burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

That is a high-end cassette recorder. It has good noise-suppression circuits. The VU meters are typically lit with tiny incandescent lamps, which do not generate radio frequency interference. The power supply is well-engineered to stay electrically quiet.

I should have specified that my remarks were aimed at those with AC/DC - powered devices. The small battery-operated players that use AC adapters often pick up noise through those cheap wall wart power adapters, or through their built-in transformer circuits. They are sensitive to polarity reversal and often don't filter out EMI/RFI.

lucianj

I purchased an "ION Retro Rocker" ( https://www.ionaudio.com/retro-rocker-retrorockerxus). It has a slot to record to a USB and another for SD/MMC card. Cost $50. It looks like a regular boom box with play capability from cassette tapes, USB and SD/MMC cards. Additionally it has AM/FM/SW radio. I've used it to record onto USB and then transfer from the USB to my computer. Battery operated as well as a AC/DC adapter. Pretty simple.

Tote1940 Loc: Dallas

Naka were in a class of their own , regret being too cheap and buying another , belts rotted away

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Interestingly both my high end TEACs w/dbx died due to belt failures, and if you’ve ever been into one, even with a shop manual, it’s a nightmare to replace the belts. But 30+ years later, the Nakamichi is still going strong when I use it. Dolby B/C is fine, but if you want serious DR and S/N, dbx encoding is the way to go for tape. i use an external dbx encoder/decoder with the Nak to play my old encoded tapes. Before CDs, when I bought a high end LP such as the Command series, I dubbed it onto a dbx encoded high quality Maxell cassette on the first playing. For really high end recording before DAT tapes, I used a Sony Beta deck with a Sony 14 bit PCM encoder/decoder.

Tote1940 Loc: Dallas

It is amazing how cassettes evolved with original formulation tape before Dolbys only for dictation
Final evolution they may have been better than CD
Technologies seem to reach a peak at very end
LPs still sound terrific to my aged ears
Project turntable Shur V15type V with new stylus after disk washed

BebuLamar

My Nakamichi did need a belt but it's easy to replace. It's over 32 years old now and still looks and works like new.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Quality is always a good investment. Buy the best you can afford, maintain the hell out of it, and keep (and enjoy) it forever.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Off-topic meanderings...

As an AV producer in the 1980s, I had a TEAC TASCAM A-3440S, a 1/4" four track reel-to-reel recorder with 10.5" reels. It had two outboard dbx noise reduction units. It sounded great for a long time. Alas, keeping the system "tuned" properly was difficult. It lasted about 15 years before we gave up trying to get the dbx units adjusted properly. They would "pump" due to component aging (leaky capacitors, most likely, but no one would touch them). The tape deck was fine, without dbx, but there was some hiss. When the dbx worked, it was eerily quiet! I wish I still had the deck. They sell for over $2000 reconditioned on eBay.

I also had a special cassette deck for Multi-Image AV presentations, the TASCAM 133B. It was a THREE track machine — stereo plus a "guard band" and a cue track. It was great to record our show tapes for the road... We mixed three tracks of audio from the 3440 to the 133B. The 3440 had a "clock track" on #4 to drive the ClearLight Superstar system. The Superstar (a board and software in an Apple IIe) drove an external controller, which put a 20- or 50-cues per second track on the cassette machine. We could fast forward and rewind the cassette, and the cue track would move all the trays on up to 15 slide projectors to the correct point in the show, and sync up from there! What a crazy medium. Thank goodness for digital video!

bnsf

Ion makes one that you can record to a computer or listen to a stereo. It is called Tape 2 PC. I have on and it works just great. Has two slots both for playback and one for record for tape 1 to tape 2.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Since you’re from the area, I wonder if you knew my old friend and customer, Richard Clark, who ran American Multimedia in Burlington? The Company both ran a high end cassette duplicating line (which Richard designed), but also put on major multimedia coliseum class events for Bill Britt. A typical event would consist of multiple 1” Ampex decks driving 2 dozen powered speakers (each with 500W Crown amps) hoisted with electric lifts to a huge light frame in the ceiling, all flown to location in a private Boeing 707. I was working for Tektronix when I got the call: “we need an audio spectrum analyzer - can you get us a 5L4N ASAP?” (~4k$ in 1975). “No, sorry, the delivery is 12 weeks”. “Well, what can you deliver ASAP?” “I can get you a 7L5/7603, but it will cost close to 10 K$”. “No problem, just get it here ASAP”. That was their MO - cost no object. Richard kept his Ferrari in the warehouse, but he was an excellent audio engineer - he could look at a crossover inductor and tell you if it was correct.

One of the more amazing things Richard did was at the National meeting of the NAB that year. He stood on stage and said something to the effect of “it’s not that cassettes are a crummy media, it’s that we use crummy duplicators and produce a crummy product. Come up to our suite and listen to cassettes produced on our duplicator and A-B them with a CD. If you can tell the difference, we’ll give you the CD player” (which was new technology at the time). No one took home the CD player.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Great stories! Did Richard Clark found Clark-Powell Associates? I was familiar with them. They sold us some video gear in the '80s.

While at Davidson, we often used Audio Unlimited out of Greensboro for some concert sound reinforcement. They were good. But we didn't really have an arena requiring anything like a spectrum analyzer. Our auditoriums were acoustically quite good, except for the gym. The absolute worst and loudest rock concert I ever heard was a homecoming concert my senior year. We had Kansas in our gym. They were so loud, 90% of the audience left during the first song. I went back to my dorm, which was next door to the gym. I listened to the concert there, with my window open. It was tolerable then! I think those guys were all deaf. I know the sound engineer was. Only a deaf guy would turn it up that loud!

At Delmar yearbooks, I used a mass cassette duplication house out of Greenville, SC, to dupe some 10.000 cassettes to accompany sound-filmstrips. They were hissy, low-grade tapes, but they got the job done... training yearbook staffs in page layout, photojournalism basics, and other yearbooking chores. Somewhere around here, I still have a few of them.

Our sister company was CFI (Consolidated Film Industries) in Hollywood, CA, a film processor for motion picture production companies. They duplicated all our filmstrips. That was back around 1980-82, pre-video production for us. I toured their facility at one point. MY, how times have changed!

worldcycle Loc: Stateline, Nevada

I do it with an old boom box with a auxiliary headphone jack. Get a double sided cord with the appropriate jack to plug into the headphone output jack on the boom box and plug the other end into the microphone jack on your computer. When playing the tape, record it on your computer using the free program Audacity. Takes a short learning curve to figure it out. Great sound. Might be hard to find a boom box. Check your thrift stores.

GreenReaper

I've had good luck using a Griffin iMic. It's a USB interface that has a selectable Line/Mic input and is not expensive. I use Audacity for recording on my Macbook. I have not used Garageband. Lots of luck.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

This isn't super high fidelity, but quite decent for $25:

https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-U-Control-UCA222-Ultra-Low-Interface/dp/B0023BYDHK/

It will connect a consumer cassette deck via RCA-phono to RCA-phono cable to USB on your computer. If your computer has only a USB-C input, you will need a hub, dongle, dock, or adapter for USB-A to USB-C connectivity.

This device is plug-and-play, but you can download a bunch of software "bundled" with it. Audacity is mentioned in there, but it will work with almost any audio recording and editing software.

Bowpet Loc: Loveland, CO

Check out the Digitnow turntable/cassette player - it does bluetooth streaming and will record LPs and cassette tapes to mp3 on a flash drive. I have one and am quite happy with it.

http://www.digitnow.us/DIGITNOW-VinylLP-Turntable-Record-Player-with-BluetoothAMFM-Radio-Cassette-Tape-Aux-in-USBSD-Encoding--Playing-MP3-Built-in-Stereo-Speakers-35mm-Headphone-JackRemote-and-LCD_show10.html