I have owned many cassette decks. When my old one died, I looked for a replacement that was not a double deck. The Denon DRM-555 has been a very good deck. I mostly use it as a player, but I have made some recordings on it. Some of these recodings were of live music (via a mic mixer), and they sound fine. It is a good cassette deck for the price.

After about a year, it started making popping sounds when playing. It does not do it when recording, so now I only use it to record my band. A am very disappointed in the reliablity of this unit. I wish I could reduce my rating to two stars.

Bought this unit 2 years ago and it's given me nothing but headaches! I'm on my second replacement from the dealer, and it too has problems. Both units make static, popping sounds mixed with the sound on any cassette being played-even blank tapes. I swapped cables and my entire stereo system-the noise continues. Don't like to be negative, but this Denon DRM-555 cassette deck is the worse piece of junk audio gear I have ever used! Both units are now out of warranty, and I could not get any support of any kind from Denon. I got taken! ARRGGHGHHHH!!