Speaking of cassette decks…
This was my first, a Sony TC-K555. It was Sony’s top of the line 3-head deck in 1984. I remember scraping and saving for months to get this deck. MSRP in 1984 was $430 ($1345 in 2025 dollars), although I seem to remember paying only $360 ($1125). I bought it at the now long-defunct Hi-Fi Sales in Mesa, AZ.
Ultimately, after living with it for about six months I was…disappointed. Despite its pedigree, I was just never happy with the sound of the tapes I’d made, no matter which brand or formulation I used. (Should’ve bought the Nakamichi BX-150, but it was only a 2-head deck and I’d convinced myself I wanted—no, needed—the live monitoring capability of a 3-head.)
[pdf-embedder url=”https://voenixrising.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/sony_tc-k555_brochure.pdf”]
Ironically I ended up replacing it with a 2-head deck that sounded much better two years later.
As I mentioned in that post referenced above, cassettes are one media I’m not feeling especially nostalgic over, so there’s no chance I’m going to suddenly announce that I’ve added them to my collection. Let’s face it: they don’t sound as good as vinyl, CDs, or even MiniDiscs.