TEAC AD-500 Did not work out well for me

At one time, TEAC had a high reputation for quality. I'm generally not a cynic, but I strongly suspect this component was built cheaply to garner profit. I  bought this unit in 2000 from an e-tailer in Texas.  I paid $276 for it. I also owned a Rotel CD player and a Denon cassette deck. My idea was to have a component that would integrate CD and cassette in one chassis and, so, conserve some space. Buying this unit did not turn out to be a good idea.

 The sound and construction quality of the TEAC is not up to the level of my other components. The CD section of the TEAC sounds boomy in the bass while the treble sounds a bit ragged. Cymbals don't sound "clean" for example. In the cassette section, the mid range seems to suffer a bit. Voices sound a little distant. The headphone amplifier in this unit is poor, suffering from audible distortion at all volume levels.

I peeked under the hood a bit. The tape transport mechanism seemed somewhat flimsy in construction; relying on plastic and thin sheet metal. The drive belts seemed thin to me. It just didn't inspire alot of confidence. My Denon tape deck, on the other hand, was over a decade old and I've never had any trouble with it.

On the other hand, the unit does seem to operate easily enough and there doesn't seem to be any tricks in recording a tape off of a CD. The remote control appears to operate over a wide angle range, too. Still, I ought to say that I've been playing with hi-fi gear for over 30 years and I can only rate this device as being "fair"

Who would buy this? At the risk of sounding snotty; someone who hasn't done their homework or someone who really doesn't care about sound quality very much. It's a bit pricey for the cheap sound you get. If you really want a cassette/CD player combo there are other manufacturers and I would shop around.

Update notes.  Junk, basically. It's too open to dust and dirt and this jams up the CD drive. The laser lenses seem to get dirty very quickly and refuse to read the discs. I took it to a service station and they cleaned the lenses. Three months later the problem happens again. I do not live in a house that dirty! I finally gave the thing to Salvation Army and wished it well. I had used the unit for about a year.