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TERRY WILLSON A CHEAP UNIT. THIS CASSETTE PLAYER IS FLIMSY PLASTIC, THE CONTROLS FEEL LIKE THEY WILL BREAK AT LIGHT PRESSURE. ONLY ONE OF THE DUAL CASSETTES SELF-REVERSES.
The Service Center said to bring it on down and they would need the Packing Slip for warranty work. I told J&G sales and Amazon about my experience. The left side deck mechanicsm needed replacement.I told them to junk it, or keep it for parts if they wished.I won't be buying any more TEAC equipment of any kind, rest assured. Within 30 days after recieving this unit, the "play" button on the left deck stopped working. Not even if it's the best around. I would rather pay out of my own pocket than deal with them. The customer support is arrogant and unhelpful.
The SC advised calling TEAC for warranty work authorization--shouldn't be a problem, they said.My wife called TEAC Customer Service and spoke to someone named "Sandy". Turned out it was over $90 for parts with the total about $183. J&G sent me a copy of my order invoice to send TEAC.I thanked them, but did not use the invoice--rational or not, I was mad.I asked the local Service Center to estimate the repair costs for the unit--that I would pay for it out of my own pocket if it was a reasonable cost to fix. She said they could not authorize service for something bought over the Internet--for all they knew it could be a rebuilt unit. Also, J&G Music/Computer Sales was very helpful and they seemed rather astonished at TEAC's response.
My wife called the local Authorized Service Center. Amazon kindly sent me a discount certificate because of my problems--I will not use it because this was no way their fault. She refused to check.After much discussion, "Sandy" finally told my wife to send her the paperwork we had and she would "determine if it had any merit".I became very angry after hearing of the arrogant treatment given my wife and told her not to send TEAC a damn thing. I had my order paperwork, but do not normally save packing slips. My wife gave her the order number and said J&G Sales would verify it was a new unit.
I find that many tapes end up with significant wobble as the tape reaches the end. It does not have the power to drive the longer tapes. The unit just doesn't have the needed features to make it. It does not have an auto-stop for the auto-reverse deck.
Two years into ownership, one side of the deck has one channel shot to hades.I don't know if I can fix it yet, but so far, every non-hands-on thing I've done hasn't worked. All I know is that this is the first, and so far ONLY, disappointment I've encountered buying hi-fi from Amazon, a disappointment with a somewhat inconvenient manual operation, a shot channel in the premier bay, but one that I can copy cassettes with, at high speed yet, something which I have yet to do, btw. When did this start and was demand for such units so large that even BARGAIN units have them. The upshot is, is that I hardly ever USE the thing. The signal-to-noise ratio of this value unit is actually not bad. This is the side with auto-reverse.
Lord only knows what trouble I'd run into doing THAT.I want to reiterate that this company was one of the gold-standard brands back in the day for reel-to-reel recorders, so it's no surprise that it sounds good. Auto-stop would have been nice, too. It's also the only piece of hi-fi equipment I have without a remote. However, I have to commend the excellent separation and hiss suppression of this unit on the side that works right.
My, how the mighty have fallen. Their reel-to-reels were legendary, along with Revox and Tandberg. They, in fact, come VERY close to rivalling my CDs for purity of sound. It's a shame it didn't hold up well as their old equipment.Reduce it to TWO stars.
It's so weird to have been away from cassettes players for so long, and come back on the market to see that just about EVERY unit has a dual cassette bay design. Maybe once every three or four months, and already one side is giving me trouble. And the dubbing capability. It's kind of a pain to get up and both STOP the cassette and have to wait around for the end of a rewind or FF to stop it manually when everything ELSE you have can be handled from across the room.
I hear NO hiss whatsoever from tapes as old as the hills, whether regular oxide, metal or chromium, withOUT the Dolby that comes with it on, even. And Teac used to be one of the "un-knockables" of hi-fi. The non-auto-reverse side plays beautifully. Not good.
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