Best Sanyo for high quality transfer?
 

After a lot of experimentation and piecing together memories, it's pretty clear that many of my most problematic tapes were recorded on a Sanyo (it's the only brand they even play on at the proper speed), but all the Sanyos I've come across are pretty simplistic "minimal feature" models. Did Sanyo have a top model with all the bells and whistles? Something equivalent or close to Panasonic's AG-1980 with onboard TBC, image sharpening, etc?

I don't think you would solve the problem by buying a sanyo vcr.

They made these but they're probably rare, expensive, and since it's a pro deck, may be SP only.

Seems they have had one or more other SVHS decks released in the west as well, but probably even rarer.

If a Sanyo is really the only alternative for the tapes, maybe a slightly newer 4 head/Hi-Fi Sanyo (but not so new that it's just a rebadge of something else) + a DVDR for line TBC may be the best bet. Some of their Euro decks had a ASO chip/feature which was a bit like the BEST/Video calibration feature in JVCs but real-time, not sure if that was featured on any US models though.

There is no "best" Sanyo.

Sanyo made nothing after the 1980s, rebadging low-end junk from unknown Asian manufacturers in the 90s until the end for VHS deck. I actually remember very few Sanyos in the 90s.

The above mentioned S-VHS decks are old (early 90s, infancy of the format), pre-dating anything you found in mid/late 90s and 00s S-VHS decks, namely TBC, but also image filters and DNR. The few praises I ever saw of the unit was from people testing retail tapes, which isn't really a performance test at all. All of this is trivia to the post, does not address your issue.

You probably simply have misaligned tapes, from what I'm reading. All that takes is to misalign a deck to match. Or send it to somebody like me that can misalign decks for proper transfer.

Describe the actual problems, or better yet start a new thread that shows the problems, and ask for feedback on what the issue may be.