Teac AD-850 Home Audio Cassette and CD Player with USB-Recorder and Karaoke Mic (AD850B)

I've been using it for about a month, and so far the Teac AD-850 has worked flawlessly. My main use to date has been playing cassette tapes and CDs, for which the sound quality has been excellent through my old Sony receiver and my ancient (but still sounding fine!) KLH bookshelf speakers. I've recorded cassette tapes, recording both records and CDs onto chrome tapes. I've also been using the microphone jack to add my voice periodically to the tapes. Again, the recording operation has been flawless and the sound quality excellent.The only thing I don't like so far is the record level knob, which doesn't have "stops" on it -- it just turns around and around continuously, and you need to keep your eye on the digital indicator to know where the level is set at. I have not yet tried recording through the USB port onto a thumb-drive, but I will at some point. This seems to be the source of some of the negative reviews, so we shall see how that goes.When I put this on my Amazon Wishlist several months ago, the price was $499, which seemed way high to me. Then, overnight, the price jumped to $599! I wonder if this is price gouging, since the only other quality cassette machine that had been on the market, a Marantz, is no longer available. If so, shame on Teac and/or Amazon! The only alternative cassette recorders for a component stereo currently on the market are two el-cheapo models (around $130 and $200) made by some outfit called Pyle, and both machines get terrible reviews. Regardless, the Pyle machines are worthless to me because they don't have a microphone jack, which is necessary for me.

Just arrived. Have used it once. Will update as I use various features.Two things you should be aware of.1) There is no headphone jack. If you need one, you'll have to pay $50 more for the Tascam model A580.2) If you are used to ripping CDs to .mp3 on your computer, be aware this unit is not ripping. It is playing the CD in real time and recording to the USB device in real time. If the CD is 70 minutes long, it will take 70 minutes, not the 5 min or so you're used to when ripping on your computer. This is fine with me as I simply start recording and walk away for an hour. The main reason I bought this unit was to convert cassettes to digital. That has to happen in real time and you have to break it into tracks manually. Not a problem for me. That's what I bought this thing for.My first session was a commercial CD to USB. Worked fine. I'm listening to the results right now on my computer. Audio quality is fine.I'll report back after a few sessions with old cassettes.

The cassette player/recorder lacks the Dolby noise reduction feature.

Without question, this is the best cassette deck on the market today. Sure, if you compare it to the cassette decks of the past, it's not that exciting. Still, it is well made, works well, has a major audio equipment company behind it and has some modern conveniences you won't find on older models. It's also great to have an option that won't require possibly extensive repairs or adjustment just to enjoy existing cassette recordings or make new ones.With this, you also get a CD player. While it works acceptably well, there are some issues with its design that previous models from TEAC did not have. In particular, the CD transport is actually a CD-ROM drive based design. Though this allows for MP3 playback capability and anti-skip protection, the drawbacks as compared to a regular CD player are that it will spin down after a while even when on pause (making for a delay in resuming playback if it has been paused long enough for a spindown to occur) and that it does not immediately seek to a selected track when in pause mode as most CD players do. If you're cuing up a track from a CD and need it to start as soon as you release the pause function, this model will annoy you.With a display containing a large alphanumeric section, I'm surprised this doesn't decode CD text. It can display ID3 tag data in MP3 files.I think most people buy this for the tape deck, and I certainly did, so that's what I'll go into the most detail on. The tape transport has full auto stop capability. It plays and can record from line input, CD or even MP3 playback. While it does not have auto reverse capability, it will make superior recordings compared to other tape decks and recorders by virtue of the fact that it has an AC bias driven erase head as opposed to the permanent magnet types found almost universally elsewhere. This makes for a "cleaner" and quieter tape erasure prior to recording. (It does appear that TEAC might have considered offering a version of this with an auto-reverse tape transport, as there are unused characters for such in the display.)Tape playback and recording both work well. Somewhat surprisingly, there is no noise reduction offered for use during playback. TEAC's current model dual-well cassette decks do offer this, so I'm surprised the AD-850 hasn't got the same feature. I have tested the playback speed and found it is correct. Its speed stability actually exceeds the published specifications.I've used the available USB port and MP3 recording capability to digitize a few cassettes. Though I believe TEAC should have chosen a slightly higher bitrate than the 128 kilobits per second used, the files produced sound fine to me.To make a long story short, although this product does not come cheap or have all the bells and whistles of cassette decks from the past and it could do a few things better, it's the best option on the market today if you want a good quality basic cassette deck.

Great sound and options for both playing and recording CD's and cassettes. Cassette players are non-existent new these days so it's great TEAC makes a good quality one available for those of us with lots of old tapes that either can't be replaced or would take forever to do so.Only thing to keep in mind is the USB, which is a great option for recording, is very specific and you need to make sure you use one of the types tested and noted by TEAC, as other USB's I tried did not work with this unit.