Best Stereo For Mixtapes?
Two suggestions for the recording end, one complex and expensive, one simple and expensive. 1. Buy a good 3-head tape recorder. 3-head decks have an additional playback head that listens in to what you just recorded right off the tape, so you can monitor “live” if you overloaded the tape and need to start over. I have this one: Sony TC-K611S, which I got used from a broke grad student. It is the best consumer tape deck I’ve ever used. It has a button to monitor either the source signal or the recorded signal on the fly. It will lay down a guide tone to calibrate bias level and EQ curve for different brands of tape stock. It has Dolby S, King of All Dolbys. (It hasn’t been touched in 5 years). Then buy a DJ mixer with a cross fader. Attach your sources (CD, phono, other tape) to the inputs, and connect the output to your tape deck. You can do cross fades on the fly. Monitor with the headphones on the tape deck. You will have to “rehearse” your entire mix tape session, taking note of lev
Whoa! That plusdeck is $150!? For that price you can get a really nice used tape deck, and I don’t think you’d be sacrificing much functionality – I really don’t see the benefit of the computer-controlling, to be honest. I’m with sol; if you’re really looking for increased mixing functionality a DJ mixer would probably be the best. If you went that route, you could use the mixer as a pre-amp and get a seperate power amp. This would save you some money at the outset and you could always get a pre-amp later. Minimally, I’d suggest getting some nice used equipment – a tape deck, integrated amplifier and bookshelf speakers – then use your computer for CD/MP3 playing. Check eBay, the classifieds and your local craigslist if you have one. Well-designed stereo equipment tends to last a long time. Amplifier technology hasn’t changed too significantly over the years as far as quality goes and buying used isn’t going to lose you much functionality (at least for normal stereo playback, the except
