Home dubbing?

[Peterson]

Recently my refurbished Teac deck shit out after several years of heavy use. As such, I'm now on the market for a brand new or refurbished deck which I plan to use for dubbing only. Looks like Marantz seems to be declining in manufacturing quality. Any recommendations from experienced home-dubbers?

[Crawl]

Depending on how much you dub getting a duplicator might be your best bet. If you take the time to check eBay or the goodwill website regularly the deals are out there. Got a 1 to 3 duplicator from goodwill a while back for 40 dollars because it was untested and it works great.

[Theodore]

You need double cassette deck ? If it's for your music and you use digital mastering, meaning you have files, then a single deck is enough. You dub from PC or a CD player. But it limits you to 1:1 only.

I don't know about duplicators. Do they work with a master tape only or with line-in too ? I remember i had checked a pro-duplicator's specs in the past, don't remember which but it was the same -to not say worse- to these of an average deck.

Regarding decks i can't advice anything. It's all about their condition, if they are refurbised and aligned well etc. In general i would say go with a mid-80s one. I would avoid to buy a new production. The only positive is they come with warranty but with that specs i would worry about that too !
https://marantzpro.com/products/view/pmd-300cp . At specs : W&F < 0.2% . Really ?! My deck was measured last time with 0.024% max. Below 0.1% lets say it's acceptable, it depends. Above that i consider a deck problematic or just crap. I doubt Marantz -or any not broken deck- can be so shit regarding W&F, that's why i am sceptical, they are covering their ass !

[Peterson]

I doubt Marantz -or any not broken deck- can be so shit regarding W&F, that's why i am sceptical, they are covering their ass !

That's basically my biggest worry. Got a refurbished Nakamichi on the way for surprisingly cheap but that Marantz could be on the list too, if I get a better variety of opinions (I'm thinking some of the reviewers on Amazon etc. were just unlucky).

[Theodore]

Was coming back to add / edit something. Was surprised too by those specs so i did some search. That DIN45500 mentioned near W&F i think is different standard than the WRMS manuals mention. I checked some PDF manuals i have , they mention two measurements, WRMS (Weighted RMS) and Weighted peak. I think the DIN is the weighted peak standard. More or less is close as double the WRMS value. The numbers i mentioned are for WRMS. To have a reference how these standards seem to relate :
From a couple of manuals : Sony TC-K700ES - 0.04% W.Peak , 0.025% WRMS. Nak BX-300 - 0.048% WTD Peak, 0.027% WTD RMS (That's WRMS) .

So if the specs of Marantz's W&F is at weighted peak -most possible- still are -quite- bad but not terrible / broken bad. Still i wouldn't buy it though, but that's just me.

Search Tapeheads for reviews, i think they are better trusted than someone who bought a deck just to digitize his childhood tape, did his job and he is happy about just that. One here :
http://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=51697

Edit : I was and am probably confused and confusing with what is standard, what is measurement, etc. I am everything but an expert. But bottom line is and stays the same. If that number in specs represents Weighted Peak then hm OK, if it's WRMS avoid at all costs even if it's not true.

[Euro Trash Bazooka]

I believe duplicators would need more maintenance than regular tape decks...

Also, my most trustworthy tape deck is my 10€ second hand JVC one from 15 years ago, not my Nakamichi. I just clean the heads regularly and it all works fine.

[monotome]

I believe duplicators would need more maintenance than regular tape decks....

Also a lot of them are mono only nor feature any (dolby) noise reduction, volume level control or bias adjustments. Of course, for simple noise or lo-fi sounds this might be no problem.

I really like old Yamaha and Technics decks, cheap to come by and esp. Technics have some excellent quality decks (RS-B, RS-BX and RS-M models).

Don't go for three-head decks unless they go for cheap. They can sound better but not worth the extra expense, except maybe for the master deck.