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Review 1 of 3
Price Paid:
$370.00
from Exportdrvo Summary:
I am a proud owner of this unit for quite some time now. It's pleasure working with this tape deck. It rewinds very fast, it calibrates tape automaticaly in 35secs, can play directly from MR head, has play/rec timer, MPX filter, Dobly B/C NR and beautiful motorised door with green light for tape and head.
I measured S/N ratio: 61.5db (Dolby off), 69.8db (Dolby B), and 77.1db (Dolby C). So, specs are true! And even with normal tapes. But, with Cr02 tapes, S/N ratio is 65.1db with Dolby off! S/N ratio is greater than 80db for frequencies above 1kHz!!! I do not use metal tapes. Stereo separation is almost perfect - a far better than tape decks with conventional tapes.
MR head (MagnetoResistive head) which Technics calls "AmorphusZ head" is the main thing here. It is used for playback only, while recording performs conventional head. I can't say that there is any consumer tape deck better than this one in playback. Old tapes sound far better with this tape deck, like getting new dimension!
MR head cannot be magnetised, because it doesn't contain any ferrite parts. There's a big sign on the door which says: "Do not use demagnetize cassette!", because if you do, you will destroy MR head. There is no need to demagnetize, because this head CANNOT BE MAGNETIZED! Also, this head has huge and flat frequency response (sky's the limit). The limits are now set by the tapes itself, not playback head.
Sound is so clean, clear, sharp and detailed. It doesn't sound like tape deck at all. Tape hiss (when listening loud) is the only thing that gives him away. It doesn't sound like CD Player thoungh - somewhere in between CD Player and tape deck.
Recording is excelent. Allways calibrate. If you like more dinamics in your recordings, you can record to +6db in red area without apparent distorsions heard and with some tapes even +8db. I would strongly recommend using MPX switch with all normal (Type I) tapes and with some CrO2 (Type II) tapes, because these tapes cannot handle frequencies above 16kHz very well, so you will get them (very) distorted sometimes. MPX filter cuts them down. Also, use MPX filter allways and with any tapes when recording from radio station, with or without Dolby turned on.
It rewinds and fast forwards very very fast, but you can slow it down if you don't like it. AZ7 automaticly slows down when tape approaches the end. Even when it searches for a song (TPS), it does that at same high speed. There's a tape monitor and play direct button if you want to play directly from MR head preamp without Dolby decoder and bias filter (not possible with conventional heads). It gives you wider wtereo picture indeed, but lessens treble about 1-2db at 15kHz in playback.
But, it has some flaws. Real time counter is not always so precise. He often misses about 10-15secs for 90min tapes and it counts very very wrong with tapes "non-standard" tapes (that are not c60 or C90). And, sometimes it won't rewind fast and it does it rather in normal mode, but only with certain tapes. I guess it doesn't like them. Also, there's no Dolby S. And mechanism is loud when starting/stopping. Strengths:
- 3 head system with MR playback HEAD!!!!
- Cannot be magnetized
- Fast and great tape calibration
- Fast rewinding and fast forwarding, even when searching with manual override
- Huge frequency responses
- Great S/N ratios
- MPX filter
- Play direct mode
- Very fast display (vu-meter)
- Very robust with non resonant base
- Fully motorised door with green light Weaknesses:
- No Dolby S
- Mechanism is loud when starting/stopping
- Real time counter is (very) imprecise
- Doesn't like fast forwarding some tapes Similar Products Used:
Technics BX501, AZ6 and some Pioneer, Yamaha, Sony models and one Marantz double deck.
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