Pioneer CT-W208R Cassette Deck

I have just installed this tape deck and am greatly impressed by the sound quality. Fortunately, I had a couple of spare adapters for European mains plugs. I purchased two sets of double audio cables (male to male)from Amazon and connected the deck to my quarter of a century old Cambridge Audio amplifier. Then I tried a few cassette tapes, the oldest of them from 1980. Despite the 40 years and some wear and tear, the sound was superb. No hiss — I had to turn the volume up high at the beginning because the usual hum and hiss were completely absent. Then the sound:rich basses, sparkling treble, no wobbles, constant speed. I had been planning in recent years to dump my extensive cassette collection, digitising the best tapes first, but I have now decided to keep all but the most worn out cassettes alongside my CDs and my digital collections (Amazon Prime, Apple Music, Classical Archives, etc.). A note about delivery: this well-packaged item arrived within a few days, much earlier than promised.

I have a lot of music on cassette and was thinking about digitising it and then saw this. It arrived before the stated delivery date and it works perfectly. Pioneer top quality build and design.

Cassette deck is in brilliant working order ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

PLAY BACK CASSETTES. I LIKE THE REVERSE FUNCTIONS ON THE CASSETTES DECK

I write this review with a little sadness as I believe this Pioneer could be one of the last quality tape decks ever manufactured, I hope i'm proved wrong as cassettes are in some ways much superior to cd's and this Pioneer CT-W208R proves the point. I played the same songs on CD and then on tape and the tape won (I personaly prefer to listen to a tape with Dolby turned OFF, sure Dolby eliminates hiss but it also eliminates some of the clarity too). It's a real shame they don't produce albums on cassette anymore. As this machine could be one of the last of the analogue era I would not hesitate in recommending it to anyone thinking of getting a tape deck whilst it is still available.

I'd been hoping (in vain, as it turned out) to find a second-hand cassette deck, because I had no idea they were still being made! When I saw that Pioneer were still producing them, I jumped at the chance to buy one. I thought £142 for a twin deck was excellent value. It has auto-reverse (which I've never had before), which is really handy! In my experience the door opening mechanisms are what fail ... these have a lovely smooth, positive action - you press the button right in - and I feel I'll probably get years out of this machine. It's also very un-garish and good looking.

I was looking for for a tape deck with which to transfer tapes to computer but then I realised that I might just as well listen to tapes with this and I can still transfer if I want. The sound quality is excellent with no noticeable hiss. I think the tapes will probably last longer than CDs and computers are forever being improved so you have to transfer music. Why bother? Anyone who has given themself neck ache by sitting at a computer trying to improve their music with software programmes should buy one of these before they become obsolete. I think it will see me out!

Too difficult to use - the instructions are not very clear for an older person - as yet I have not used it