Without disagreeing with anything else said below, I'd like to point 
out that some other manufacturers who have produced machines that will 
happily (and correctly) play back double-speed four-track cassettes are 
Yamaha, Marantz, Vestax, and Fostex (although built-in support for the 
various tape-types and NR varies widely). I don't mean to suggest that 
this format is or ever was a good choice for original recording or 
archiving when other options are available, just that the format is not 
solely Tascam-proprietary. It's certainly strongly associated with 
Tascam, because they seem to be and have been the most popular 
machines.

>  This, however, is essentially a Tascam-specific format and is not 
> something I would want to archive to. Nor is it really something I 
> would want to record to--although four-channel field recordings are 
> much more expensive if you step up from the 414/424.
>
>  On the other hand, if you're giving it to a kid to learn a bit about 
> recording, it's probably fine.
>
>  I think Steve S. and I are in violent agreement once again -- his 
> succinct reply captured my initial response as well.
>
>  Cheers,
>
>  Richard
>
>  At 09:20 AM 4/23/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>
> Tascam is still making portable multi-track cassette recorders--four 
> models to be exact, one of them apparently a new release. Two of these 
> offer 3.75 ips. Does anyone out there have any experience or knowledge 
> of these machines? The link is below--you might have trouble finding 
> the page on the Tascam site if you started from the homepage, as these 
> are all to be found on a page labeled "personal creativity."
>   
> http://www.tascam.com/product_list.php?cPath=60&nav=pc_cassette
>   
>   
>

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A. Soroka; [log in to unmask]