A vintage professional tape recorder built like a tank!
This is a professional mono cassette recorder from the mid 1980s and 1990s. This was used by news reporters (think "person on the street" reporters), law enforcement (surveillance, interviews like you see on cop shows from the 1990s, etc.), and students for various reasons such as guitar practice, etc.
Professional features:
The audio levels are set either completely manually, using a professional VU meter, manual with limiter to adjust for loud bursts, or completely Automatic Level Control, for those reporters and cops who are not audio engineers.
This unit has a basic built-in microphone, but also has an external microphone input, line level input, and can even record off the phone using a modular (RJ11) jack. (For you youngsters, that was used on land lines like your parents or grandparents had at their house.)
It can handle normal, chrome, and even metal tapes.
It has full auto stop (meaning auto stop works in FF, RW, and Play). Of course when the belts start to go, the auto stop is one of the first things that doesn't work, so if it won't auto stop, have the belts looked at. (If it's new to you, it probably needs belts anyway. This is true of any machine that uses belts.)
Inside, this machine has dual flywheels that rotate in opposite directions (if the belt is installed correctly), which minimizes the effect of moving the machine while it's recording or playing back. They are proper, metal flywheels with some weight to them, to smooth out wow and flutter, making for smoother recordings.
I could go on, but you can find information on line, and if you search, you can find the owner's manual and the service manual, which will show you how those belts should go!
My use case for this machine is to digitize old tapes recorded on mono machines. It is best, I believe, to play mono tapes on a mono deck, to minimize the effects of dropouts and other defects on the tape.
If you need to work in stereo, there were decks in this family that did stereo, and those are more in demand by musicians and others.
I recommend that if you buy one, or if you find one in your attic or closet, and it hasn't been used for a while, have it cleaned, lubed, and have the belts replaced with good quality belts. If you find a Marantz PMD201 that sounds like crap or the auto stop function doesn't work, the chances are all it needs is cleaning and belts.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes
