Wanted: High-end Cassette player

Excellent and COMPREHENSIVE advice, Kamal.

Ya Abhijit am sure u will be more than ok if u follow kamalji post on maintainance of the tape deck.
Just be careful when u use the Demagnetiser. Please read the instructions of the device and follow to the T. One is tempted to use it more than required so use it only when u find the trebles reduced and hiss is overpowering.

Thanks for the excellent advice, Kamal
I'll definitely follow it..I definitely need to keep the deck in good shape, since I'm sure it'll be impossible to find parts and servicing for them in the future!

Dinyaar wrote-
" One is tempted to use it more than required so use it only when u find the trebles reduced and hiss is overpowering."
Dinyaar, if you wait till these symptoms manifest themselves, by then the tapes would have been adversely affected.
I used to use my Cassette Deck for an avg of 4 to 5 hrs a day.
I found that even with this heavy use, demagging once a fortnight was enough to keep things fine.
I used a TDK Head Demagnetiser with is housed in a cassette shell so it was abs safe,i.e, you did not run the risk of bringing the tip of the demagnetiser too near to the heads etc.
If Abhijit gets a difft ,conventional demagnetiser, then of course he should use it carefully ,as per the directions.

By the way, are the cassette shell type demagnetisers still available? Does anyone know where to get them?

Well i have a few of them. The TDK cassette type was available at Rhythm House for about 1800/- I also have something that looks like a FAT Fountain pen and was bought from NY but the one i am currently using is a Sony Demag which looks like a padlock.
U never touch it to the heads and never for more than 4/5 seconds. The manual says it should be used every 100 hours so with my usage its a long time before i need to demagnetise.
I only use Chrome tapes and have stuck to Maxell XL II 90 and TDK SA 90 or SA-X 90 and have not had any problems whatsoever.

PS I think the TDK Cassette type mentions u demagnetize every 15 hours so i guess u have really different views on this.

Dinyaar wrote-
" PS I think the TDK Cassette type mentions u demagnetize every 15 hours so i guess u have really different views on this."
You do, indeed !
Acc to my Sony deck manual,it shld be every 20 to 30 hrs.
Acc to my Onkyo deck manual, every 50 hrs.
Acc to both...residual build up of magnetism on the heads etc can cause erasure of high frequencies, & also result in a pronounced hiss on playback.
I guess its best to follow the mnufacturesrs recommendations,so Abhi can take a peek at the manual & act accly.
I also used Chrome tapes, the very same brands that you mentioned.
But most prerecorded stuff is on standard tapes.
Abhi, check with the guy who's presenting you the deck-he may have a demagger to throw in.

Kamalji since we are on this topic let me tell u what a very old parsi electronics repairman told me many years ago. This gentleman owned a place called Capitol at Altamount road( Am sure mumbai guys will be familiar) and this guy told me to NEVER use pre recorded tapes and have hence never bought /used one.
Another interesting fact is that some decks( think early tascam) had an AUTO DEMAGNETIZE feature. Push a button, wait for few seconds and its done.
U are absolutely right as far as the lack of quality service for tape decks goes . I also have a Marantz tape deck and am really desperate to get it working but cant find a reliable guy. Any leads from our mumbai members would really help. Please dont mention Naren as i feel contacting the pope would be easier/quicker.
Regards

Dinyaar-
" Kamalji since we are on this topic let me tell u what a very old parsi electronics repairman told me many years ago. This gentleman owned a place called Capitol at Altamount road( Am sure mumbai guys will be familiar) and this guy told me to NEVER use pre recorded tapes and have hence never bought /used one."
Dinyaar, I'm sure he must have had good technical reasons for rendering this advice ,prob the largely substandard quality most of them are/were "printed" upon.I do agree as to the desirability to have good qlty tapes.
But if the option is to not use them at all, then owning a good qlty deck becomes a futile exercise, does it not?
And I foung that the tapes used by Music Today( cobalt ) were quite ok, & so were the tapes used by Sony Bmg,Universal, SaReGaMa/HMV etc.
I have tapes more than 2 decades old which still play fine even tho I've used them extensively.
As for your Marantz Deck, surely they have a service centre in Mumbai?

Slightly OT: I have some EMI Pakistan tapes, produced circa 1999, and bought a few years ago when I used to live in the US.

Amazing content (ghazal, thumri and the like), but absolutely shoddy production values. The hiss can be deafening on quiter passages, tracks cut off rudely mid-performance etc. etc. And really bad quality of tape, it can't have done my cassette deck much good.. but the content makes up for everything.

BTW I am looking for a top-notch tape deck as well, maybe on loan. Am looking to digitise some tapes, problem is my marantz is quite bad with older, brittle, sub-standard tapes such as those described above (though it's superlative with anything that's been produced in the recent past).

I was told that the very best decks produced in the golden era (Nak, Technics etc.) can play even old tapes and retrieve much more detail. Hence the quest to find one that will play my beloved tapes well, at least one time.