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You Vintage Tape Guys Are Infectious!

Dr. Music said:
Beautiful Hitachi deck! I'd jump on that in a heartbeat :)

Seems like every time I pop into the local GW's I'm finding an errant blank tape these days. Usually the normal bias TDK D90's, but I remember them doing an okay job back in my taping days and for 50 cents, what the heck?
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Repeating the Blind Pig reference, I recently checked my local GW and found several Metal and Chrome tapes (recorded), for 25 cents ea. Snapped them up. Nice music on some so I left them as they were.:music:
 
When I heard that Maxell was going out of the tape business 2 years ago, I RAN to my local 'mart and bought all they had of the good Maxell XLII tape (3 trays of 20). I went back in a week and they had 2 more trays of 20, so I snapped those up too. That was the last I saw of Maxell at the stores.

I use a reel deck and I love it, but cassettes are much easier to play in the car. I have 8 cassette decks. They hold up much better than the CD players I get at the thrifts. Some of the CD players I got sounded best when they hit the bottom of a dumpster.

These decks (all working good) are from the local thrift. Left to right: $10, $30, $25.

//Smorgy
 

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Smorgy said:
When I heard that Maxell was going out of the tape business 2 years ago, I RAN to my local 'mart and bought all they had of the good Maxell XLII tape (3 trays of 20). I went back in a week and they had 2 more trays of 20, so I snapped those up too. That was the last I saw of Maxell at the stores.

I use a reel deck and I love it, but cassettes are much easier to play in the car. I have 8 cassette decks. They hold up much better than the CD players I get at the thrifts. Some of the CD players I got sounded best when they hit the bottom of a dumpster.

These decks (all working good) are from the local thrift. Left to right: $10, $30, $25.

//Smorgy
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That JVC looks great !!!!
 
PELUDITO said:
Hi
I have 26 decks !! I love cassettes and vinyls
1 Nakamichi 700II , Pioneer CTF 1250, 3 Pioneer CTF 950, Pioneer 900, Pioneer 850
Pioneer 700 (2) Technics 474, Nakamichi MR 2 , Nakamichi 680ZX, Pioneer CTF 506
Pioneer CTF 500, Pioneer CTF 750, Aiwa L 300 , Techncs M 641, Pioneer CTF 707, Pioneer CTF 909, Teac C3X , Pioneer CTR 9..... the list goes on !!!!
All of them in really good good shape !!
God bless decks !!!
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--------------
Hi,
Do you have any dbx encoded cassettes? Or do you know where I can get some?

Regards

William
 
fortycoats said:
Yes, what are the two on bottom for? That's one nice looking deck. What are the model numbers of the matching Amp/Preamp/Tuner?
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apachef1/fortycoats

The two meters below the regular VU meters show the Bias & Sensitivity for the tape in use. They are primarily in use when a new tape is being tested (by the ATRS) for the optimum bias/sensitivity settings for that specific tape type. To quote Nakdoc (who by the way brought this deck back to life) when testing a new tape, "These guys put on a show during auto calibration."

08260030.jpg




fortycoats, here is the matching pieces that I had with this deck. From top to bottom they are: Tuner FT-4400 * Preamp HCA-6500 * Amp HMA-6500.

01200014.jpg
 
Very good, thank you. My Sony TC-KE500S does auto-calibration so that makes sense -- just two extra VU meters to do what the multi-purpose LCD display does on mine. Nice!!

I did a bit of searching on the other components in the meantime and found just what you show above. What's the vintage -- late 70s or early 80s? Looks like a digital tuner there which I don't see too many of from the 70s but I thought VU meters were pretty much gone out of fashion by the early 80s.
 
fortycoats said:
Very good, thank you. My Sony TC-KE500S does auto-calibration so that makes sense -- just two extra VU meters to do what the multi-purpose LCD display does on mine. Nice!!

I did a bit of searching on the other components in the meantime and found just what you show above. What's the vintage -- late 70s or early 80s? Looks like a digital tuner there which I don't see too many of from the 70s but I thought VU meters were pretty much gone out of fashion by the early 80s.
Click to expand...

One last post on these Hitachi's guys, I feel like I'm hijacking this thread and don't mean to.

I figure these were from the late 70's to early 80's, purely based on the manufacture year of the tape deck which was 1979. And yes the tuner was digital, you can see that better in the picture below with them all together.


01070036.jpg
 
That Hitachi is *cool*

Yeah, this forum got me back into tape after a few years hiatus. :D I made my first two mix tapes (oddly enough from streaming digital source) on this single deck JVC two head deck on some free *used* hi bias tapes I got on freecycle. (One doesn't sound right, not sure why) Anyway it sounds good enough for the car (actually quite good) save for the occasional drop out.

Michael
 
Smorgy said:
When I heard that Maxell was going out of the tape business 2 years ago, I RAN to my local 'mart and bought all they had of the good Maxell XLII tape (3 trays of 20). I went back in a week and they had 2 more trays of 20, so I snapped those up too. That was the last I saw of Maxell at the stores.

I use a reel deck and I love it, but cassettes are much easier to play in the car. I have 8 cassette decks. They hold up much better than the CD players I get at the thrifts. Some of the CD players I got sounded best when they hit the bottom of a dumpster.

These decks (all working good) are from the local thrift. Left to right: $10, $30, $25.

//Smorgy
Click to expand...

The JVC has gone for many times more on E-bay recently..$100+, IIRC.
 
Harvey/ Ga said:
The JVC has gone for many times more on E-bay recently..$100+, IIRC.
Click to expand...

Interesting. When I got it a couple months back, I checked on E-Bay and I saw one for sale. It was buy it now @ $75 and it got no offers.

I like the JVC, its built like a tank.

//Smorgy
 
Harvey/ Ga said:
Repeating the Blind Pig reference, I recently checked my local GW and found several Metal and Chrome tapes (recorded), for 25 cents ea. Snapped them up. Nice music on some so I left them as they were.:music:
Click to expand...

Did the same a week or so ago - found three prerecorded TDK SA-90's at the local SA and bought them for 10 cents apiece. Then a few Maxell UR-90's for fifty cents each. Seems like I'm finding blanks in dribs and drabs, probably people just tossing a few here and there when doing their spring cleaning. Still kicking myself for tossing my fairly sizable tape collection several years back!
 
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Welcome to the World of Cassette Decks, Dr. Music! :thmbsp:

I know what you mean, I just happened to drop in here one day and I haven't been the same since. Started out with a Sony TC-WR701ES dual well with Dolby S, then picked up a Technics RS-917, then a Kenwood KX-W8040 dual well, then a TEAC A-100 (because I thought the analog VU meters were cool!) and finally another Technics - this time a RS-TR232 dual well deck (I seem to gravitate to dual cassette decks).

Anyway, you might as well figure on being addicted.... Don't fight it, that only makes it worse! :banana:

Mike :D
 
VintageFreq said:
Welcome to the World of Cassette Decks, Dr. Music! :thmbsp:

I know what you mean, I just happened to drop in here one day and I haven't been the same since. Started out with a Sony TC-WR701ES dual well with Dolby S, then picked up a Technics RS-917, then a Kenwood KX-W8040 dual well, then a TEAC A-100 (because I thought the analog VU meters were cool!) and finally another Technics - this time a RS-TR232 dual well deck (I seem to gravitate to dual cassette decks).

Anyway, you might as well figure on being addicted.... Don't fight it, that only makes it worse! :banana:

Mike :D
Click to expand...

How you like that RS-T232 Mike? I haven't hooked mine up yet to do any tinkering with it.... and yes, I will have to once again own VU meters along the way!
 
Dr. Music said:
How you like that RS-T232 Mike? I haven't hooked mine up yet to do any tinkering with it.... and yes, I will have to once again own VU meters along the way!
Click to expand...

Well Dr., I just got the 232 hooked into the system yesterday and I haven't had a chance to to really listen or record with it yet. It looks like it will be a good addition, I'll let you know later when I get some time to play with it! :yes:

Mike :D
 
shrinkboy said:
my wife drives an '08 Acura TL with a factory cassette deck
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That is amazing. I wouldn't have thought they were even an option anymore. And there's people laughing at me for not changing the cassette deck out of my '93 Toyota (at least -- never mind for actually keeping the car).
 
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