Its true, I don't think anyone really uses cassettes anymore. But a cassette player was the only device missing from my hifi set up, so when I saw this in my local town I thought I might as well get it...then I could listen again to all those dusty tapes that were now packed away in a box.
The good thing about this device is it has two tape drives. This means that you can copy from one cassette to another. Handy if you have a recording of a radio show, for example, and want to edit the advert breaks out. However, you can only record on one of the decks, not both. You eventually get used to this though, and its rare that you need two copies of the same thing anyway.
Each deck has an electronic counter that is easy to reset whenever you want. The rewind feature can also be set to stop rewinding when the counter reaches zero. This is very useful when you don't want to go right back to the start again.
For some reason there is a speed control as well. This allows you to speed up, or slow down the playback of tapes. I think it goes up or down to 30%. While this can be great fun to begin with, I'm not sure of its true use because the pitch goes goes way out and its sounds daft. But anyway its there!
There is a built in headphone socket as well so you don't have to go through your amp each time you want to listen.
Recording from any source is a breeze. You can set it to automatically adjust recording levels etc, or easily do it yourself with the large knob in the right hand corner. This means instant recording is possible, and with the noise reduction feature it always sounds pretty good. The fader features allows you to automatically fade into or out of a recording, rather than just having a sudden start to the music or whatever.
I must admit, it is a very noisy piece of equipment though. The play, stop, rewind etc buttons are electronic, so there is no hard pressing of spring loaded buttons. But each time you do press one, you sure know about it! The thing clunks and clicks so the whole house can hear! This sure isn't a discreet machine! The turning of the tape itself isn't too bad though, and even quite music makes it unoticeable. A simple switch on the left allows you to set whether the tape turns itself over at the end of play, and begins the second side. Or you can have it stop play at the end of the current side. Or you can even set it to rewind when its finished playing.
All these features make it a pretty automatic player/recorder and you will find that doing whatever you want will be easily achieved. If you are wanting to record on both decks, then the next model up in the raqnge will allow this, but for most people I would say this is a perfect player and will suit you fine!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) high sound quality, diverse functions, record to tape mode, record from tape mode (-) usless instruction manual, useless recording programme, not all cables supplied
Advantages: Easy to copy tapes, nice bright sound, easy to use Disadvantages: Sounds notably flatter than cd players, tapes have been phased out, quite noisy
grandchamp 15.09.2009 (15.09.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Sony TCWE475.CEK
Advantages: Easy to copy tapes, nice bright sound, easy to use Disadvantages: Sounds notably flatter than cd players, tapes have been phased out, quite noisy
grandchamp 15.09.2009 (15.09.2009)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Sony TCWE475.CEK
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Aug 6th, 2006
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