Pyle Home Digital Dual Cassette Deck Media Player Music Recording Device with RCA Cables Switchable Rack Mounting Hardware CrO2 Tape Selector Included 3 Digit Counter - 110V/220V

I have a lot of old cassette tapes. I decided I wanted to listen to them again just for the heck of it. I bought several vintage (fancy word for old crap) decks online. The ones that survived the trip failed within a few months. I am not the guy who is going to put in effort and try to salvage this old tech. I decided to look into a new deck. Not much to choose from so I bought this Pyle unit. You know what? For the money, it is pretty good. Here is what you really need to know. Our tapes, for the most part, are 30+ years old. Some have aged well, some are barely listenable. It is not the deck that causes them to sound bad. The first tape I randomly put in was so bad I thought I had wasted my money yet again. I sighed and turned it off and walked away. A week later, I tried again. I grabbed a Fleetwood Mac Tango in the Night tape, put it in and....it sparkled!! I began trying lots of different tapes and realized the deck itself was doing what it could with old junk I was feeding it. Let's face it, cassette tapes had their time, and that was long ago. They are never going to sound great- they didn't 30 years ago, they certainly won't today. But... It is fun to mess around with them anyway. As to the deck itself, yeah, it is not gonna knock you out with its appearance (which, btw, is fine) or it's low quality plastic buttons- but it gets the job done for a relatively low cost. I find the whole thing easy to use and hook up. For the casual listener, this is a great option. I don't record anything so I can't speak to that element of this deck. As I recall, the reviews for these decks are all mixed up by model. I bought the cheapest one and refurbished at that. I don't think I would spend additional money on the "better" ones since the low end one seems to have the same features. Undoubtedly the internal components are the same. All in all, I am happy with this machine.

Very good quality for the price. I regret that auto-reverse was not available, but I don’t have a major cassette collection and needed it for occasional recording of old LP’s. I certainly recommend for general needs.

I’m a cassette collector and have spent a lot of money on cassette players. I’ve purchased high end portable ones from retrospekt, great quality used ones off eBay, budget ones off Amazon, and the ultra cheapo ones from Walmart. This one is by far the best all around cassette deck you can buy at the moment. It plays good quality, records good quality and has some decent features like the recording level knob. When it comes to the basic functionality and features needed, this is the best. I’m only giving this four stars, but it’s a TRUE four stars. The functionality of the deck is great, but the quality of plastic on the machine is very cheap feeling. The buttons feel fragile and the cassette slots are flimsy, but what’s even worse is cassettes can get stuck between the play deck and the cassettes door, lodging the cassette between the two. So DO NOT FORCE the cassette doors closed. You could break them for how fragile they are. If you feel any resistance when trying to put the cassette in, stop, readjust, and try again. But other than the flimsiness, it plays and records great which is what’s really important right now as the cassettes make a comeback. I recommend grabbing this if you have a powered speaker to connect it to or are wanting to record cassettes.

Most tapes play no problem, though I sometimes wonder if the “wobliness” of the tape (brand new) is due to the deck or the tape itself; a minor quibble because most cassettes sound and play fine; I mean, the format’s shortcomings are part of their charm, at least to my ears :/. The only major issue that prevents me from awarding four stars to this deck is that for some reason some cassette tapes literally cannot fit comfortably into the housing, and the cassette door cannot be closed as a result. Manipulation of this mechanism eventually will allow the door to be closed so that the listener can play their cassette normally. Since cassette tapes were designed—in the past at least—to be compatible with every kind of deck, I’m surprised the designers didn’t allow for the slightly different shapes of cassettes so the housing mechanism can close. It doesn’t happen much, tends to be a small irritation because one can still play their tapes by jiggering with the door of the tape deck, so for me it’s a small quibble and for less than 200 bucks I think you get your moneys worth. I’m so glad some company is still out there making these decks, because after attempting to buy used decks that break after one week or never play in the first place, I was happy to finally have something I can reliably play my cassettes on. So as long as the buyer goes in aware of this small quirk it’s a great value for the money. UPDATE MAY 2025: Unfortunately, almost immediately after posting the above review, I began to have problems with this deck. The belts on the first [main cassette] deck slowed to a crawl and the heads of the player played with plenty of flutter and warbling sounding garbage. I cleaned the heads, not believing my ears as only a month earlier I had posted this relative positive review of this cassette deck. The problem worsened to the point that I just decided to use the second deck, with the plan to get the first deck 'repaired' at some point in the future. Good luck with that, as everyone knows. Initially the second deck played fine--but within a couple of months the same problem came up and I just have decided to give up on this deck, because it sucks eggs. Note that in both cases I cleaned the heads, which really should not have been necessary as I usually play[ed] my cassettes on my main cassette deck, located in my living room (the 'Pyle of...' is located in my bedroom. So in reality I used this deck on a relatively limited basis anyway. Given the fact that I purchase the item in August of 2024 (arriving in September of that year), it hasn't even been a year for it to fall apart. Even as I post this, I plan on sharing my thoughts on this deck with the manufacturer to let them know what a ripoff this garbage deck is. I should have at least had a year before it all went to heck!!!!! Anyway, my recommendation is if you can afford it, go with a TEAC W-1200 (I think that's the model) and you'll be much happier. If not, see if there is a reliable and honest second-hand cassette shop that sells used decks. Your third option would be eBay, but in all honesty I went with the Pyle after numerous bad experiences when I purchased second hand units from that site (I was always assured the decks 'worked great' when they left the shipper/seller's homes, but somehow I must have done something after the deck arrived to cause it to not work properly). I am sure there are honest sellers out there, but it's all down to chance, so buy carefully. Anyway, just avoid this deck in at all possible, and go with the above options. Or use the money to buy more cassettes and a personal player as there are a number of decent units out there, as well of course with used Walkmans. Thanks for listening.

since the 1980s have owned many top end cassette players. don't like gaps on CDs and records. went Pyle USA a lot less $$$. Also bought another top end player. Pyle is just better sounding. I play top end very seldom compared to Pyle.

Reviews for this seem to run from "great" to "junk". I am hoping to give potential buyers a realistic view why both are potentially accurate. If all tapes played well, this would be an easy 4 or 5 star review. As it is, deck is mostly functional, but you have to nurse it along at times and it can be frustrating. I use this to digitize music from my cassette collection (using Audacity). The price was worth giving it a shot versus the iffy belt replacement attempt on my old deck. I have made good progress, but have had to monitor things more than I care too. Some tapes do not play well... mostly dragging, occasionally just distorted and quieter than they should be. My tapes are in good condition, many have never been out of the house. Length doesn't seem to matter; varying length tapes have had issues as well as played fine. I have so far been able to rectify the issues on a second or third play attempt. The right deck seems to perform better than the left. I use the left as much as possible, and when a tape doesn't play properly I switch to the right. I am not confident in the durability of this machine, so I am trying to get as much use out of it, and am trying to preserve the right deck as much as I can. So far I have recorded about 50 tapes (from 30-90 minutes in length) and have had issues with about 8 of them. I am satisfied with the quality of the recordings when I get them, just have to been on top of the quality control. The good news is, if a tape is going to play poorly, you generally find out in the first song or so...sometimes bad from the start, sometimes turns bad a minute or so in. I think once the issue arose in the second song; I didn't catch it until I was playing from flash drive in car....2 of the 10 songs on album werrre ssllooooow. Repeated recording and everything went fine.

Great unit, easy to use, very straight forward instructions

Despite my initial hesitation to purchase from Pyle, the recording quality was perfect, it had noise reduction that didn't bleed over into the recorded sounds, and I like that the counter kept track of the tape runs, it helps me time the recordings. I've read issues with the buttons but as long as you press gently, the buttons won't break. The only notable flaw is that the cassette door doesn't close all the way once a tape is inserted. It doesn't affect the recordings but it does create the possibility of the door breaking. Despite my full 5 feedback, I'm giving Pyle a 9 for the doors. I'm also leaving a note for people who are worried about the recording quality, and have also read other reviews about the recording quality: If the recording is hissing or the sound is just plain bad and fuzzy, easy fixes. 1. Check if your blank tape has a magnetic shield. If not, then that's why the sound quality is plain bad. My recordings were like that for a while until I decided to put a magnetic shield into the blank tape, and there was a major improvement to the tape's sound quality. 2. Hissing is on the tape's quality. I use two different brands. Maxell's hissing is so faint I barely hear it, but the other one has fairly loud hissing in the background. I hope this helps people make a decision on whether or not to purchase Pyle. I recommend it if you're looking for a reliable tape player and sound recorder.