Cassette Decks! Technics M33, M224, Yamaha KX-650, and More.

Technics M33. Built like a tank. After 40 years since its release in 1979, it's still going strong. It just needs to be calibrated to ensure a flat frequency response in the region I care about (at least mid-range). And it does have lots of potentiometers inside for fine adjustments: playback/record level, bias, and EQ, plus fluorescent meter levels (0dB and -20dB). It also has an output-level knob, which is great for headphone playback (believe it or not, lots of decks from back then do not have the output-level knob). For me, the biggest shame is that the keyboard-style buttons are made of plastic.

Technics M33 (Grado headphones here if you haven't noticed. SR80 to be specific)

I mainly use it for playback tapes in my workplace. Before this, I have been using the Technics M224, which uses needle VU meters (beautiful!). It does not have an output-level knob though, so I had to use an eternal knob.

Technics M224

The tapes are recorded with my Yamaha KX-650 deck in my apartment. It is a three-head deck, meaning that I can listen to the tape during recording. This allows me to do fine adjustments on the front panel on the fly. Both recording and playback are a level better than the two-head decks. It can make recording very close to the source (at least as far as my current headphones can tell).

Yamaha KX-650 (top)

At some point, I also have this Sansui deck from thriftstore. Kind of sucks, coming from the days when Sansui was going downhill. It uses automatic level control for recording with only one LED for level indication (a very bad sign).

The Sansui

Oh, yeah, and let's don't forget my 4-in-1 system, the Aiwa XR-M150. It can play tapes, CD, and radio. It also serves as my speaker amp (AUX input). It even has an alarm clock linked to the four systems (it can even be programmed to record the radio at a certain time). Despite being quite basic in all aspects, I love it dearly. For $10 (thrift store), it can't be any better. Good time.

Aiwa XR-M150 sitting next to my CF-C1 laptop

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