Q CASS: Various Tascam Porta Studio Models

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Quad Linda

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Tascam Porta Studio Models
Vintage: Late 70's & 80's
Rarity: Varies with Model

From Tascam, Teac's pro division. Many work at 3 3/4 ips, rather than the standard 1 7/8 ips for cassettes. Springsteen recorded his Nebraska album on one of these. Are they Quad? You decide!

Tascam Porta Two, the LAST Porta Studio cassette:
porta2.jpg

Tascam 424 MK II:
424mk2.jpg

Tascam 244:
tascam_244.jpg

Tascam 246:
Tascam_246.jpg

Tascam Porta 05:
Tascam-Porta-05.jpg

Tascam 414:
84490667_d0658c16ac.jpg
 
To really qualify as a proper Quad cassette deck in my mind, a deck needs to be able to Playback AND Record in Quad simultaneously, and some of these Tascam units (..most likely the cheaper ones) can only record in two channels simultaneously. At least one of the ones you've pictured (the Tascam 414 in the first post) I used to own (..or one that looked almost identical) and you couldn't record on all four tracks at once.
 
I owned, and was a big fan of, the Yamaha MT3X. Cost $800 in 1990. Ran at either 1 7/8 at 3 3/4 IPS. Had DBX noise reduction. 4-in, 4-out. Would have made a great quad deck.

J. D.
 
That's crazy. I was not aware of that anomaly. Evidently, they saved $$ on circuitry. As ridiculous as Q8 recorders and Pioneer Q4 reel machines that played back in Quad, but only recorded in 2ch. Had they never heard of musicians playing together live in the studio?

To really qualify as a proper Quad cassette deck in my mind, a deck needs to be able to Playback AND Record in Quad simultaneously, and some of these Tascam units (..most likely the cheaper ones) can only record in two channels simultaneously. At least one of the ones you've pictured (the Tascam 414 in the first post) I used to own (..or one that looked almost identical) and you couldn't record on all four tracks at once.
 
I owned, and was a big fan of, the Yamaha MT3X. Cost $800 in 1990. Ran at either 1 7/8 at 3 3/4 IPS. Had DBX noise reduction. 4-in, 4-out. Would have made a great quad deck.

J. D.

I owned a MT-1X , the previous model....it was GREAT!!!
Mine had 6 Inputs.

DBX tape reduction was really good, although it killed the transients...

Funnily, I also had a mid 80's Technics cassette deck with dbx koise reduction , but I found out the hard way that it was NOT the same kind of encoding/decoding.
 
Don't know if this one counts but it was my favorite. Never bought one. Too short of playing time to be useful for anything.
 

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P1060493.jpgYou are right about the recording time, but a C90 cassette will hold one LP side, so two C90s to record a CD-4 quadradisc.
I can't tell you the last time I actually used it, but it is a SOLID deck and it makes very nice recordings.
 
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