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As someone that has owned a number of vintage tape decks, I was hesitant to buy this unit because of its hefty price tag, but after using it for a couple of months, I have been pleased with its performance. As a standalone CD/Tape player, this is an extremely well made unit and probably the best brand new CD/Tape deck you can buy in 2024 and would be an excellent addition to your home stereo setup. (The rack ears are easily removable if you want to have a more contemporary home hi-fi look and don’t want to rack mount the unit.) Through the proper receiver and speakers, the playback quality for cassettes is nothing short of majestic sounding and on par or even better than listening to LPs on my turntable setup. Also, there are several cassettes that I have played in other machines that I thought were worn out, but sound amazing through this unit.
However, the main reason I bought this until was for the USB recording function. During COVID, I found the time to start digitizing the mountain of cassette demos and rehearsal room recordings that I had accumulated since the late 90s. In the past, I’ve connected a high quality tape deck to a computer and recorded with software like GarageBand or Audacity, but I liked the idea of not having to deal with a computer interface, so I initially began using a small Walkman like device I bought off Amazon with a built in USB connection, but it had extremely poor sound quality and it seemed the pitch was off. (I was unable to find the timing screw on the cheap USB Walkman to correct the issue, luckily the pitch control for this TASCAM tape deck is right on the front of the unit!) I looked for other options but they were limited and this seemed like the best but also most expensive alternative.
The cassette to USB transfer on this unit works well, but only offers an option to record to MP3 instead of .wav or other formats, so the majestic sound you hear when the cassette is playing live is not the same sound you get when you transfer to MP3, however it is adequate and the recordings have very good depth and channel separation. (I’ve been setting the record level to max just to get a really full sound and may eventually just hook this unit up to a computer to see if I can get better transfer quality using .wav or .flac files.) I was also disappointed to discover that it doesn’t automatically detect tracks when transferring so you have to manually create them as it is recording but having the remote control makes that easy with a simple push of a button if you are listening in a chair from across the room. The readout seems a little difficult to read at times because of the blueish white color (orange would have been better) but I’ve been able to manage. Additionally, I’ve attached a vintage TASCAM 4-Track Cassette Portastudio to the Line-In input and have been able to create really good sounding mixdown tracks straight to USB instead of mixing down to cassette first, so having this ability is really cool if you are passionate about multitrack cassette recording, however the CD player doesn’t have the ability to burn the final tracks directly to disc which is another small disappointing thing about this unit.
In conclusion, despite some of the limitations described above, this is a fine piece of equipment that will probably last quite a while with proper care and maintenance. Unfortunately, the premium price paid is probably because the lack of widespread consumer demand for this kind of audio equipment. $699 is still kind of pricey, so I would suggest to try and get it on sale or possibly buy a demo if available, however in my option, if you have an aging cassette collection you need digitized or if you are an artist that enjoys creating new music on the cassette format (you can record straight to cassette via the line in and CD input as well) then this is the best new option available in 2024!
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