Nothing the matter with new.
But the problem is the format itself and it's relative importance in todays world.
Cassette is a trend, nostalgia, a hipster thing, an underground movement, a revolt against mp3.
The decks they are making today are junk compared to decks of yesterday.
It's just not profitable to make a quality deck in today's market.
It's been brought up by myself and others that the 90s was the peak of cassette technology. DAT was in play, but for the most part only proffessionals owned and used them.
The rest of the world was using cassette as a portable music medium.
People were making cassette mix tapes off of CD to play in their cars, etc.
So in conclusion, if dealing with cassette, get a high end studio or consumer deck of the day.
They were high quality, robust units designed to work for a long time.
Not the cheap chinese junk of today.
Yes, you might have to replace the belts and other rubber, but that's easy enough to do. (You or a tech)