Price Paid:  $300.00 from Q Audio, Cambridge,

Summary:
This Sony KA1ESA has been a rock solid, reliable cassette machine. While not perhaps rivaling my Nakamichi LX 5 cassette recorder for sound quality, the Sony sounds great in a very unfussy way, and makes a pretty darn good tape copy.

I am little suspicious how much the Sony ES cassette decks looked like their regular Sony cassette decks that year, but that is a minor matter. (Most Sony ES high end products are markedly different from their regular Sony counterparts.) Perhaps Sony felt that they needed Sony ES cassette decks to fiull out the ES line, even as the cassette format was dying out.

The Sony KA1ESA is very solid choice for the cassette format.

Strengths:
Sony quality, good sound for a cassette deck.

Weaknesses:
None found yet.

Similar Products Used:
Nakamichi LX 5 cassette deck, many other cassette decks over the years.