Technics RS-276US Tape Decks

Technics RS-276US Tape Decks 

USER REVIEWS

Showing 1-3 of 3  
[May 26, 2007]
Kingrat
Audio Enthusiast

Strength:

Built like a tank, Panasonic seemed to make very good stuff in the early to mid 70's that outlasted many of my frined's components, and were much less likely to need repair.
Bass was very good.
High end is good, a little laid back, this is a good thing, most of the time, IMO.
Great looking.
Meters are huge and on both mine, very accurate for mechanical meters.

Weakness:

Was pretty expensive if you bought it at the wrong store. Alignment is pretty touchy, but I never needed to do it on my original one, a tape made in 1975 sounded fine in 1997. I touched up the new one to match the old one, it was slightly different, so I could play old tapes to convert them to CD.
Huge and heavy.
Wired remote was hard ot find and expensive.

I bought this deck in late spring of 1971, I was about to turn 15, and it would be my first and for many years, only cassette deck. It's built like a tank, and never failed to impress people who saw it, it's huge size and weight, plus the big meters made it stand out compared to most other decks. It's solenod controlled, and there was an optional wired remote available for it. I never bought one of those, but a friend's dad had a similar Panasonic/Technics deck that used the same remote built a wireless IR remote for it in 1977 that I used for over 20 years. Sound quality is excellent, not up to the absolute top of what a cassette could do, but close. Bass seems to be better than the other decks I had, both in recording and playback. When it was nearly 28 years old, the capstan motor started to fail. I looked for a replacement for almost 2 years with out any luck in finding one, and I donated it to a local Goodwill store. About a month later, I see another, rough looking, but fully functional 276 at another Goodwill store for $10. If I had only waited. Late last year, I bought a mint condition RS-276 on ebay, and it looks like it just came out of the box.

There appears to be at least 3 or more versions of the RS-276US. My original one had sliding level controls, as did the rough looking one at Goodwill. The one I bought off Ebay has the much more common rotary pots, a plus IMO, as they would be no problem to replace, if needed. The different versions have different colored Record ights/buttons, and the "dolby" light on my present one is about 100X brighter, and a different color than the original's was.

Sound qulaity wise, they all sound identical, as far as I can tell. This was one of the best components I have ever owned.

Similar Products Used:

Technics M-45 Cassette Deck

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Jun 04, 2003]
AudioPhile

Strength:

Excellent build quality, easy of use, looks, very solid sound.

Weakness:

Azimuth instability, hard to service electronics inside it.

This is the first deck from Technics with the direct drive motor for capstan. It is built like a tank, with beautiful large VU meters and nice shiny metal buttons. The electronics is built the same way the other Japanese manufacturers used to build in that time: too much wires without any connector, so it is pretty hard to service it - the wires are very short so you must unsolder it first. Mechanism is one of the best with the DD motor of almost 10cm in range, I guess it is from some of their tape recorders. It has two motors, one for winding (REW and FF), and this DD for PLAY and REC functions. The sound is very good, with plenty of bass, especially regarding the price I payed for it. But the azimuth stability is not the best, it lacks dual capstan transport. I thing Technics had problems with azimuth stability with these old series of decks (RS-M 75, for instance has the similar problem), because they did not elaborate the tape path well (as Nakamichi did, for instance).

Similar Products Used:

TEAC Z-6000, V-7000, Nakamichi Dragon, 670ZX, BX1, Revox B215, Yamaha KX-1200, Pioneer CT-F900, CT757 MK2, Deneon DR-M 33 and 44 and more than 60 other decks.

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
4
[Apr 02, 1999]
Paul

Produced in 1975 this 20lb/10kg deck has very good specs for the time.It is equipped with 2-motor direct drive, manual Dolby level adjustment
and manual tape type selector - normal/chrome. HPF head is a sort of Akai GX. This is only 2-head deck, so no real-time
monitoring.

The sound is good, however extreme trebles are not so vivid as
on modern decks. Bass is VERY SOLID. It beats all modern 2-head and
many 3-head decks i listened to, albeit hiss is more audible . Wow and flutter is very low due to 10 lb/4 kg direct
drive capstan motor. I couldn't notice any instability on piano and
even on clear 3KHz tone recorded from test CD!

Specs: Wow/flutter <0.10% DIN, Frequency response: 20-16000 Normal, 20-18000
Chrome. S/N 50 db w/o Dolby, 60 db with Dolby B on normal tape.

I got it for 20 bucks, and think it has the best price/performance ratio of
all decks in my collection.

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
Showing 1-3 of 3  

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