Thanks for the post, and yes especially now, and like you mentioned in one of your previous posts it's kind of a buyers market right now. Nothing is selling, and I will wait till the market comes back to sell some of the things I have. I've never sold anything, and I have entirely too many pieces of electronics. My deck has a DBX direct mode, that will record a DBX encoded LP. Eventually I'll find one that I can check out, but I'm not paying the price is they want for some of them... ouch. I have made a couple of DBX recordings from Hi-Res files, and it really does sound great.
In all my thrifting travels, I've never seen dbx, quad or any high-quality recordings, tapes or vinyl. Metal tapes alone were always difficult to find. They were all rare when they came out and ultra-rare now. Oswaldo Martinez usually checks in around this time of year, he's always making some high-quality tapes, check out some of his threads.
Thanks, and I've come across a couple of his posts on here. Glad to see that he does some of his reference listening on a deck I just picked up, but his is more than likely overhauled by Willy Herman.
Good morning guys and gals! I thought I would give my impressions on the Teac Z6000 after spending some time with it. Talk about a different animal than my A&D GX-Z9100 I just wasn't prepared for the differences in sound and adjustability. The Z 9100 is a lot easier get a recording to sound good, and pretty much any tape you throw at it and no matter how you record it just seems to sound good. The GX Heads?? I'm not sure but it doesn't seem to matter what kind of tape it just Records well. The Teac on the other hand seems to be more tape dependent, and it's really tough to outdo a good chrome tape on this deck. Pure chrome on the other hand are very sensitive to the bias, level, and EQ settings that the 6000 has, and you have to go very slowly and it takes at least several minutes to get it right. But it pays off once you get it right, but definitely not I said it and forget it machine. Different sounds between the two decks the Z 9100 excels in realism, and making a life like recording, and I contribute that partially to the HX pro, and probably the GX heads. The Teac on the other hand is a bit more analog sounding, a bit drier in the upper frequencies. More of a pronounced mid range, and has a lot of bass also. The higher frequencies seem to sound better on a Maxell XLII or XLIIS tape, and it's easy to adjust these. I have read that these were set up for TDK tapes across the board, but maybe it's the type of TDK tape I have or the Maxells just do better in this machine. I think my TDK SA type II tapes are I don't know which ones sound better, and they made so many of that tape that it's confusing to me. Anyway just like back in the day it was always hard to beat the Maxell type II tape IMO.
I purchased a Nakamichi 680ZX and I sent it back, it was refurbished 18 months ago, and I don't believe it was used after the tech refurbished it. I also don't think there was a lot wrong with it in the beginning, but it wasn't used after it was fixed. It also sat in someone's workshop for that entire time I believe, and they must've done a lot of woodworking because everything was covered in fine sawdust. I just had a hard time believing that no one would cover this up in that environment, and it took me an hour to clean the front switch is in control of all that fine dust. That was strike one, and it was all downhill from there. It seem to make erratic recordings and I don't know if the automatic record azimuth was not working or needed to be worked or what it was but I just couldn't take any chances and sent it back. I also learned that it's very hard to beat the two decks that I already have, and I also learned that the Nakamichi sound may not be for me. Don't get me wrong I think there amazingly engineered machines, but my Z9100 and Teac are very hard acts to follow and I just like their sound.
My shop has cars, audio, woodworking and metalworking equipment; sometimes you want to make a few cuts and don't clear the area. 90% of my audio is shrinkwrapped, especially if I'm not playing with it so it stays pretty clean. Do you do anything with R2R? I'm clearing out a space so I can have a working unit by my desk.
I don't blame you, and I don't know what was wrong with the Nakamichi deck, but I know the place where he got it fixed and they are top notch. But it freaked me out when I saw all the dirt in the buttons on the front, so I pretty painstakingly cleaned it all. Maybe it just needed to be exercised I don't know. You and I know better, and so do a lot of people and I don't really blame this guy and I don't want to badmouth anyone. Maybe if somebody reads this they'll understand how sensitive cassette decks, and R2R really are a rare combination of mechanical and electronic. CD to a certain extent but not like the tape decks. i've never owned a reel to reel, and I just started looking into possibly purchasing one.
overmodulated it’s good you sent the unit back as you are not happy with it, too many people keep things they are not happy with and try to fix them up for whatever reason. I don’t understand it, if it’s not as described don’t keep it. Like I said before you already have good kit, why keep buying more things you don’t need. I don’t understand why people keep buying cr@p they don’t need, is it because they wanted it before and could not afford it or is it for bragging rights? Me I have a few choice pieces and if I buy a better one the old one goes. Good reasons I don’t keep cr@p I don’t need. 1 I don’t have the space. 2 I don’t have money to waste. I used to be on a forum where people have tape decks in the double digits, one member even had tape decks in the triple digits. Why I don’t know, I think they are just hoarders. Some of them on that site had so many decks which did not work and they could not even remember what they really had. I would rather have one really great thing, than have 10 mediocre things. I keep saying it, it's all about the music and not the kit.
that's good advice, and I'm going to take it. I've been trying to convince myself of the same thing, before I end up with too many tape decks like I have turntables. Thanks for posting that I appreciate it.
