I'll give him the benefit of a doubt.
What kind of cassette tapes does everyone use to record on?
I like my Type II TDK SA90's.... but I cannot find those anymore.....
Let me know what you like using
My Yamaha tape deck isn't like a Nakamichi 3 head.... but it still holds it's own
After all, there are some that still like to play 8-track tapes, but at least cassettes, given care and careful setup, can still pump out a workable sound and maintain a purely analog signal chain.
Over the years I've had a Teac A-40 (before Dolby), 360, and a R-400X (dbx) and ny "newest" from 1998 is a NAD 616.
But, even though I still have two active decks, I can't recall the last time I used them for recording. They do mostly playback of motivational tapes nowadays.
Given that, my favorites were TDA SA, which was supplanted by their SA-X formulation. Back in the day, I had my decks tweaked to maximize these.