Cassette deck and Red Wine

The statistic shows annual music cassette album sales in the United States from 2015 to 2018. In 2018, 219 thousand music cassettes were sold in the United States, marking a significant growth in sales despite cassettes being a niche item. Sales have been on the increase since 2015 and have almost tripled in the last three years. 

This could be in part due to the collectable nature of the cassette, something you just can't get with streaming. Tapes are also often a lot cheaper than other collectibles such as CDs and vinyl, which makes them a cost-effective choice for music lovers of all ages. 

Despite the far superior audio quality that today's streaming apps and smartphones offer, cassette tapes and players are making a comeback, perhaps not because of their audio quality, but for other reasons. Those of you who have used cassette players during the 70s, 80s, and 90s, will remember that the sound is quite distinctive. 

New cassette player makers Fiio and Sony, you can see a few models under different brands displayed at Lane Crawford, IFC. They are made for fashion and fun, but are not seriously good in sound reproduction. 

If you are an electronics engineer, then you probably know that the complexity to design and fabricate a good cassette deck is 10X more complex than making an integrated amplifier. As a cassette deck has an amplification amplifier, recording amplifier, Dolby recording and playback circuit, bias setup, either manual or automatic, to preset the optimum biasing current for the magnetic head. Plus, the more important mechanical driving system. If you have owned a Nakamichi Dragon, you will see how many pieces of electronics complement, and the complexity of Azimuth, bias, and other features. 

How is the sound of a good cassette deck?

It is free from those annoying tick-tak noise of a vinyl, it is more fluidity, it is more mellow, it is more musical. 2.5D dimension as compare wit CD’s 2D dimension. The cassette deck could be better than the vinyl especially you don’t know how to properly sets up your turntable. 

Amongst those 20 cassette decks I have these are some of my favourite 

Nakamichi 1000 ZXL – king of the cassette, 40 pounds huge size like a MacDonald microwave oven, it is like the Chateau Lafife 1982 well balance, mellow and complicated, never fair your, keep tastier in time, it is more of a full 2.5D dimensional music especially on good source of original recording.

Nakamich Dragon – about 22 pounds in weight, very compact the prince of all cassette deck, it is a manual bias set up gear 4 motors

Sound is more or less like Chateau Mouton 1959, it is dynamic, bass is adequate and not muddle. Treble is well balance, beautifully balance, Strong in character, fully function because of auto reverse function, more function than the flag ship 1000 ZXL 

Teac Z6000 is a massive machine, weight 36 pounds, manual bias set up comparable to Z7000 which is auto biasing. Both are rare and expensive to find one with good condition. It is the Chateau Margaux 1982 – nice favour, complete smell of rose, mud, lead and charcoal and it is perpetually coming into your taste bud in the whole course of drinking. The sound of the Z6000 is powerful, you don’t feel sound is coming form the loudspeaker as it is full of your room. I am using ATD with just 5inches of woofer unit… But I feel the bass is rocking my sofa!

Love to play with Z6000 

Revox H1, someone may criticize that B710 MK II is best from Revox, I have both , but I found that H1 has given me a super comfort in using it purely for listening, it has all automatic level control and bias. Wide range of frequency response typically wide range music, clear and well defined musical note of the German style, It is the Haut Brion. One of the strong characteristic kind of wine, with above average good colour, long lasting favour and pleasant taste…

How about Tanberg 3014 well, I can not have one yet, many people say that it is the best but I have to listen to believe it.

What is the best wine? DLC ? Yes  but I have not tried due to high price. That is the same as the limited 100 pieces of Gold limited Nakamichi 1000ZXL. Price is same as the  Domaine de La Romanee-Conti 1988 US$20,999, that is the dream gear for me… It was told same as 1000ZXL, with special selected component including the magnetic heads!

HK Snob