Cassette Decks

The Sony Walkman Pro has always been a favourite since its release back in the 80s. As far as I am aware it is still being made. I have one, and have been very happy with it. Doesn't take up a whole shelf of the equipment rack either!

Tony.

I understand Nakamichi are making cassette decks again, which should be available in the US.

The sound from a 3-head Nak deck is usually very good, and they have a good lifespan and servicability too.

Make you you can turn the bass in your car Hi-fi down though, as I find the bass content a bit powerful. My car has a very "american sounding" hi-fi - loads of bottom end.

David S

The Sony Walkman Pro is truly excellent - I've had one for years and it is still almost as good as it gets. I also have a three-head Denon which is a good performer - you could consider this.

I've been using the Walkman Pro for about 2 years now. For the money and convinience it is impossible to beat. A great buy.

Cheers

Andy

It is o.k. when it is working, but any attempt to use interconnects more than a few mm diameter risks breaking the mini-jack sockets at the PCB. I've been through three.
Unless it has to be portable, go for a Nak.

Rockindoc,

Do you still have all the old ones?

The problem of the 3.5mm jacks breaking is not uncommon on any portable player, but is usually repairable without great cost, even if the PCB itself is fractured.

If you're not interested in having them fixed I'd be interested in one for spares, as my own is geting old now.

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I've had a walkman pro for 14-15 years, and they are great and musical, but lacking in many areas compared to the better full-size alternatives. Except for live events I always record on a full-size machine and use the pro for playback only.

They're noisy, have limited dynamic range and frequency response compared to the better alternatives. If you want a workhorse and don't need portability get a NAK. If you want portability on the cheap get a decent minidisc, it's a more robust format, sounds better than the pro, offers instant track access and small size into the bargain.

May not be much use in the car though, unless you're prepared to use one of those tape adaptors!

Andy.

Andrew L. Weekes

Evan.

I have the Walkman Pro as well. I would agree that it represents an excellent alternative to larger units. Having said that. I got tired of spending loads of time recording tapes. If the main purpose is for the car, perhaps an in dash CD player would be a good alternative. I ended up with an Eclipse for around $500 CDN installed. No more tapes. No more hassels. The price is roughly the same. tw

Andrew
Can't get through on your e-mail, so..
I only have one left, and it too has a broken line in socket. I only use it for headphone playback now .
I found it too fiddly for me to repair the boards, and the local repair guy charged £75 a time.

I have a Nakamichi BX-100 at home and a CR-2 at work. The only time I use cassette is listening at work. I have about 70 tapes I've recorded over the last 15 years, mostly compilations of music I've been listening to at the time I make the tape.

I bought the CR-2 used a few years ago because I wanted something better than a walkman to play my music at work. The CR-2 has a headphone jack with a volume control and sounds great with a pair of Grado SR-60 headphones.

Here' a website with alot of Nak info:

http://naks.com/home.html

why not get yourself a cd walkman with one of those car convertors and stick to CD?

Tim

I have a Walkman Pro about 12 years old and recently overhauled. Until a few years ago I also had a Nakamichi BX300E of a similar vintage. As far as I can recall the Sony cost GBP250 and the Nak GBP600 back in the late 80's.

My point, you ask. Oh yes ... the Walkman is good, no doubt about that, but the Nak creams it. I remember various HiFi mags touting the Walkman as a "serious" alternative to a full width deck. Now I'm sure that it does well against others in it's price range, but not against a decent player.

So it depends on whether you really need the best tape deck (if that's not an oxymoron) or not I guess. For a car there's so much background noise that it's kind of irrelevant. So much so that I've retired both in favour of an MD recorder. Well you can't hear the compression over 30mph!

The BX300E, which as I recall were as good as it gets Nak-wise unless you stepped into Dragon territory sell 2nd hand in the UK for around GBP300.

Ahhh James - you're just not demonstrating the level of committment required.

Jaybar - NAK is the way to go, general rule of thumb, with some notable exceptions.

For a budget deck, new, the Yamaha's are worth consideration. I have both a NAK DR-3 and Yamaha KX380 (same as a 383, really) and am impressed and satisfied with both. Neither are 3-head, but two heads at one time is enough for most mere mortals.

Rico - let them eat Kans.

I've had a BX100 since the mid-late 80s. Had the gear drive upgrade done a few years back, and the technician said it will never wear out again. (The original belt/idler drives apparently give in after about 6-7 yrs). Doesn't get a tremendous amount of use, but when it does it's ability to capture and reproduce music is quite remarkable. On almost any brand or type of tape, too. Considering I picked it up for $150, and didn't spend that much to upgrade the gear drive, it's quite a solid investement.

Some years ago a friend with a Pro Walkman and I compared the two, and although the Walkman did some things well, the Nak won easily.

M

Get a Yamaha - cheap, effective, reliable, and sounds more than good enough for the car or anywhere else.

cheers

Nigel

Hallo Evan,

although my last advice obviously wasn't that good for you - you resold that Audio Note turntable on audiogon.com - I think you cannot go wrong with Nakamichi, soundwise.

I myself own a Nak 582 from 1978, which runs perfectly. It doesn't have Dolby C, but all the gadgets a high end deck should have. Avoid Nakamichi 700 from beginning of the 80ies - the contacts between motherboard and daughterboards corrode and must be cleaned regularily. As Nak has been out of tape deck business now, it is no problem getting a good deck at low price. Service is still available and parts for most models, too.

Similiar to Nak, the big Akai decks which are very good in sound and construction (and also discontinued) are recommended, too.

regards,
Hartmut

If you are serious about the sound quality, get a 3 head Nak, I think tapes made for the car sound as good as a CD.

I have a Nak ZX-7, which is their most tweakable machine and makes excellent metal tapes from vinyl. It is like a Dragon without the gimmicky spinning of the cassette at the end of the side.

There is a reasonable market in 2nd hand machines, but as I said before, I think I saw that Nakamichi are selling new decks agin.

David S

Going through my tapes at work I noticed it's been over a year and a half since I've compiled a tape. Reading this thread got me motivated to pull out an old original Sound Org table, clean it up, and place it adjacent to my Archidee table that holds my 5 disk cd player. I slid the cd player over to the SO table, placed the Nak BX100 on the level Archidee table and connected it up to my pre, turned it on and let it warm up for a couple hours.

Later that evening I cleaned up the heads and put together a tape of some things I've been listening to the last 6 months or so:

"Upside Downside" - Mike Stern
"Maput" - Bob James and David Sanborn
"Tell You What" - John Scofield
"Stratus" - Billy Cobham
"Grover" - The Philadelphia Experiment
"Catembe, Cobra, Big Time" - Miles Davis/Amandala
"Electric Red" - Miles Davis/Aura
"Boblicity, Miles Ahead Medley" -
Miles Davis and Quincy Jones/Live at Montreux

Can't wait to get to work today to listen to it.