I bought a Nakamichi Dragon cassette tape player in 1984 in Japan. Near top of the line tape player, with top of the line price. I think $800 for last years model, fresh from the factory warehouse, when they were going for $3000 in the states. When used with top quality cassette tapes, it was the equal of the early CD players, with the advantage of being able to record.
By the late 1980’s, though, it suffered by comparison to the newer model, much cheaper CD players.
Even the mighty Nakamichi Dragon was never the equivalent of “early” cd’s. One of the first cd’s was MJ’s Thriller, and it was excellent. There were no cheap CD players at the time, but even the least expensive ones had a good enough d/a converter to outshine cassettes, especially since pre-recorded commercial cassettes were terrible, and user recordings were sourced from vinyl — inferior dynamic range, signal-to-noise ratio, wow & flutter issues, rumble issues, static electricity, tonearm resonance, etc.
Even my Teac 10.5 inch reel-to-reel with DBX was not technically as good as a cd, and it was obviously better than any available cassette and player, especially on high speed.
I used the reel-to-reel to record my virgin vinyl, then played the tape so I could preserve the vinyl album.
I considered getting a Dragon years later, after they were affordable, but since cars stopped coming equipped with cassette players there was really no point.
I saw one that didn’t have auto-reverse on the cassettes. When it got to one end the tape assembly would eject, flip around, re-insert and play the other side. It was very cool to see.