Pioneer CT-W606DR Dual Cassette Deck

Its 2007 and this deck is still here. That in its self is amazing after a 5 or 6 year run.

This deck sounds excellent and today nothing else comes close in the tape world. The only deck I like better is the Pioneer's Elite CT-07D which has all the family looks. The Elite is no longer in production (cry'n shame) and used the same 20bit analogue/digital converter along with FLEX and BLE features and makes wonderful sounding tapes also.

The 606DR is sound, built well (never had a problem or issue) and even more important is available. New ones can be had for as little as $215+ shipping. If you are a tape hound...update you're old vintage deck and get the newest features and never look back.

This cassette deck from Pioneer has very good sound quality when playing back professionally recorded tapes. The digital noise reduction circuit really cleans up the tape hiss and other sonic imperfections common to cassettes. Although, on some non-professional recordings or recordings that are severely detoriated it tends to add an edge to the hiss that it cannot fully remove. The unit that I used also had some reliability problems with the transport mecahanism. Pioneer was evidently unable to repair this altogether after a couple of trips to the repair shop. All in all, it is a very well performing product plagued by some annoying reliability concerns. It is the best sounding tape deck that I have used so far. Although, I am confident there are better ones out there.

It took TWO dead ones, including CTW60RS - upscale from this, to realize Pioneer can't make a reliable tape deck. I would never buy anything made by Pioneer that has moving parts again. YMMV, but you've been warned.

The sound quality on this cassette deck was far better than I expected. The digital noise reduction completely eliminates all the tape hiss without affecting the sound quality. Of all the tapes I've tried on it, all sound as good, if not better than they did on my old deck. There also is little difference in the sound quality when playing in forward or reverse mode, or from well to well. I use it to transfer my cassette collection to my computer to record on a CD-R, and the results are fantastic. And you can use it with a Pioneer remote control if you have a Pioneer receiver with the SR feature. About the only complaint I have is that it is kind of noisy when you first start to play, try to reverse, or wind the tape. The tape head goes up and down by a motor (I think) and makes a noise whenever it goes up or down. Otherwise great sound quality above what you'd expect from a cassette deck.