, I have a Tascam 202 Mk5 and a Tascam 424 Mk3 4 track, still use them both

The UL number on the rear shows 723L, which is a Sanyo Fisher product. Sure looks like an 80s Sanyo deck.

Low-range tape deck from late 80-s - early 90-s. Which has a Dolby chip made in Japan, japan motors, soft tape start mechanisms and looks pretty nice. And it still works and has it's original belts since 1989! May we get this quality on modern stuff, please? Also, Thank you, VWestlife, for another great video.

i really appreciate your channel not bombarding me to like subscribe and support you on patreon, a rarity these days

That level meter could use a couple more LEDs...

Enjoyed this, as always. Never heard of a 4 speed dubbing cassette deck before or Pioneer sugar for that matter 😉 Cheers 🍻

Nice Pioneer Sugar commercial. I grew up in Croswell Michigan which had one of the sugar factories, opened in 1906, and produces more than 1.25 million tons of sugar per year. I graduated from Crowell-Lexington High School, the Pioneers.

15:16 Classical Music you never knew had lyrics :)

Who needs Don Ho's Greatest hits when you got 90 minutes with Arthur Fedler!! 😆 This channel never gets old

If I remember right, the RIAA lost the home taping argument, in the early 80s. But they get their panties in a twist, again, when DAT decks hit the scene.

I somehow feel the need to buy a new car, or truck, or SUV.

Being able to copy both sides of the tape at once has some interesting implications. For example, if you drilled holes in the tape's shell in just the right spot, you could make your own tapes for the Coleco Adam tape drive, for example. Just dub one of the pre-recorded hard-sectored tapes. You can't do this on a normal deck because it uses all four tracks in parallel.

Wow the Pioneer Sugar ad, they played the hell out of that jingle on the radio growing up here in Grand Rapids! I think they still might be using that same jingle, I barely listen to the radio anymore.

It's sad that it doesn't actually run the tape at 4x. It's obviously that the music would sound badly, but I'm curious how good could it possibly copy a ZX Spectrum or a C64 tape. By what magnitude a loading error probability would grow :) ? On the other hand, kudos to Realistic for calling their method 4-track dubbing, because this is exactly what it does, as it copies 4 tracks at the same time. Kind of a "realistic" name.

My head for the rest of the week: 15:18

Blast from the past !! First deck I bought with my own money just with Optimus name

4 Track Dubbing is awesome. This would have been great to make a Dub of a 4 Track "Portastudio" recording. Or copying Datasettes in one go :P

I was aware that some mass duplicators offered dubbing of both sides at the same time, but I was unaware of home units that utilize this technology. I'm not a fan of high speed dubbing , as it sacrifices high end frequency response (as mentioned in the specs). Regardless, interesting find.

God I love these videos. Where else will I find an informative video on an obscure media player featuring music included with the 1992 Lincoln Continental?

this seems like a great utility for copying two tapes onto one 90-minute cassette, cause then you can just fast foward to the next album instead of turning the cassette and rewinding. although it seems like both a both a pro and a con since you still have to wind the tape to get to your album

Nice deck even without a remote control. You would have killed me with a Rick-roll end screen!

When I was young, I got a hand-me-down walkman where the auto-reverse was a little bit broken. It would play the tape in reverse, but it wouldn't switch to the side B tracks. So it just ended up playing side A backwards. Being a kid, and not too bothered with things like having to flip a tape when I wanted to play the other side, I was intrigued by this unique ability to play tapes backwards. Couldn't be happier that it never worked "properly".

I actually have the 90 minute record of Authur Fiedler.

that is really neat for something thats 32 years old and the fact its got that feature is neat. i miss having a cassette deck , years ago i had one that had high speed dubbing i forgot the make but ive seen some at a local flea market and going for reasonable prices. including a Pioneer reciever sx1250. some time im gonna look at some of the dealers things and have some nice vintage audio equipment

Your audio samples sound so good on this machine! I enjoy your videos. Thanks!

A wonderful start to February.

Please record and upload the full instumental track from that car tape. Please!

Never going to hear the William Tell Overture the same way again. Thanks. :(

I always thought that the Realstic branding was just superb. What better name could you hope for on HiFi components.

This is such a fascinating device and video. As you astutely point out, Vwestlife, it really only is any good for copying one C-90 to another. It would be completely useless for commercial tapes which were of variable length, and probably of limited use for someone who wanted to do serious duplication work. So it's sort of fulfilling a need that no-one had back then. The business of putting two albums on one C-90 makes me SO nostalgic!

Great quality recording quality with the noise reduction and that good quality tape. Wonderful video!!!

A snowy day and VWestlife! Perfect!

You typically don't rob from your own home, though.

I own a SCT-57, they must not have ever sold very many of these, I never see these for sale on eBay. I see another one called the SCT-56. I don't even know why I've got the 57 instead of the 56, except to say that there was some feature(s), I liked on the 57 better. I remember standing in the Radio Shack the requesting the manual for each, and deciding on the 57. When I look at the catalog from that time, I cannot see a difference that is listed in the catalog itself. You now have me desiring the unit you just showed us for 4x dubbing, even though I may rarely or possibly never use it!

Great video as always! Thanks for having subtitles available.

Even as a teenager, I preferred and saved my money for components with less features, rings and bells but therefore ones with better sound and durability.

Realistic stuff that I own still works fine and getting onto 50 years old.lol

The quality is extremely good. I would have been happy.

I have a 1982 Realistic tape deck which still has the original belts. They may not have built the best sounding decks, but they must have insisted on some quality rubber. lol

After 2 hours of shoveling snow, it's nice to sit back and watch a VWestlife video!

3:15 - Me: Hello DX7! 3:20 - VWestlive: Gotta love that Yamaha DX7 Harmonica sound. Me: [Claps]

Love these retro videos.

I didn't know that model existed! I had the Realistic SCT-74 (at 13:32 ) which I think I bought on sale for around $100-120 in the summer of 1988. For a budget deck it made excellent copies at regular speed. I used it when I worked in radio for editing and dubbing my DJ airchecks. But it only lasted me for about 5 years before it suddenly quit working. And the Radio Shack HD 60 cassette was made by Maxell in the 1990's. IIRC its a rebranded Maxell UDII.

This Lincoln tape which came with a car remembered me at something interesting i never though about: I once bought a Mitsubishi Lancer (around 2000).... there was a (music only) CD with it, but the car came with a casette car stereo, find the problem xD

Wow wished I had this in the 90s , great video 👊

That is a very clever solution. I like it.

I saw your video the Teac LP-R 550 USB all in one stereo system nice job Kevin.

4:14 To save on both time and on extraneous rewinding, you could’ve played side 2 first on the newly recorded tape. Just a thought.

So it must have 4 play-back amps and 4 record amps. Cool, With some hacks, It could make a half decent addition to a mini studio.You could record 4 tracks on one tape, put that tape in the play side and mix another 4 tracks onto a new tape whilst tape one is playing. Nice.

All things considered (and we all know what that means for this kind of deck), I'm actually quite impressed.

This is the first device I've seen on a consumer level that copies both sides of a cassette simultaneously

Thank goodness you played the entire sugar song.

11:06 well at least you have a spare erase head if the one on the right goes bad. Thank you so much Radioshack! So considerate!

The RIAA was against DAT and Minidisk because it was Digital and made perfect copies. Analog tape was imperfect. Napster came along and changed things with MP3 and sidestepping any industry rollout. Digital audio happened anyway.

I love those colorful memorex tapes

Wow. That Pioneer Sugar ad 😳

The face of that machine looks nearly identical to the Kenwood cassette deck I bought new in 1987, although it didn't even have 2X hi-speed dubbing. After looking at some fuzzy old photos, while there are several differences, the overall form is the same. Have no idea about the mechanism inside and I junked that machine about 20 years ago anyway.

I have a Sanyo deck which is virtually identical to this unit except for the 4 track recording. The mech is the same. As you say, looks like Tanashin but with minor refinements. That small pinch roller is a dead giveaway!

I really 👍 like stuff 👍 like this. Looks so 1980's. I used to have a stereo with this very piece of equipment, although the brand name was different. Mine didn't have quadruple-speed recording, 👍 like yours does. It was a double cassette deck, but it didn't have quadruple-speed recording. It took me 👍 listening to this 📹 video, to 👌 know exactly what that meant. The tape doesn't actually 🏃 run at quadruple-speed, which I thought it would have. I have it half right (I think). The tape 🏃 runs at double-speed, but it's also recording on the opposite side, simultaneously. All without having to turn the tapes over. 👍 Like 2 jobs in 1. I'm on the hunt for a 👍 good 80's stereo. I think I bought mine at Costco, in 1988. I don't remember the price, but I'm guessing around $199.99. I 👍 lived in Anchorage, Alaska at the time, with my parents, since I was still going to 🏫 school at the time. Even my parents here in Arizona had a nice stereo. I graduated, and came to Casa Grande, Arizona. They were only renting the stereo. It was very nice, although I vaguely remember it's brand name, or features. I can't tell ya if it had a dual cassette deck, or if it recorded at double-speed (I 👌 knew that most of these weren't quadruple-speed cassette recorders). I 👌 knew the cabinet was wood (probably particleboard), with woodgrain veneer, 👍 like mine did. The front 🚪 door on it was glass (so was mine). These stereos usually had wheels on them. Too 👎 bad I had to sell my stereo when I came to Arizona. I would have bought it from my parents, but they ended ☝ up getting rid of it, because they couldn't make the rental payments. I'd certainly have taken over them. Your friend, Jeff.

I want this so much

Same mecha used on the bottom of the line JVC. Looks pretty basic, but its actually pretty good, very reliable, under normal use, belts rarely need to be changed. It is wat cheaper than the mid70s equivalente, still get better numbers, This mecha looks like a piano key hitachi from early 80s (similar to ones using in commodore datassette) but with logic control. If something is used for data storage, appart from being cheap facing to a home computer market, it most be stable.

The Pioneer Sugar song!

Amazing low use that deck must have seen, those heads appear to be in great shape. If you were making several copies of one tape, having to rewind wouldn't really be an issue, just flip the master tape over and run off the second copy. I remember in high school the band directors having this deck for copying recordings of concerts.

Interesting found! Never seen this before....

Great video as always! Is there a way you could copy the instrumental side of that Lincoln Continental tape to digital? Gotta love that DX7!

I had that boom box at 2:15 - had totally forgotten about it... lawlz... thanks for the memory|

I never understood why this feature wasn't used more prominently. Same thing with the 3 head systems as it didn't require any additional space in the tapedrive mechanism. Just a different tapehead. This would have made Cassettes even more popular and making them last even longer as a domestic recording medium. But nope...

I believe the portable Sony CFS-W600 boombox has 4-track dub capability - Deck B can certainly erase and record both sides of a tape at once if the function is selected (high speed - both sides) on the front.

That was the first dual cassette deck I ever bought. I got it for $120.00 in 1990. It wasn't a bad deck

Really, this is quite an interesting tape deck. The instrumental music on the car demonstration tape reminds me of the song Heartbeats by Jose Gonzales/The Knife.

Only quadruple dubbing? Oh please! I'm waiting to see fast forward ⏩ dubbing. 😉😁😉

Very cool! Never used one that recorded both sides at the same time..

A complimentary tape of yacht rock to go with your land yacht!

4 track dubbing sounds cool, but I’m with you. I’d never use it

Nice a new video I'm here as always

Hi VWestlife I would like to add that this unit is manufactured By Sanyo/Fisher for Radio Shack because I remember picking up the Sanyo (Not Sure of Model Number) at the Wiz electronics store!