my opinion, having owned plenty of Tascam decks, and Sony D3 cassette recorder, D7/8 dats, and four m10's, is that the Tascam is a bunch more likely than the Sony to let you down. The stock line in is better than the Tascam's, and although the Sony m10 preamps are nothing to write home about, they're better. And they're a lot better than the Sony A10 preamps, which suck, imho.