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Hmm. I had the Walkman Pro, which was an excellent field recorder, and served as my car stereo for many years since I only had AM radio.

 

I kept it in a "fanny pack". Sadly, while hefting my Rhodes into the band pickup one day, I set it down for a moment. When I turned around, it was gone and nobody was in the area. Sigh.

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I just looked up your Walkman Pro......that's looks like a really nice unit.....a much better, all-round recorder than the dual cassette one I posted.....I bet it did a really good job....

 

I had a Sony dual cassette boombox with detachable speakers and music search on the tape......music search for cassette on a boombox is pretty rare....it was a really loud boombox too....it had a nice EQ (6 band if I remember correctly).....the right deck, instead of having music search, had cue & review.....any tape deck that has cue and review marked on the fast forward and rewind buttons allows you to press rewind or fast forward during playback and hear the tape as it goes by (great for live music that doesn't have blank between the tracks)....that boombox didn't have CD because it was sold in the mid 80's before you really saw CD in boomboxes very much (I think CD's have been around since 1982 but the prices were so high initially that it was a long time before department stores sold them or the players).....CD boomboxes might have been for sale where I bought that boombox, but might have cost more than I wanted to spend....I don't remember anymore.....that was a long time ago.....now you can buy CD boomboxes for chump change, especially used on Ebay.....

 

I bought my wife a Sony boombox with CD, cassette, AM/FM & a jack to run a MP3 player in for $50 new with free shipping....she wanted something to listen to in the backyard when she takes the dogs out.....I put rechargeable batteries in it....it actually sounds really good....it's designed so the sun can't cook the cassette or CD through any windows.....(we still have a ton of cassettes from back in the day)......I'm going to glue some thin felt on the plastic piece that presses on the CD (I've had discs damaged by similar systems in the past....very light on the glue).....after that simple modification, it'll be good to go....

 

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-CFDS05-Ca.../dp/B00383PB0U

 

If you buy rechargeable batteries, don't buy nickel cadmium....they can develop a memory where they won't fully charge anymore.....buy nickel-metal hydride as not only do they not have the memory problem, they last a lot longer on each charge and stay charged soooooo long just sitting around.....chargers can also charge them very fast if you buy the right charger....

 

I remember testing a 6 disc Sony Boombox at the store that could even play discs that were completely cracked without skipping.....I'd snap them back in place and put them in.....I intended to buy that boombox but never did.....(I'd always take the most brutally damaged CD's to test boomboxes with)......library CD's are good to test players with as they are really beat up.....I'd make sure to wash them well first....some library CD's are pretty disgusting....

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I remember these......a bit of history here.....a dual cassette Sony walkman that can copy tapes and it's about normal sized....possibly the best cassette walkman ever built.....

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-VINTAGE-WORKING-SONY-WM-W800-Dual-Cassette-Walkman-Player-/201082969801?pt=Cassette_Players&hash=item2ed17a9ec9

 

I love looking at stuff like that! Wish I still had my old Walkman.

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That's a cool unit but I can't justify $400 for it....I actually have my Sony walkman still....it's nice.....has auto reverse, AM/FM and you can store many radio station presets and it even has a clock...and when it comes to tape to tape dubbing, the better the unit, the less tape hiss you end up with....it makes sense.....a dual cassette tape deck copies tapes with much less tape hiss than a dual cassette boombox and it also has wider frequency response....I still have a couple Sony dual cassette tape decks (my wife and I still have a ton of cassettes from back in the day)....

 

If you still have a ton of cassettes, my opinion of the best tape deck deal for the buck is a used Sony TC-WE435 on Ebay....with a little patience, you can buy one for $30 - $40 or less including shipping.....you can jump forward or backwards with the music search up to 30 songs away.....I can hear no difference between sides with the auto reverse and the left deck has pitch control.....we have two of these and they are very reliable and have enough pulling power to play even cheap tapes...it has Dolby B & C and HX Pro built in....it can record with auto record level or you can adjust record volume.....auto record level is nice for recording from different sources to make the songs the same volume....another nice thing is you can rewind and fast forward on the deck that's not playing and it doesn't affect the deck that's playing....the ones on Ebay today are too expensive, but they are often sold for much less....it takes a bit of patience to get the best deal.....my friend got one on Ebay for $25 and free shipping and it was just like new because he has a lot of cassettes too...

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...-WE435&_sop=15

 

The remote for that deck is a Sony RM-J910....I have never saw the remote sold with the deck but you can find them on Ebay sold separately.....

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trks...at=0&_from=R40

 

 

It's kinda funny because some deals on Ebay are so bad.....for example, people selling 1 brand new sealed 60 minute metal type cassette tape for $25.00 or more and a 20 cent blank CD will totally defeat it in sound quality with no rewinding needed....some countries haven't made the switch to CD's and still use cassettes as the main form of media....even though I don't record cassettes anymore with my decks, I'll always keep a couple tape decks of the model I listed above around just because we have so many cassettes and it's nice to be able to play them....

 

 

Aiwa made a cassette walkman with music search....model PX377

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That's a cool unit but I can't justify $400 for it....I actually have my Sony walkman still....it's nice.....has auto reverse, AM/FM and you can store many radio station presets and it even has a clock...and when it comes to tape to tape dubbing, the better the unit, the less tape hiss you end up with....it makes sense.....a dual cassette tape deck copies tapes with much less tape hiss than a dual cassette boombox and it also has wider frequency response....I still have a couple Sony dual cassette tape decks (my wife and I still have a ton of cassettes from back in the day)....

 

Aiwa made a cassette walkman with music search....model PX377

 

 

I can't remember what the model of cassette player it was, but I remember when I first had one with music search on it - I was so impressed! LOL! I love the look and feel of cassettes.

 

I don't have any commercial music cassettes these days, but I have a few hundred Tascam 244 Portastudio cassettes.

 

Yes, $400 seems a bit much, I agree.

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Sony's made a lot of cassette tape decks with music search (a lot without it too).....some of the Sony dual cassette decks I saw in specialty electronic stores in the 80's were super smooth......

 

I forgot to mention that I still have my 5 cassette Sony tape deck....(Sony TC-C5).....the only frustrating things about the 5 cassette is you can't play cheap tapes as it doesn't have the nice pulling power of the Sony TC-WE435 and you can't record tape to tape with it......it will rewind and fast forward cheap tapes fine but they don't work good on play or record.....it's very quiet though as far as transports go.....much quieter transports than the Sony TC-WE435......you can also have it rewind 5 tapes in a row which is nice to loosen up tapes before you play them.... it has music search and blank skip but the music search can only go forward or backwards 1 song at a time where the Sony TC-WE435 can go forward or backwards up to 30 songs away....also if you put five 120 minute cassettes in it, it can record for 10 hours non-stop from whatever external source.....

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-TC-C-5-HX-PRO-CASSETTE-TAPE-DECK-RECORDER-/291140922068?pt=US_Camcorder_Tapes_Discs&hash=item43c959ead4

 

I can't believe those were originally sold for $1200 (or so I was told)....I bought mine like new on Ebay for $300.....some of the Sony ES tape decks were really nice too but they ask way too much for those used.....the remote control for the 5 cassette is a Sony RM-J801:

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trks...at=0&_from=R40

 

I never owned a Tascam Portastudio but the tracks were the same size as regular stereo cassette's tracks right?

 

A regular stereo cassette tape laying flat on a table, the tracks would be (from top to bottom) either right - left - left - right or else would be left - right - right - left......but on a Portastudio they would be 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 and that would fill the entire section of tape with 4 the tracks right?

 

On mono cassette equipment, the cassette was recorded as two tracks, one for each side....played on stereo equipment the mono track would play out both the left & right speakers ....

 

Something that ALL stereo recorders of any type should have is rather than having left and right record level controls, they should have a record level control and a balance control (like my 5 cassette deck has).....the reason this is so nice is you can get your left / right balance perfect and then with the level control you can fade both left and right channels in or out at the same time in perfect unison......this is a big improvement....

 

On 8 tracks the left and right tracks for any of the 4 tracks on the 8 track (4 "STEREO" tracks) were not side by side but 3/32" of an inch apart as each track is 1/32" wide (roughly).....cassette tape is 1/8" wide and 8 track and reel to reel tape is 1/4" wide (roughly)....switching tracks on the 8 tracks happened when foil

on the tape completed a circuit by connecting two contacts that the tape passed over.....the tape head was in 1 of 4 positions at any given time, each position giving you left and right audio making 8 tracks total.....tapes that were played a lot sometimes had the foil wear off and more had to be put on or the player wouldn't change tracks automatically anymore....the track button that let you select tracks 1 - 4 obviously completed the same circuit as the foil making the head jump to the next track position with each press.....

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