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By: BiggieTembo
6th Mar 2014
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 "Sony TC-199SD"
Oh my Good Lord - such a joy to see this again! A great, retro cassette deck, seen in all the recent 70s revival movies, in the background, VU needles waving away, dimmed yellow display lights glowing, playing the latest Doobie Brothers tape, while the main character goes through some all-emcompassing, destroying crescendo of "I'm caught up in events beyond my control..." type of thing.
When I was young I wasn\'t caught up in any events beyond my control, apart from having to go to school when I didn\'t want to. However, when staring at this baby while the needles clicked and popped, and the capstans rolled around, I forgot all about school, laying there on a fluffy carpet in 1971, mesmerised by the rollers rollin', and the VU needles "needling"...
Simply loved this cassette deck when I was a kid - the controls were smooth and easy to operate; the cassette levers were - as all the really classic decks were - erm, mechanical, but don't let that put you off, this machine's levers were smoother than some of the others (see Ferguson's Casseivers for example - the scariest machines ever made - the cassettes used to fly out after being ejected, providing a new target practice leisure-time pursuit for my Dad...).
The old epithet of "if it don't fit, don't force it" comes in useful here, and many of the classic decks' mechanical, non-servo "push" controlled function levers were usually wrecked by upset, sad, over-zealous, sorry operators, ostensibly in a rage over the disappointing nature of the latest Alice Cooper cassette, or the "plagging up" of the tape around the tape spools of "Band On The Run", or the break-up misery of a 10cc tape.
Never happened to me though (I would crank up the volume with my brother's copy of "Deep Purple In Rock" and practically wore out The Beatles' "Rock And Roll Music Volume 2" - the old cardboard MFP reissue, bought from Boots the Chemist in Chippenham, around 1978, of course) and, although serving me reliably for 20 years, around 5 years after that, my great 199SD started playing slow. Not bad for an old timer, aye.
But age aside - this retro classic is a real gem. Just to look at it "working" knocks the more modern decks for six - that was always the advantage the older decks had over the newer ones - there was always something to look at, while listening to the tape - it was a feeling as if something was happening simultaneously with the music - there were parts MOVING - there was a system in operation - generating somewhat a sense of nostalgia in itself. You could even listen to music with the lights off - and still feel that warm thrill of confusion - that space cadet glow... (My daughters of course have no inkling of this, in the age of digital downloads and mp3s).
For the nostalgia, the design, and the treat of watching something HAPPENING while the tape is being played, and the warm candle-like glow of the VU meter lights - this scores a 5. \r\n\r\nBut for playback, well, you have to say that it lags behind in comparison with the modern, 3-head calibrating, recording-monitoring, Dolby S machines which came at the twighlight of the cassette era.
For example, the Dolby lops not just the head off, but lunges a huge blunt blade though the entire waist of the sound. The three bias choices are like A) putting a sock over your speakers, B) putting a sock over the speakers and your head and C) putting a sock over the speakers, your head, the entire universe and then immersing the whole entity in a vat of lard. Similarly, the Tape type-control does the same thing, in reverse.
OK, OK I hear you say - I'm just being mean - I mean it really is an old deck, and many of the old decks perform likewise - especially in Dolby's infancy, way back when - but with a little tolerance and a readjustment of the settings on your amp, you can get a real nice warm sound from some of the old tapes - and realistically, these are what the deck was meant to have played on it - old, first-time Dolby or even non-Dolby tapes from the 70s (these are getting pretty rare right now, but you may find them in some second-hand shops right at the back - they're the ones that smell of John Player Special or King Size No.6 cigarettes... Go on, sniff them... Have a Bic ball-pen handy as well, to un-stick "print-through" tape and tighten the tape around the reels, before you put it in the machine again...)
So for playback, recording, and general sound reproduction I'd give this old lady a generous 3.
But having it on your shelves to admire, or relaxing in your "egg" chair copy whilst putting on an original non-Dolby "Who's Next"... you'll be transported back to 1971 and begin to smell cigarette smoke, taste Angel Delight (the 70s dessert made from pure chemicals), while simultaneously feeling the urge to cover your kitchen floor with lino, stone-clad the INSIDE of your house, and sup on a pint of Younger's Tartan ale ...
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![[Thumbnail]](https://www.hifidatabase.com/static/gallery/1/6221-TC199SD.jpg)
