Show us your vintage cassettes!

[Berwhale]

Rubbish mixtape: fan reunited with cassette 25 years after losing it

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ars-after-losing-it-art-plastic-marine-debris

 

[Wes]

Sankyo-based Nakamichis almost always can be resurrected. Visit tapeheads.net if you run into problems.

Thz
I have a 680ZX - is that Sankyo based?

 

[Berwhale]

I have a 680ZX

I now have tape deck envy: http://zokiaudio.com/nakamichi-680zx-the-golden-age/?lang=en

 

[Martin]

I can't believe no-one has posted the TDK MA-R90; it's all I used to buy. Of course they go for crazy money now. I'm sure I threw away dozens of them many, many years ago.

Martin

 

[Hypnotoad]

I'm surprised you didn't like your Nak.

Don't get me wrong, it was a beautiful machine and the sound quality from cassettes was outstanding on it, it was a nostalgia buy and I had moved on from cassettes in the car etc.

 

[Werner]

Thz
I have a 680ZX - is that Sankyo based?

No. That one has what is called the 'Classic' transport: 48*, 58*, 68*, 660, 670, 1000ZXL, 700*, RX-505, RX-303, Dragon.
Models younger than these have 'Sankyo' transports (a colloquial name, not implying that this was actually manufactured
by Sankyo). Models older than these have ... older stuff.

Edit: worn idlers are typical for early Sankyo transports, hence my earlier posts. If you have a classic transport and a problem, then it is likely not the idler and you may want to seek specialised help. The classic transports are very old now, and they are not quite easy to maintain.

 

[Davelemi]

Growing up in Springfield, MA, freestyle had a heavy influence on me in the late 80s.

 

[Wes]

No. That one has what is called the 'Classic' transport: 48*, 58*, 68*, 660, 670, 1000ZXL, 700*, RX-505, RX-303, Dragon.
Models younger than these have 'Sankyo' transports (a colloquial name, not implying that this was actually manufactured
by Sankyo). Models older than these have ... older stuff.

Edit: worn idlers are typical for early Sankyo transports, hence my earlier posts. If you have a classic transport and a problem, then it is likely not the idler and you may want to seek specialised help. The classic transports are very old now, and they are not quite easy to maintain.

Thanks. It won't stay in play and keeps clicking off.

I sought "specialised help" (a repair) several times and was told it would be a permanent fix, but it wasn't. It's not worth a $500 repair to me to fix it, tho I do have some cassettes that cannot be found commercially ...

 

[laudio]

The Sanyko transport shows up in a lot of other decks, not just Nak. One of my favorites that uses same transport is a Kyocera 2 head. The idler is an easy fix.

The lower end Naks are great performers. Best deck I have though is a 3 head Denon, it just makes great tapes.

Collecting sealed deadstock is cool - because they will never make like they used to again, due to environmental regulations. I always look for it.

 

[restorer-john]

I can't believe no-one has posted the TDK MA-R90

Nice!

That and the MA-XG are just beautiful aren't they? Stainless steel roller tape guides in the die cast housing.

Looks like I'll have to update the thread with more scans...

 

[restorer-john]

Put some more cassettes on the scanner (perhaps a few duplicates tapes too):

Some, please tell me what this pointed jellyfish swimming in the cassette is all about??

 

[restorer-john]

And this one for good measure:

 

[Thomas savage]

Got this as a present for my gf, she lost hers many moons ago .

Tape was my gateway to music growing up, iv a far more potent emotive and sensory connection with this medium than any other.

 

[laudio]

Nice shots of Type I. But anybody recording knew you had to have Type II or better, normal bias just didn't cut it.

I still have Type II recordings that I have no idea how I set the bias on... but they sound better than same albums on digital to this day albeit the noise floor.

 

[restorer-john]

Tape was my gateway to music growing up, iv a far more potent emotive and sensory connection with this medium than any other.

Me too. So much time spent carefully recording LP to cassette.

 

[restorer-john]

Nice shots of Type I. But anybody recording knew you had to have Type II or better, normal bias just didn't cut it.

Perhaps you should look again at the tape scans? There's types I, II and IV.

BTW, the TDK ADX and ARX were unbelievable type I tapes. Considerably better than most type IIs and only beaten by TDK's SA-X.

If you have no idea how you set the bias on a type II, it was automatic, like most decks, based on the housing cut-outs. If you didn't have manual bias trim in addition, or auto BLE, the deck wasn't a serious deck.

 

[House de Kris]

Don't envy the SF. I was never very impressed with it to be honest. The ARX was such a fantastic Type I, you really needed to leapfrog the SF and SA straight to the SAX to gain an improvement, and even then, the SAX didn't have the MOL of the ADX/ARX IIRC.

I didn't actually buy cassettes expecting great audio quality, I liked to collect them. As such, I preferred to have a couple of each variety, hence my disappointed with not having any SF tapes.

It would seem TDK knew there were collectors out there willing to purchase whatever, as long as it had different packaging. Their TDK! line seemed to address this market well. Here are some of my TDK! cassettes:

First, the Walker, with and without the guard...

This was just a special version of the CDing series...

And the CUE tapes came in two colors to suit you mood...

 

[House de Kris]

By far, the best TDK! tapes were the IF tapes. They, too, came in black and white choices, as well as singles and doubles.

I believe the black was for the boys, and the white for the girls. Based upon the prose the marketeers came up with for the outside...

The back was the same for both, at least it used AR tape...

 

[House de Kris]

Another TDK oddity is their "professional cassette," which somehow I feel is an oximoronic phrase.

 

[Wes]