I've still got one of these:
http://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/technics/rs-bx727.shtml
used for archiving cassette by hooking it up to a decent soundcard. It was a very good three head deck.
With regard to faults on old gear, I had an expensive Yamaha receiver fail some years ago (would turn on then immediately off) and its repair quote to find the fault, let alone fix it, was too close to its secondhand value to be worthwhile. I hadn't got the heart to throw it out as it was a quality bit of kit, so it languished in a garden shed.
Last year I spotted a forum post about repairing a model in the same range that was fixed by replacing a small polyester film capacitor on the psu board and that these particular caps had been a problem in Yamaha gear of the time. I dragged mine out of the shed and checked it - the psu board wasn't identical to the one in the forum post but it was similar and did have one of these capacitors. I unsoldered it and found it was open circuit. Found another one in a drawer of old parts so soldered that in place. Turned the receiver on and it burst into life. With some old speakers attached, my workshop now has a hugely over-specced radio that makes all the shelves rattle.
Repair time - 30 minutes.If I had to do it again, 15 minutes. Cost, if I had had to buy the part, under 50p. I bet the repair agents who gave me the quote (£200+shipping costs) knew damn well what was wrong with it as it appears that the symptoms and fix were known at the time.