Technics RS-B28R and RS-B29R Cassette Decks

Time to dig into the components rather than the receivers.
I collect a little bit of everything, including cassette decks. I grew up making tapes and I still have all of them. Hundreds. And they’ve been in climate controlled environments over the years.
There is something about making a music mix on a tape deck, where you set the levels. It really makes you think about the mix because you’re writing it down. You are listening to it as it is recording. Much different than making a playlist off of Spotify or even in the 2000s, burning MP3’s to CD. Your recipient really would’ve received the best, maybe it was for yourself. 
OK, enough story time let’s get to these two tape decks. My friend Andrew Chipman gave me the silver one, and then I picked up the black one at a Goodwill in the last year.
Both are working well, one has been rebelted. The other has had rubber restore. Both have been speed calibrated using a technique which is shown in a different video of mine.
Technics made dozens and dozens of different cassette decks over the years. What I really can’t understand is why they continued to change their design. I understand evolution and even the receiver and other components changed, but there were only a couple tape deck models I’ve personally feel were very reliable. Technics 1990s stuff is almost impossible to repair. And if they just could’ve carried forward this mechanism they’d all still be working. 
This is an example of a very well-made cassette deck. Easily serviceable if you’ve got a technical knack to yourself, and everything you need is here. Music search, feather, touch controls, Dolby C, lights that tell you the direction of the tape.
I’m giving both of these a workout tonight.
These tape decks are like driving a stick shift car, you have to adjust the input levels prior to recording. There are other tape decks which have automatic level control which are like an automatic transmission. I’ve got a lot of respect for the newbies and have a feeling a lot of folks out there have not worked with tapes before. This is how we made our mixes and listen to music all throughout the 80s and 90s.

[@paulb4uk]

Technics have made some great decks ,at the moment i am refurbishing an ebay sony tcfx6c from 1981 its the second from top of the range for sonys two head decks from 1981 ,a great sounding deck with a brushless motor but belt drive ,digital counter and dolby b and c .

[@AudioElectronicsChicago]

I like them

[@leostechnikkanal]

I really like the looks of this deck, however someone I know had one of these as his main cassette deck and after a couple of months one of the gears inside of the mechanism disintegrated, and after some further research this disintegrating gear issue is a common failure among these units. It's really a shame because they're very cool decks.

[@davismv]

Thanks for the info, I’ll have to keep an eye out for that however, I don’t use these full-time. It’s like there’s always a floss somewhere, but these are better compared to some of the decks that they made later on.

[@sherryhannah498]

Mark Davis I hope you will reply to this cool

[@Djd_Records_Zone]

what is the song?

[@davismv]

This was from a sharp cassette deck, a demo tape that was included in around 1974. I have digitized here it is. It’s a variant of Night Train.kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4urmHywh5JooJosi=Cuju4DKXddN1aGYR

[@Djd_Records_Zone]

@@davismv thanks