Top 10 holy grail cassette decks?

[AudioJoe413]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Eumig FL-1000....

 

[Karl vd Berg]

that Kyocera IMHO actually does qualify as holy grail status, wether its top 10 or not im not sure, but definitely rare and desireable

Sources tell that Kyocera was behind the scenes in producing late 80s for a bunch of Japanese companies such as Nakamichi, Denon, Teac and even Yamaha very high rigid bases of CD transports costing around $1,000 each piece...

So, no surprises that they had acess to top technology from those companies and could make very reliable machines...

 

[stoutblock]

At 48lbs it seems to be able to take on most rivals...

 

[goldear]

The Kyocera D-811 is regarded by many as one of the finest decks ever made. Essential features, extremely reliable...

I would say that the D-811 is the finest two-head deck ever made. Kyocera put the money where they believed it counted the most, and they decided to put it into calibrations controls, a direct-drive transport an particcularly high-quality electronics rather than adding a third head. They have 3-head Nak-class performance, but they don't suffer from Nakamichi's slightly non-standard equalization.

These are indeed great machines. But the lack of a third-head means that tape calibration is a bit of a PITA on these machines.

 

[mathuwm]

I was never impressed with Nakamichi, I do like the JVC's and Marantz's.
Yamaha K-2000.
John.

That is the equivalent of saying: I was never impressed with Mercedes Benz give me an old Chevrolet Euro Sport any day

 

[Karl vd Berg]

I didn't mention any Yamaha yet?

The transport

 

[captaingamez]

I was really waiting for stoutblock to post that.

 

[Karl vd Berg]

Well, we have two models right now:

The super-ugly Technics RS-690U

and the ugliest ever Teac Z-7000

Beasts that can take on various Naks... Specially the Teac...

 

[captaingamez]

those are both realistic choices, and I agree, we have 3 though, stoutblocks 1000zxl

 

[Derek92994]

At 48lbs it seems to be able to take on most rivals...

Now THAT'S a machine I'd buy for its looks, and yes I know they perform superior. One day when money is plentiful :lmao:

 

[Karl vd Berg]

I'm joking, this machine is very good. But in terms of microwaves oven designs Pioneer, Phase Linear were a bit more accurate...

 

[grateful]

Just in case you missed it the Phase Linear and the Pioneer are the same deck. Both made by Pioneer.

 

[Karl vd Berg]

I know. I wanted to illustrate the nice "oven" side of the Pioneer...

(Although I prefer the CT-A1)

 

[Karl vd Berg]

Much more Audio looking the C-3... :thmbsp:

 

[Karl vd Berg]

I never understood why Luxman invested that time and money in the X3K right in 1982. But I must say it would be funny seeing Nakamichi trembling from head to toe...

 

[grateful]

Now that is a rarity.

 

[Karl vd Berg]

One thing I want to ask/share with you folks about all these super decks.

If (yes, "IF") Philips, instead of engineering the compact cassette at a 1⅞ inch per sec (4.76 cm/s) speed with 0.150 inch (3.81mm) wide tape, had developed something just like 5 cm/s tape speed in a 4mm wide tape, inside a still compact cassette cartrigde size surely we would have recording machines that could sky-rocket easily the frequency response beyond the 20kHz and a S/N ratio close to 90 dB with type I (normal) cassettes without the need of any bloody Dolby NR...

 

[Blue Shadow]

So you are saying a 5% increase in the size of the tape and hence a 5% increase in the amount of tape to contain the exact same signal as well as a matching 5% increase in the speed of the tape which also put that much more tape through the machine is going to give all the improvement for the cassette to exceed the capabilities of a rtr running .25-inch tape at 7.5 ips is a possibility? You need to check your math.

 

[captaingamez]

It would have given an overall lower S/N ratio, and all the machines would have been designed around that standard to take advantage of the extra 5% in every area.

I dont think Karl implied that It would rival reel to reel


nice decks Karl definitely some grail status there.

 

[rotovator]

One thing I want to ask/share with you folks about all these super decks.

If (yes, "IF") Philips, instead of engineering the compact cassette at a 1⅞ inch per sec (4.76 cm/s) speed with 0.150 inch (3.81mm) wide tape, had developed something just like 5 cm/s tape speed in a 4mm wide tape, inside a still compact cassette cartrigde size surely we would have recording machines that could sky-rocket easily the frequency response beyond the 20kHz and a S/N ratio close to 90 dB with type I (normal) cassettes without the need of any bloody Dolby NR...

I've asked this so many times, just the same question. I've even decided that If I had the time machine, I would go back in time to have a talk with philips engineers.