The only thing which I don't like about this is that both of the decks don't have auto reverse.

Good to Here I like making my own mix tapes I have one of the early Sony Walkman's my coworkers and Students where I teach get thrill out my Walkman !

Honestly, if you want audiophile you shouldn't even go for cassette at all the only real option would be digital 24 bit 96khz with a good converter and good clock. Maybe master tapes.

@@BoboButYouCanCallMeTom what about 32 bit for that much better dynamic range and miniscule possibility of aliasing?

​@@xmlthegreat Haha yeah true for the real nut jobs! Although in all seriousness practically. The noise floor in even the most treated room and well isolated room is going to be higher than the range you have with 24 bit haha. Aliasing has basically been fixed with dither. 32 bit is good for internal processing but is not needed for listening even in the most critical situations.

Hello Michael, getting backto tapes, CDs an Vinyl is not overall correct. Tapes and vinyl was an analog storage of music signals. The amplitude of the noise signal was, is in both case transfered in an analog strength of the magnetic orientation of the tape particles or the grove depth an sideward peak. On the CD the noise signal and amplitude was first/is cutted in steps of 44khz and transfered in a digital value. The only problem was with the first CDs that a „private“ digital copy method was not available and a copy on cassette tapes need the same time like copying from vinyl, apart from „big“ advantage that a pre-selection of song numbers on the CD-Player was possible an the copy of on CD in one step. No lifting the Turntable arm song by song and leap nonpreferred songs and start and stop of the cassette recorder for each song. By the way, I will not go back to these terrible times when I was copying about every 3 years my vinyls, later the Cds on new tapes for several hours and days for my car stereo, because the used ones begun to wine and jam or create tape spaghetti. Today I have all my portable music on USB-sticks or on my smartphone, about 42 GB in ACC 320, more than 4000 Songs which is music for 10 days non stop or the volume of more than 150 cassettes a 90 minutes. To add or remove songs is a work of minutes. And finally the quality and the depandabilty is superior.

I've never given up on cds or vinyl. However usually I'm listening to FLAC copies. But I threw out all my tapes 20 years ago. Maybe I just never had a good player - but I have no desire to try again

Tapes and vinyl yes, but nothing digital. Digital is the worst thing to ever happen to music, video, and still photography. I would also like to see a retun to magnetic tape for video. Digital is totally fake, and sounds and looks fake.

Gerald, sorry but than you must say any copy is a fake. The kind of storage method is different, but a copy is a copy and any copy can be manipulated. Even old photos were manipulated with the begining of photography.

I never left CDs, too perfect even to get files for my new phone or old ipod.

Panasonic RX-D55 more like a boom box type deal but its descent

@She-Wolf Just paid $10 for (7) Maxell UR90 cassettes and $25 for (5) Maxell UR90N cassette's made TODAY but not here in the US.

@@ACommenterOnKZfaq how many CD-R would have got you far better sound?

@@cirrus1964 its NOT about far better sound, its about nostalgia.

as long as rich old man want nostalgia then yes there will be cassette decks don't worry.

I would say 80`s style

@@digitalvinyls3544 It's a radio weather report jingle that's probably from the 1970s.

@@vwestlife Talk about flashbacks! I remember hearing these on KCBS newsradio to announce their weather forecasts in the late 70s/early 80s.

@@vwestlife yes, I sad, it's older than '90-s, probably late '70s, yet, it's sounds like '90s Windows system sounds :D

Haha. I wanted to say that too.

YES!

Which older decks do you recommend?

im kind of older and i am very happy, that we dont have the cassettes anymore (and discettes, and SCSI-cables, and mouses with ball)

@Instant Karma If there's a need for those things, why not?

@@dr.behrends9378 there is no need, there is a very small demand because people like "vintage stuff"

@@nielsvanderwaa9539 Well there can be a need. I’ve got a demo tape mailed to me by a guitarist back the late 80s or early 90s. You can’t buy it anywhere. I made a digital copy, but the tape actually sounded better (when I had a tape player). I’m sure there’s probably 1000s of such tapes out there in the world, that the digital listener will not even be made aware of because it isn’t on Spotify. Likewise I find gaps on Spotify where I have music that it appears it’ll never have. So in a way, the analog method fills in these gaps. Note: If all you listen to is crappy mainstream, then the above doesn’t apply.

@@nielsvanderwaa9539 There's no need for mechanical watches either yet they generate billions. There's thousands of niche products, cheap and expensive (no one needs Bugatti's). If Sony doesn't lose money on their 500€ turntable surely they can also produce a new walkman.

Also I think maybe it had something to do with TEAC changing their U.S. distributor. Maybe as part of the agreement they weren't allowed to sell their stock from the old distributor as new, so they're selling it as "open box".

@@vwestlife I bought one from the teac store on ebay a year ago and it was the same best offer thing. Open box but looked new.

the third song

16:27 Sting?

**CHULUNK!**

We became the masters of dropping needles onto the separation grooves between tracks to start recording a specific song halfway through an LP

Where's a good place to buy blank cassettes ? I'm in the UK ?

@@johnjaleco5683 All you see these days are the generic Maxell tapes which are ok'ish but not sure where i read but Richer Sounds may have blank ferric tapes which were meant to be pretty good

@@Eyerex cheers , and I'm guessing that they're not as cheap as they used to be . Normal is ok for me as I'm not as picky quality wise as I used to be .

@@johnjaleco5683 I miss the days of going into Boot's and seeing a whole wall lined with every make and types (next to the beer making kits)

Dolby B and C are very simple to implement in hardware.

Me, too. I am most pleased with mine. I got it on VWestlife's recommendation.

And cocaine. Lots of cocaine.

@@orangejjay you got that right, lol

@@orangejjay #ColumbianMarchingPowder

Grandmaster flash.

And don't forget ferric-chrome....

I think you are right. From what I have seen, both decks with recording capabilities is pretty unusual. They did make them back in the day though, I have an early 90's Denon that does, but it's not common. It is a nice feature though because you have a fully functional back up deck.

Maybe cheaper to have exactly the same parts on both sides

I have a Kenwood KX-W8020 from 1990. It also has dual well recording.

@@jhschmidMD4 I just ran across your deck here on KZfaq. It was featured on a channel called DrCassette in a video called "Testing 9 newly acquired cassette decks" He was blown away by it having dual recording.

Toshiba RT-S983 got dual record decks.

Lol I came here to say the EXACT same thing...Dolby is just a muffled mess

@@hunterdavis3003 Yup. Dolby is like wearing a covid mask. Haha. Cheers

Add the bass and you didn't hear the tape hiss. If I wanted to hear hiss I just turned up the treble on my equalizer.

Right!?

It's that old adage - quality prevails.

I've seen many of the Border Security reality-TV episodes for the UK, Canada, Australia and the US. Customs officials at ports of entry routinely conduct random audits of incoming goods - opening the boxes and removing the contents to check for potential hidden contraband and/or inadmissibility of the goods. Customs officials compare boxes with the importer's customs declaration, and if something arouses their suspicions they will also open a box or two to check if any contraband is concealed within the box or packaging, or if there are undeclared valuables buried inside the box.

Because it likely uses the Naval Research Laboratory speech synthesis algorithms. Almost all 1980s text-to-speech software used it and thus had the same sounding "voice".

@@NJRoadfan Did not know that. I remember speech synthesis being a really huge feature on video games and home computers in the early 80s, and kind of expensive. I think for Intellivision and other home computers you often needed to buy a separate hardware module.

Reminds me of SAM for the Commodore 64

I record to a USB flash drive which holds way more than a cassette and in vastly superior quality.

That’s not the point of cassettes these days. I have a Sony Walkman NW A55 with a 512gb micro sd card filled with high resolution flacs and DSD, it sounds amazing, it’s convenient, and my entire music library fits into something the size of my fingernail. However I also own a Walkman WM F31 from the 80’s and play modern cassette releases through it, it’s a pain to find a specific track, it runs on AA’s which don’t last that long, and cassettes don’t sound that great, but it’s just fun to have. Cassettes are collectibles, a fun novelty now, not the most accessible option for portable media like they once were, but they’re not supposed to be anymore.

Thanks!

The asking price for the "Teac W-1200 Double Cassette Deck | USB & One-Touch Dubbing (Refurbished)" is $299 today, not $200. Maybe that was a fluke.

@@peacearchwa5103 They sure did, those sneaks! I bet this video coming out had something to do with the price suddenly going up.

@@StevenS757 I doubt it, I had been glancing a week before this came up and the Refurb price was $299 and Open Box was $349, MSRP was $499. If I were buying one, I'd go for the Open Box rather than the Refurb since the whole idea in buying the W-1200 is to get a brand-new spanking new deck, not a used deck. That's just me, perhaps.

Not Longhorn, it's the Zune theme with a third-party clone of the Vista/7 desktop gadgets.

​@@vwestlife oh yeah! I forgot about the Zune theme! Still nice.

Haven't used a cassette in over 15 years, In the old days you used them to make music for your car or walkman but those days are long gone, I have no idea outside of nostalgia why anyone would want a cassette deck.

@@hifijohn I still use my Sony Walkman to listen to old drum n bass tape packs

I did. And I still don't get it. Why? This machine is decent. It shows that that ancient tech could produce listenable sound. But still - the price is reasonable only if you consider how expensive the parts and the production process of it is. So they are just basically expensive to make. To provide sound quality objectively worse than even cheap no-name digital devices. The only reason I like tape recorders is they LOOK cool and nostalgia.

I feel like we're getting there. We're only now starting to see quite the uptick in quality on new turntables, so I'm sure tape decks will get their turn if interest and sales increase.

One thing holding it back is what happens to all other consumer electronics: they get copied by somebody else for less. Nobody is going to invest in the R&D and tooling it would take to rebirth a good cassette deck when it's guaranteed to get copied. And at the same time, the companies who are making mediocre cheap decks are happy making those cheap decks.

So what is a good/ acceptable wrms on a cassette deck? And what is it? Anyone know? Thank you

@@LatitudeSky To be fair, there wouldn't be _that_ much R&D required. The intended item already existed in many forms for several decades; in the world of inferior knockoffs, a quality knockoff of a good mech should be fairly simple. The biggest problem would most likely be in sourcing good tape heads themselves.

I clicked on this video just out of astonishment. There will be no tape decks in just 30 years. The last generation to grow up with this was born in 1990. They are 30 now, when they are 60, they're not going to be feeling nostalgia about how great those old tape cassettes were. It's a complete waste to even manufacture these. Tapes are bulky, inferior in EVERY WAY to digital, and have terribly inferior audio quality. Also, audio tapes have a limited lifespan. Digital data does not.

W&F is on par with some average 90's deck I had/have. So this isn't too bad at all.

Thing is while those numbers seem correct today and will be enough for most of us, I still have beside me a very unassuming Hitachi boombox that blows both this deck and many component decks from the 90s out of the water with its 0.04% WRMS (yes, you read right). It's a TRK-W235 from 1991 that I got recently at a thrift store. I don't even recall myself that boomboxes could perform that well.

@@Dioxaz So anything with starting with a 0.0 is a good wrms? I am new too cassettes so i am trying to understand the specifications. Thank you

I’m struggling with that with my 3 head Technics deck. Might just give up wasting time and money on fixing it and grab one of these 😃

@@stuartleckie I’m struggling with a Technics 2 head and a Kenwood 3 head. Belt kits for the Kenwood don’t ship to the US and the Technics has an issue with one channel not working. The RS-B series seems to have issues with that.

I agree with you 100%. He did a great, detailed review of the entire machine. Fred

After a lot of searching : Steve McClintock - Turn on the night

@@zbutsam Thanks!

Nowadays we call that “synthwave” 😌 being deliberately a.. pastiche? Homage? To the originals. The artwork usually involves 80s cars, that shiny metal in the desert style text, neon grids, etc. Popular usually for the drum machines and FM synthesis and other such period-correct things (even if some of the producers are probably using sampled drums and modern software synths).

I can't help but wonder, though. Why is "epitome" pronounced that way?

@@jeffw1267 Because we speak English correctly.

I think the best way to go about this is to make a Kickstarter for the sole purpose of getting the attention of China-based copycats to start making their own mechanisms.

China? Really?

@@andriealinsangao613 that's where most of the world's manufacturing (and in turn, bootlegging) is based in, dumdum

@@603840Jrg I know, but do you really expect those companies to make their own mechanisms? HA!!!

@@andriealinsangao613 You'd be surprised how many stupidly niche products got bootlegged the moment their Kickstarters took off, some even making it to market before the real deal. Tape mechanisms are not out of the question and would certainly be better than that one mechanism every company is using for modern tape players

yep the old is new now i hope to see 8bit or 16bit games for super nintendo sega genesis neogeo for the real console to play in my crt tv

A lack of bias adjustment may ruin its chances. Superferrics and type II's will be fine, but the basic ferrics need that helping hand.

Well it is the best deck that exist now, but it is more like a "low" mid range compared to more vintage decks. Low end decks were completely trash even when this format was at peak and this is clearly way above that.

@@bloxyman22 it’s still decent, I’m not expecting it to be the best tape deck ever made, since digital audio players replaced analog sound systems. But I’m glad there’s quality cassette decks in production, because audiophiles want to playback their tape recordings on fresh new equipment!

Sounds confusing. What is Noritsu actually making? Motors, deck assemblies or complete decks/turntables for TEAC and Pioneer?

@@mjouwbuis Noritsu is the company that bought Pioneer’s analog machines for turntables, DJ equipment, and tape decks. They also produce high end machines like film processors, motors, analog components for certain stereos form Pioneer, TEAC, Panasonic.

An audiophile recommending cassettes to anyone in 2021 is a red flag.

Let us know how you enjoy your new W-1200!

@@mikec9112 ya, I also had their 51 disc cd changer.

The optimus decks also accepted the 1/8 plug that worked with the Pioneer amplifiers of the mid 90’s so that the remote was completely compatible. God I miss all that old audio equipment.

@@mcribs7811 lol, I remember that. Had it tied to my amp and cd changer.

That's unfortunately the kind of snobbery you can expect with pretty much any less common hobby. In my opinion it only discourages new people from becoming into it, but something tells me that's more or less what they want anyway.

Sony WM-D6C is very close imo

@@Windowsfan100 I'm not sure if it was snobery or just a flat out joke, but I hear what you are saying. For the few fortunate enough to own a Dragon, they are not so fortunate when it comes to the cost of keeping it up to spec, Naks are finicky as all get out and crazy expensive to own.

@@ARandomOven Sony WM-D6C are crazy good portables, but are different animals than a full sized component. I've never owned a Dragon and I never will, but have owned decent 3 head Naks and when they are in good working order do sound and record fantastic. Problem is they are finicky and keeping them up to spec at their best is pricey & out of my budget. In my humble opinion.

I’ll take it

Still a good way to preserve a vinyl collection

Most decks of the 80s and 90s were remote controlable, at least the basic functions. It worked via the remote control of the receiver over a cable on the back.

Same here. I think that the weight of the capstan flywheel also plays a part in the wow & flutter measurements, however, like you commented, it would be really interesting to see how much the drive motor swap influences this measurement. Fred

@@electronicengineer Drag on the takeup reel slipper usually causes it also, and you need a bigger flywheel to reduce the flutter from it. I remember taking apart such old tape decks as a kid and getting the massive flywheels out, using them as spin tops with the motors from the same deck, watching them spin on the table for a good 10 minutes.

Many of those flywheels were well crafted parts... tanks.

@@spikester Oh YES! I did that also, more than once ;-). I was great at taking them apart, just it was the putting back together part that I was not quite as adept at! Thanks for the great memory jog spikester!!! Fred

I work on tape decks all the time and a different motor will not make it any better and the ones you find these days are cheaply made chinese voltage controlled unlike the FG types of the past. There is nothing you can do to make these acceptable as their design from the start is lacking- plastic capstan bearings is a first reason.

Maybe it just needed new rubber belts. Panasonic's decks were usually quite well made.

You must have had a defective unit Panasonic is one of the greatest names in audio they make very high quality equipment

@@richardwhite2344 i got it used and was used heavily