Cassette Deck Buying Guide - PriceRunner UK
Read our Cassette Deck buying guide to find the perfect model whatever your budget. Compare Cassette Deck prices, features and reviews to help with your decision.

Cassette Deck Buying Advice

Tape Deck

We're here to help you!

We're here to help you buy a new Cassette Decks. We've got advice and information about all the latest decks. We discuss the features and specifications you need to look for, performance, styles, connectivity and compatibility for several mediums.

To help you decide which Cassette Deck is right for you we examine the choices on offer and answer the questions you should be asking before buying.


Up-to-Dateness

MP3 cassette

The market for cassette decks has shrunk considerably recently with the introduction of CD players and recordable MiniDiscs. As a result good quality cassette decks are now cheaper. A cassette deck contains even more mechanics as a cd-player and must have the same precision on some points. For example the placement of the record/playback head must be very accurate. Many cassette deck playback features such as auto-reverse or music scan are useful but don’t really affect the way tape sound. Hence it is important to consider the following point before you purchase a cassette deck.

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Which Cassette Deck suits You?

Type

Cassette Bag

It is useful to find that the cassette deck you are buying is single or double. Normally single cassette deck has better performance but twin cassette deck on the other hand are useful in copying between two cassettes.

Colour

Cassette Decks are available in different colours and you can choose your favorite colour or colour to match other equipments in your room.

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Features

Auto Reverse

Double Cassette Deck

Very few cassette decks have got auto reverse facility as head has to turn around in order to handle the B side and there are more chance for Double Cassette Deck to have this facility rather than single. At the same time you must remember that auto reverse facility can degrade the decks performance.

Noise Reduction

The dynamic range available, between the noise floor and the highest signal levels that can be recorded without distortion, is a fundamental limitation of magnetic audio tape itself.

Noise Reduction diagram

Even if you make cassette recordings from noise-free sources like CD, when the music stops between songs, tape hiss intrudes. What we call hiss is the noise created by the magnetic particles on the tape, and it can obscure the quality of the music and become annoying. Dolby noise reduction has made it possible to protect the music from tape noise, and helped make cassette the most popular audio product ever devised. Here's how it works.

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Technical Differences

Tape heads

Heads

Separate heads/motors for forward, fast forward and rewind, prolong the life of your deck. When you have separated heads for recording and playing you can also adjust the recording while it goes on.

Headphone Jack

An output that allows you to connect a set of Headphones. Once connected, it will usually mute the regular output of the device you are using.

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