Yes Charles, it can be surprising what a well recorded cassette still sounds like. I've had two cassette decks serviced in the last year. A discrete 3 head Nak 581, and sandwich 3 head Harmon Kardon TD-392, original owner of both. I had loads of old cassettes still sitting around as all my vehicles have cassette decks in them, 99% self recorded from lp as you noted. I've even A/B 'd against the CD in a few cases with a friend who's way more critical than myself, and he was pretty amazed at how good the tape sounded. Of course they are subject to all the usual suspects- mechanism failure, dirty tape head, bad transfer during recording, and degradation from use, but a well recorded tape still sounds very good to me. Heresy to many I'm sure, but worth checking out if you have a nice old deck & some well recorded tapes laying around. Actually heard a report on the radio the other day that while cassettes are a miniscule portion of overall music sales, they are up over 100% a year the last couple of years.
I too have one of these that needs service sitting in a drawer. Used to use it when skiing.
Enjoy the music, whatever the format gents.