Sony TCWE475 Dual Cassette Player / Recorder

Excellent product, and was delivered before the promised date.

I currently have 5 of these decks - I didn't just purchase them, I have had them - The reason I am posting here is I was about to order another one when I decided to read the reviews and compare them to mine -
If you want a good multifunction cassttte deck, this is the one - The price at Amazon beats everyone online at this current price - This cassette deck is well worth the price - Its easy to use - The only thing most people won't like is that it doesn't come supplied with a remote -
Fortunately I have one -
I bought one for my Dad who is in his seventies - If he can figure out how to use it at high speed ddubbing, Cd to casstette, cassette to CD, well, need I say more - Doesn't take a rocket scientist to use this product -

The TCWE475 Cassette Player/Recorder as advertized is misleading. The order does NOT include an amplifier nor does it include speakers. It is part of an assembly that is useless as the order is received. Further, the amplifier (Control A1) is not shown for sale as well as speakers. older persons such as I order this item expecting to replace older Decks. Also important is that Sony has deemed the deck as "not returnable"! Therefore, beware.

I purchased this Cassette Player to copy all my analag Cassette Tapes digitally onto my Laptop. I just needed a better quality player than my Walkman and this does the job perfectly.

I couldn't afford a 3-head audiophile Cassette Player which would no doubt increase the quality of the analog to digtal conversion process. So I settled for this Sony which was in my price range.

I purchased this model instead of the TEAC W-860 R mainly because of the slight price difference.

If this had a remote it would be much better but as it is, I'm not that lazy. I mostly use the playback well, because I don't really need to record onto tape anymore.

It is also fairly noisy when stopping, playing, forwarding, etc. Don't use it near someone who is trying to sleep!

The Dolby Noise logic is also fantastic, I have a lot of tapes with large amounts of tape hiss and the logic cuts most of that down.

I also like the fact that you are able to do continuous play but I try not to do that because I hear that auto-reverse degrades the heads/motor of the unit.

My conversion process has begun and it is taking a really long time, but I am getting great results with this Sony TCWE475.

150 USD is not really an expensive price for a tape deck of this quality. That would be about 8 new CD's purchased in a store. Ten years ago tape decks cost more, but since cassette tapes are a quickly dying medium, lowering the price is the only enticement left. I have 150-200 cassette tapes with a mix of songs from about 1500 different CD's and albums, so even if I throw out 80-90% of my tapes that's still the equivalent of songs from 150+ different CD's. That would be an expensive replacement cost, let alone what the price of what 1500 CD's would cost. So a new cassette deck allows me access to those relatively few songs I still like.

Phil Audio of Bangalore India didn't like the sound quality. He's listed some high quality equipment so he's familiar with audiophile level electronic equipment. He stated that the Sony deck doesn't sound as good as the specs listed. Sony's specs list 30 Hz-17,000 Hz +/-3dB for the widely available CrO2 high bias type II cassette tape. That's a relatively good range. The important thing to look for is the +/-3 dB value. If missing, the number given is almost meaningless. A tape deck performing at this level should sound adequate. If it doesn't then maybe the source material is of low quality. The other would be if Sony is lying about their specs, in that case they could be liable of [...] and a possible lawsuit. One would hope that a multi-billion dollar corporation like Sony wouldn't risk their reputation and lie about their equipment specs. That doesn't mean it couldn't happen. I own and have owned several Sony products and they've all worked well and as specified. So maybe something else is influencing the sound. I've looked at the specs of a similarly priced Onkyo tape deck. There a little lower at 30 Hz-14,000 Hz +/-3dB, but this is still good and would probably be adequate for most people and Onkyo is another high quality high fidelity electronics company. The one thing I would not consider is relying on the tape deck portion of mini stereo system. I'm mildly familiar with audiophile quality equipment. I have a Harman-Kardon cassette deck that lists 20-21,000 Hz +/-3dB for the lowest level type I tape that's exhibiting some problems after many, many years of use. When I first got this deck, I was a little thrown off by the sound because it played so high in the high frequency range. The low frequency sounds are still there for an adequately recorded tape, it's just with so many high frequencies it's not as immediately noticeable. So if one is listening to low fidelity sound equipment, their ear is becoming accustomed to it and to the probable boominess being used to compensate for the poor sound reproduction. It takes some time then to readjust to high quality sound and reproduction closer to what the musicians originally played at. I have owned a mini-stereo system by Aiwa and the tape deck on it ceased functioning after a few months. Another one lists the specs as 80-12,500 Hz 8dB. What does the "8dB" mean here... who knows. If you want to hear a bad tape player, get out your Sony Walkman (which makes no claim to good sound reproduction, but wasn't meant for that) out of the box and compare the sound of that Walkman to this tape deck to hear the sound difference. If you think the Walkman sounds better in comparison, then either you'll need to listen to this deck for a while to reprogram your ears, or this deck will be actually too high quality for you. If, however, this tape doesn't sound good enough one will then need to progress to higher quality audiophile cassette decks. Years back there was the famous Nakamichi Dragon with enough knobs to look like a missile launch facility or another Nakamichi cassette deck that was auto-reverse but that preserved the quality of a single direction motor that it would physically eject the tape, rotate it and reinsert it (you had to see it to believe it). Now tape decks at this level, if they even still exist, will probably be in the 4 digit price range by now. This Sony tape deck is a moderate level audiophile cassette tape player and at 150 USD is reasonably priced for a dying media (note that it is overpriced at 300 USD in some European countries).

The one thing this tape deck deserves an F for is for their manual. I've read several manuals over the years and this one is nothing short of confusing. They combine the WE-475 and WE-675 into one manual. However, the WE-675 is so different that their are pages just dedicated to it. Also in several places they list: (for WE-675 only) and this includes for the automatic bias adjustment for type I, II, and IV cassettes, that seems to imply that the WE-475 doesn't do that. That would be unfathomable and would be unacceptable for a tape deck at this level. Also for playing and recording in Dolby, it lists (for WE-675 only) in places that if it wasn't for a photo where I could actually see the Dolby switch, I would have thought this tape deck didn't have Dolby, again which would be unacceptable at this price. So if you don't understand something in their manual, it's not you, it's Sony's fault.

The one thing interesting in the Specifications section, is that Sony seems to imply that a type IV metal tape will play at 30 Hz-19,000 Hz +/-3dB, but has a line listed as: 30 Hz-13,000 Hz +/-3dB, -4dB recording. Now this is a confusing spec, but seems to imply that the tape deck will RECORD at a lower frequency range of 30-13,000 Hz +3dB -4dB (?) for a metal tape. Now this was something I've never considered before, that a tape deck would record at a lower level than it played at. Of course a tape recorded at 30-13,000 Hz will only be able to play back at 30-13,000 Hz, no matter what the machine. Let alone what it records at for the much more available type II tape. Now I don't know if this is just unique to this tape deck, which would be a serious negative mark, or whether all tape decks record at a different freq range than they play at and just don't mention it, and thus should give Sony a lot of credit for being honest to mention it.