r/CassetteDecks

Hello, I'm looking for cassette deck recommendations. I have an Akai GX-F25 which is broken. The cassette won't advance so i have to look into that. The counter sometimes goes up but the tape is not moving at all.

But I came looking for information. Which cassette decks are considered legendary/great. What cassette deck are you using yourself. If you make your own cassette tapes, which software do you use for that?

I have a budget up to 100 euro but I simply like to know what's popular since I'm very new to this hobby.

Edit: I also want to record my own cassette with the deck.

I recently picked up a Sony tc-tx5 for free off of marketplace. It works perfectly fine but obviously needs a good servicing however I can't figure out what belts I need to get. Any input on this would be massively helpful since this is my first cassette deck and I dont really know what im doing

It picks up signal from the source but when switched to tape it just plays what is already on the tape. It won’t erase. It does muffle the sound when recording is activated. Light is on and everything. Heads and belt and all that work fine and were recently serviced. Plays tapes normally. If anyone knows anyone in the la area that can fix it please lmk!