Teac W-1200-B W-1200(B) Double Cassette Deck (Recording/Playback, Microphone Input, USB Output for Digital Recording to PC/Mac, Conference Transcripts) Black, 14.5 cm*43.5 cm*28.58 cm

My journey back to the old format of the Cassette Tape was at times a frustrating one, only many years earlier I remember them to be great in separate decks and car audio tape players perhaps not so in personal tape players like the hand held ones, again they were new then. For me it was a love of the physical format of music and the interaction and personal pleasure derived from it i.e. looking for a vinyl album to play putting it on the deck and giving it a spin and the same with a Cd (give or take) and Cassettes. Anyway I started to purchase decks on eBay and time and time again although described as "works" there was usually always a problem, cassette doors that jammed, and excessive (for some reason) feedback on an old Technics deck from 1982 that "worked", when I pressed play & record etc, just a few examples, rubber belts becoming too loose (spongey) over the years (which is natural) my point is I learned a lesson with tape decks that when I had them in the days that they were standard is that unless you know a bit about them or you know a reputable audio repairer or can change the belts the old ones can be a bit challenging and this is because they they stem from the 70's 80's 90's mostly and have used well over the years and parts become worn. I purchase four decks an Awia (which is an old warhorse) Technics(1982) a Rotel and JVC the last three out of second had shops and the last 3 described were faulty. The experience did get me down a bit and the money I personally spent would have paid around over half of the cost of this TEAC W1200B. I never knew they had produced a new model and after feeling I should throw in the towel I found this one and read the reviews and thought why not get one. This model feels like and has been built very sturdy the cassette doors feel strong and sturdy and the TEAC tape deck is not too over populated with extra add-ons it does what it says and is simple to use. I personally enjoy taping some of my old vinyl records and making mixed tapes as I find it fun and adds to the interaction of ones music experience. you can tape cd's if you wish or go tape to tape whatever you like. I found the sound quality excellent after taping some records and after buying this TEAC deck have no regrets and personally feel my faith has returned to this format. Happy taping.

2022.. if your looking at this product u will be of a certain age ( like me ) :) so to save u the time.. there are only 2 pro cassette decks currently made/available, this teac or the tascam.. both are the same machine, except for 3 things.. 1 the price, teac is over £100 cheaper.. 2 : the teac doesn't have the 19 inch rack mountable edges / lugs.. 3 : the color of the display is blue / red where as the Tascam is the classic orange. As for the machine, i couldn't be happier, cannot believe how good 40 year old cassette are sounding, the usb at the back gives you a direct to mac / seen as an audio device/input so perfect for transferring those tapes to digital without the added noise reduction from cheap ion type models, & at full 48k resolution.. be warned, tape machines that have the ability to record direct to a front side usb thumb drive are limited by DRM protocol & will only copy your cassette to a maximum of 128kps mp3.. with this machine the direct to mac usb audio is without limitation & pure. Ive saved my friendly electronic engineer a day fiddling around with my old Denon tape machine & he can now spend that time on services my DAT machine !, ( which who would have thought it.. not 1 DAT machine made today ).. finally, the teac feels very well made, solid & like it will outlive me :) the packaging & machine smells really great too.. took me right back to my local video / hifi store in 88.. worth every penny.

It is lacking some things like Dolby C, track search and auto reverse. Bur toy gain very sturdy and quiet mechanism, the play only noise reduction I hardly use sounds perfect as it is. It's handy to have 2 recorders with many ways of recording. The USB out seamlessly connect installing USB AUDIO CODEC on PC. A lot of people put it down cos it will not record Metal tape and up to 15k. Cassettes ate very expensive now, normal or chrome. As toy get older the bandwidth you can hear shrinks, at my age I would not be-able to hear as high as 15K. So is perfect for the older generation. Finally even the oldest of tape cassette will play well no wow and flutter heard. The remote control is fine, does not have on/off on that note it will switch itself off when idle

First new tape deck in 30 years and what a disappointment PRO’S looks good, functional remote and thats it. CON’S Theres a lot and have all been mentioned apart from a few Build Quality: its feels very empty like a tin can you can actually push the top casing in and not a good idea to put anything on top. Cassette Transports very noisy and can be heard at low volume the empty casing actually makes this worse. Only plays certain old tapes well i put this down to Dolby and different types of NR WoW and Flutter very noticeable at the end of long tapes Theres a few other bugs but i think ive said enough just not worth the money and sent it back I was thinking of asking for a replacement but my gut told me it wouldn’t matter how many units i had they would all be the same

This was to replace my old Kenwood cassette deck from the 80’s... It’s a very nice quality unit which arrived earlier than forecast! As yet I’ve only listened to old recordings made on my old deck which still sound surprisingly good and I’m guessing when I finally get round to recording onto this one they should be even better as was always the way. The price was quite high but is as good as it is anywhere but I would recommend not only the Cassette Deck but also the supplier to!

Just the job needed to digitize my remaining audio cassettes (old '70's rare stuff not available - or at least not at a sensible price - on CD). Easily hooked up to Windows PC via USB and interfaced to the (free) Audacity software (other OSes also available - tested with Linux laptop too ). Good quality output, no discernible background noise (other than from the tape itself, and that pretty much inaudible for Dolby-B recordings). Remote works well and replicates almost all the front panel functions (e.g. no remote 'eject'). Dual drive, copy/mix and mic inputs rather overkill for my current use-case, but few good quality single cassette decks now available. Still good value for quality kit.

To preserve the hundreds of recordings I've made on cassette over the years I wanted to start copying at least some of them to MP3 format using the software on my PC. My Yamaha twin deck had started playing up, so rather than risk it chewing tapes I decided to go for this TEAC, mainly based on the previously posted Amazon reviews. It was more expensive than I was planning to spend, but as the price kept increasing irrespective of who I bought it from, I grabbed one of the few Amazon had available. The fact that it had a USB output socket was key factor in my decision to purchase. As other reviews have mentioned, the sound quality on the tapes I have copied so far is much, much better than I expected, especially as some of them are 50 years old. If you're going to link the deck to your IT equipment the USB cable you'll need is the kind used for connections to a printer, rather than the usual type C USB connectors at both ends. Even if the deck came with this sort of USB cable you'll probably want to buy a better one for optimum recording. At the time of writing I've had the TEAC about a month, and I'm very pleased with my investment. Finally a tip: on one occasion I did experience the leader tape on a very old cassette coming away from the spindle at the end of a rewind. All very old school, but to avoid this stop the tape before the rewind is complete and go for the old reliable pencil method.

I found a box of old cassette tapes recently and so I bought one of these to convert the tapes to digital. I was unsure if this would be better than picking up a good condition vintage machine, so I bought both, and after 6 days of comparisons I'm returning the TEAC. I do think it's admirable that TEAC are producing a new cassette deck with USB output, good features, and acceptable sound quality, however I think the W-1200 is waaaaay overpriced considering you can buy a working vintage high-end deck for far less. I'm fortunate that I already have a good USB interface, so hooking up a vintage deck to my Mac was only slightly less easy than plugging in the TEAC, and it came at no additional cost to me. If you decide to go down the vintage route and don't already have a USB audio interface, than you will have that additional expense (I recommend the Scarlett interfaces - they're great and not expensive). I'm sure that for most people the W-1200 will be more than adequate, but because I could directly A-B it against a vintage deck (in my case a NAD 613 which the seller told me had been hardly used, and it certainly looks pristine) I was able to easily see its weaknesses. Firstly, the build quality of the TEAC is quite poor - it feels lightweight, and the buttons feel cheap. Secondly, the sound quality is considerably inferior to the NAD. I listened to the TEAC first and was initially pleasantly surprised, but after a direct comparison (both through my speakers, and then comparing a digital WAV conversion through headphones) I could hear how tinny and cheap sounding the TEAC is. Honestly, compared to the 27 year old NAD it's night and day - the latter just has so much more warmth and detail. Ultimately, if you want ease of use, aren't too fussy about sound quality, and want the peace of mind of having a brand new unit with 12 month warranty, then I'm sure you'll be happy with the TEAC - it's OK at what it does, and it does it a lot better than some of the negative reviews I've seen would suggest. But the bottom line is, with just a little more fiddling around, and a bit of eBay digging, you can find a vintage machine at 1/3 of the cost that will give you hugely improved build and sound quality.