As the title says, this year i will be searching possibly for a tape deck. Had one in the past, but don't have one anymore. I will primarily be using this for doing releases of music that i am involved or helping in some way with here. Probably this will mostly involve sending out audio from my computer to the tape deck to record on tape, but obviously will like to use it for playing back and listening to music as well.
I know that these are all over ebay, but probably my highest priorities at this point is having it be a machine that is
1.) of good quality
2.) somewhat easy to service on my own and problem solve when the time comes that something breaks, if at all possible
3.) something that won't break in the foreseeable future if possible
4.) has two slots for two tapes to dub from a master if needed
5.) isn't crazy expensive or crazy huge
I know that there are decks like the Pyle for about 70 USD and the ION brand that is around 100 USD new on sites like amazon and ebay, but i thought i would ask here for people's experiences and what they thought too. Or even if anyone had one that they didn't use anymore that was a workhorse and wanted to let go of someday, that would be fortunate as well. Anyways, all thoughts and experiences welcomed, or what to stay away from/look out for would be great too