New TEAC W-1200 cassette deck - Detailed review

I've owned one of these W-1200 decks for the better part of 2 years and I've honestly been very happy with it. The features these decks have really make it or break it and I've found the parallel recording, the DNR noise reduction and especially the pitch control really useful features. I have better decks around from the likes of Nakamichi, NAD and Technics which are superior but don't have the feature set the modern TEAC and TASCAM decks do. If you're going to buy one of these, it's for the features, not necessarily for the discerning audiophile that's going to pick it apart. Nothing says you can't have more than one cassette deck either. One for the features, one for sonics.

Amazing review. Quick question: I see there’s a line in at the back, and I believe that will be to feed in signal into the unit from an external source, would that means that it will be able to record from something external thru that line in? Ideally I will like to go out from my external sound card and go IN into that line in at the back of the unit, it shod record the signal isn’t it? (Music etc). The line out I guess is for sending the material for playback into a pair of speakers? Thanks in advance and great review.

I'm so tempted to pick one of these up but the price does not do it for ne

Hey can i buy the same in Mumbai, India

Excellent review! 👍🏾

Yo you think this is worth the cop? I need a reliable deck for recording beats from my mpc, onto tape and thus far every modern one ive bought has been absolute trash so i need an affordable option. You think this will do?

Just recieved it. Had to order one after watching this video. :)

Cassette recorder I got for $2 at the Markets

I bought this tape deck a few years ago and it was a disaster,any tape I played when it reached the middle of the tape,it sounded slow. I only had it a day or 2 and it started to show this problem. What is going on?

Can you install mount rack ears for this?

its also possible to buy them in denmark, so i'm considering buying one

I am happy to own a TEAC W-760R ,great machine, sounds perfect even on tape 1 (Normal Position) .I checked a frequency respond and it matched with manual specifications , unfortunately I can*t check a tape 3 (Metal ) But I am pretty sure it would sound great

It's good to know you can still buy a new cassette deck with logic controls. Before Teac discontinued cassette decks for a
few years they were the last manufacturer to still made decent casssette decks although in the 2000s their bottom of the line
cassette was a cheap mechanical deck. I could never go back to mechanical buttons especially as my micro system is entirely
soft touch control. Having soft touch buttons is well worth paying extra for although personally I would probably still buy a used
Denon or Marantz cassette deck from the 90s as that can work out cheaper.

I have had so many different tape decks as I have hundreds and hundreds of tapes. The one thing I would never do and I learned my lesson is never play them in the car. It used to eat them up all the time they never made a good cassette player for the car and I would never chance playing a good cassette in there. I spend some time cleaning it, but they still jammed and one day I said that’s it no more . I decided to have no more cassette players in the car. Any thoughts on cassette players in the car? Why were they such cassette eaters?

TY for the 'not as good as my Nakamichi Dragon' comment clip - i seriously lold. My freaking 122 isnt as good as a Dragon ffs

EXCELLENT review!

but the price.... 400-500 quid here in the UK.... You could get yourself perhaps even two! state of the art tape decks or hifi's from back in a day for that price

Can you record from cassette 1 to cassette 2?

When I had my Technics deck, I used Dolby C and never B.

Dolby NR, at least B & C, is such an useless feature. It muffles the otherwise crisp sound. Never had experience on the S, but it doesn't matter anymore. Once CD came and followed by all the digital media, Dolby NR became irrelevant.

what is that tape played a 5 min mark

I have a 2022 open box TEAC W1200 from Richer Sounds in the UK which I bought for £310 which is $373.61, that is more than you recommend but it is the UK where everything costs a little more so it ain't that bad a deal, I'm quite happy with mine, it's way better than my sisters old Panasonic RX-DX1 that is about 20 years old now.

Why do you use such annoying music to test machones?

What a cheap head inside !!!! My 30 years Walkman has the same shitty head.

Good afternoon and God Bless you and your Family. Are the Doors for a TEAC W790-R the same Doors as a TEAC W890-R?

I really appreciate you and your Videos; absolutely excellent.

🙏🏼❤️🙏🏼

it was decent deck in terms of sound quality but mine broke just after a year of daily playing, I wouldn;t recommend it for the price you can refurnished model that is of higher quality

Single capstan...... Really? For 300 plus! Haha!

Will we ever see your attempt to replace the motor with the Matsushita part? If not, how did that go?

MADE IN CHINA??? Worth 50 $ maximum. An AKAI GX from the '80s it is far better than this chinese knock-off.

"Give me Dolby or give me death."
I hear a buncha hissss on parts of this video. I prefer a chrome tape and Dolby noise reduction. Depending on the actual cassette deck I find the combination of both brings the best sound out for your listening pleasure. Way more bass with a chrome tape and not as much loss in the mid-range area, in fact I think using Dolby on a chrome cassette gives it an extra punch and crispness with less hiss getting more bang for your buck!! Of course it's been a while since I've owned a cassette deck and I still have lots of tapes I can't bring myself to throw away. Lots of memories too. You did a good job here, thanks.👍

thanks for the excellent review. I live in Japan and thinking about getting this.

Came across this through the techmoan channel. Glad to see that there's more content makers out there doing there bit to keep music alive and played the way it should be 🖖🖖

This Teac W-1200 is great it seems,....... Looked into the Tascam 202 MK VII you reviewd, but this seems lower priced, It seem it could be the right Tapedeck for me to master on to in my studio,..as it have pitch for higher tapespeed for better results,...i am tempted to buy the Teac instead for the Tascam what would you go for?? Thanks for the review Love cheers =)

Had a very Similar teac double cassette deck in 1989 payed 350.00 for it however it had Dolby b/c hxPro metal and full auto reverse and the remote. Had a shit load of remotes. It's crazy to think what you payed for that after the cassette lost favor I remember seeing the deck I bought selling new for under 100.00 they where good decks made good quality copies from CDs for your car.

GREAT video. I might have to get one of these. I'm sick of trying to repair old decks and having them get smashed by the USPS. I just want something new that works!

Hello!

Since you’ve had the opportunity to test both the Tascam 202 mk7 and Teac W-1200, can you please answer this one for me – which one should I get? I am asking because the Tascam is 550 € and the Teac is 500 €, so they basically cost the same in my country.

Thanks!

I love the sound of your "intermission" blue screens. Is like a Zelda game sound.

I bet about 50% of humans...have 'tin' ears in the first place and can't hear any difference to much of anything. My partner and I will listen to the same piece and I can hear many of the nuances of the music and 'hiss' is roaring at me...they can't hear it. I enable Dolby or dbx and its like night and day for me....partner, not so much. The kids...one hears like me...two others, not so much.

Hi! Which do you prefer - Teac W-1200 or W-890R? I can buy one of them in the same price. I don't care about USB output

I owned 3 of this Teac decks, and I had 3 because I have have a problem with the first one and I returned back it to the shop thinking that was problem specific to that tape deck only. With the second one I had the same problem and with the third one, not at the beginning, but finally have the same problem. The problem is that use the decks mainly for record, always parallel recording, and something like the 40% of the times that I record a tape (always blank tapes, of course) one of the channels, L or R has very low signal, and happens with the Deck 1 and with the Deck 2, totally randomly, sometimes is the Deck 1, other the 2... sometimes the L channel, sometimes the R channel. I sent it to Teac with the deck in warranty but they said that the deck works perfectly and they don't see anything wrong. Well, a lot of times works well, but others not. And with 3 differents machines have the same problem.... I would love to fix this, but seems that nobody can help me...

Did you ever make that video upgrading the motor? I can't find it.

Did you ever change the motors?

Thanks very much for your extremely in-depth review of this and the Tascam 202mkvii! If not for your review I would have just bought a cheap boombox type player to transfer my old cassettes, now will definitely look out for one of these units.

My question is, are the heads on these mechines newly manufactured, or just taken out of some 20 year old NOS stash? The machine itself is very nice, and the mechanism decent, matching or even outperforming a high quality old machine with the playback response is a very pleasant surprise.

what is better, this or the Tascam 202-MKVII ????

So there are manufacturers out there who still make decent stereo tape heads? That's great to hear. I wonder what companies are behind those mechanisms. I thought that all new heads are mono and really crappy. At least thats what I kept on hearing

Hi. I've had a nec 7000 deck, but it has stopped working. Saw your review on the TEAC W-1200 and thought it was very good. Now I discovered that there was another Tascam 202 MK VII.
So my question is which do you recommend? I'm just going to play my old cassettes on it

Hola, soy de Chillan-Chile.
Este cassette deck es menos panero que la chorrera que estos aparatos de corte vintage de los años 70, 80 y 90. Así uno tiene evitar los Dolores de cabeza de llevarlos al técnico en forma periódica. Cuando uno lo tenga en su poder, es un alivio