Now that I've got this P505 running, I'm actually listening to some of my old mix tapes from the 80's. I've also been listening to a tape I recorded myself last night straight off my FLAC collection. It is only now that I'm listening to these, that I realise just how badly commercial recordings must have screwed the pooch for tape. Oh man... the memories.... ... forget trying to get a word out of me for the rest of the day... I'll be sat in the corner of my room, surrounded by AAA bats.
The nice thing about audio is you will never be 100% there. You can restore an old car and get 100% there but not with audio equipment or media. Half the fun of owning older media is trying to figure out what will make it sound better. In the case of prerecorded media that's pushing 30-40 years old, I'm just hoping I don't have a bunch of flakes on my heads. My advice is get the highest watt unit and just crank it (after a few beers helps) find something you like and everyone will think your cool. For critical listening or just messing with high-end stuff, most of your friends won't care what your doing and it will be more for personal enjoyment, then you can diss on the AAA bats and throw bragging rights out there when it does sound good...
