I used this product for about a year before it started giving me problems. To be honest I used the cassette recorder a LOT, sometimes 8-10 hours a day. So it breaking down in a year probably meant I had over 2000 hours of use on it. After that point though the cassettes stick and don't playback the recordings anymore. I think it's time for me to upgrade to a digital recorder so I can upload my recordings onto my computer.