"Natural sounding analog recordings are
why I still use an old S-VHS Zenith HiFi vcr with defeatable level control
and individual left/right gain controls to make great sounding recordings of
local bands"

No you don't, it is a JVC. The later ones made by Goldstar had no such option. I suggest holding on to that this and maybe checking it for capacitor crap from time to time.

I used to make live recordings of a band on a Beta HIFI. Get this, I used a pair of headphones as microphones with a Shure mic preamp. Sony MDR-CD5. Just hung them up on the wall. Later when dubbing to cassette I used the pre outs of a Marantz reciever with the quadradial control to expand the stereo image, and it worked of course. I has to re-equalize a bit, but so what. It really didn't sound that bad. It sounded better than some King Biscuit Flower Hour. i also had to run it through Dolby B encode twice just to get it to fit in the dynamic range of a cassette tape, even with HX.

Those are clunky ass old slow running machines those Zeniths, but you know what ? They do the job and are reliable. I used to work on VCRs for a living and you know what ? The ones I have the most experience on are the junkiest. I cannot think of any common problems on those right now. I also do not remember the equivalent JVC model nummber, but the FCC ID should not start with AK8. It maybe is AJU or maybe B something, I am not sure anymore. When I was doing VCRs I got so much into the FCC ID I asked for it one the phone before even going, or it coming in. Damn I used to know them by heart. Panasonics, Hitachis, whatever. I would know if I had the parts in stock. Well at least belts and idlers.

I did not **** around in business.