Sony TC-K630ES/$20/GW

[vinyldavid]

The Tascam 122B has been finicky lately, and needs a full restore, so when I saw this at goodwill I snapped it up immediately. Sounds better than all my other decks (Nak MR-2 included).

All I did at the store was toss a cassette into it and cycle the transport a bit....meters came up and everything looked okay. Just wired it up and playback sounds WAY good. I now 'get' why people still like cassettes. *bigthumbup*
Pic:

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii317/kshefan/tck630es.jpg

[retrokeeper]

Nice "snag" for sure...and an ES too boot!! Rob

[teac3440]

Sony decks from the middle to higher end units always sounded pretty good. good find.

[hossomat]

I've had the TC-K600ES (German equivalent) for years. It's a good deck but is excelled by TC-K750ES and successors. 2-motor-drive is way inferior to the 3-motor mechanism. TC-K600ES most of the times sells for 5-10 Euros on German ebay, the deck is not sought after b/c of its mechanism.

This deck was the first and last of the three head ES-Decks to feature blank skip and music scan, btw. I love the 24-segment level meter, one of the fastest in the galaxy.

Does your unit have an IR-sensor above the eject-button (hard to see on the picture)?

Christian

[Jonny Ramone]

I bought a Sony KA1ESA off ebay last year, as nothing that nice has shown up at my thrifts yet. A similar machine, with Dolby S. Makes very satisfying recordings on type 1 tapes.