Sony Tapedeck As Preamp, using the preamp of a good quality Sony tapedeck Options

[sunriseforall]

Hi
I have a sony condenser mic which I use for years with good results; I used to plug it directly into a portzble DAT recorder which had mic inputs and the sound was great. Now since the unit died I purchased an old Panasonic DAT ,sv3500 which works great but... no mic inputs only line in. So starts the search for a preamp: costly and laborious venture, so I tried to plug the mic into an old Sony TC-D5M cassette-corder (was pro quality then with "mic in") and feed its line out into the DAT line in... the result soounds very good to me the sound is extremely defined and no background noise; so should I use that or am I missing totally the point. Is it not that those old pro equipment can have incorporated inside very good elements...
Thanks for comments