[HN Gopher] Intro to cassette recorder operation, maintenance, a...
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Intro to cassette recorder operation, maintenance, and repair
Author : Jerry2
Score : 57 points
Date : 2021-10-27 07:24 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.instructables.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.instructables.com)
| jhallenworld wrote:
| On belts: don't bother with the cheap ones on Amazon (30 belts
| for $5). Trust me, they are terrible. They are not uniform
| thickness so you end up with terrible wow.
|
| I had good luck here:
|
| https://www.ceitron.com/
|
| https://www.ceitron.com/passive/belt.html
|
| (Look up the store in Dayton, it even looks like a classic mom
| and pop electronics store).
|
| One more hint: if you have a belt that slips off a pulley, most
| likely reason is that the pulley axes are not parallel with each
| other, and probably nothing to do with tension.
| fooblat wrote:
| This hobby is especially fun if you know someone else who is into
| it you can trade mix tapes with. I got hooked after I picked up a
| deck for $5 at a flea market. All it needed was a good cleaning.
| Since then I've picked up 3 more decks.
|
| I'm confident that a tape made and played on a high end deck in
| good condition is for most people indistinguishable from any
| other source playing on the same speakers.
| klodolph wrote:
| I'll say that you probably shouldn't be into cassettes these days
| if you aren't interested in learning how to do basic maintenance
| yourself (cleaning capstans and the like). You can pick up a tape
| deck on eBay or find one on the street, so it might seem like
| it's not so big a deal if they fail, but without an understanding
| of how easily they fail, the amount of money / time / storage
| space you spend on them can rapidly outstrip the amount of
| enjoyment / nostalgia you get from using them.
|
| Both tapes and tape players can be in poor condition. If you
| stick a dirty tape into some old tape player, you can end up with
| gummed-up capstans, which can snag the tape and destroy it... and
| then you may have no idea how to remove the tape without damaging
| the tape player. You'll suddenly be evaluating your hobby and
| wondering if you want to buy a new one or try to rescue the one
| you damaged. Or you might have a dirty head, which scratches the
| tape, and you might not figure it out and ruin some perfectly
| good tapes.
|
| Long ago I remember seeing a guide much like this for VCR repair.
| Although it had fewer images, it had much more text. I haven't
| been able to find it since.
| 323 wrote:
| > I'll say that you probably shouldn't be into cassettes these
| days if you aren't interested in learning how to do basic
| maintenance yourself
|
| Or you can buy a modern cassette player (USB output, ...):
|
| https://www.thomann.de/gb/tascam_202_mkviii.htm
| klodolph wrote:
| Even though you can buy it new, you will still have to do
| maintenance. A clean capstan will become a dirty capstan.
| $600 is also quite expensive. For that much money, I can
| easily get a working reel-to-reel tape machine, plus a supply
| of media.
| ghaff wrote:
| Funnily enough, I have a SAMS book on VCR troubleshooting and
| repair on my bookshelf right next to me. Reminds me I need to
| finish digitizing a handful of tapes before I retire my deck.
|
| (Interestingly, used VCR troubleshooting books are scarce on
| Amazon. I would assume this is the kind of book where people go
| "No one wants this outdated crap" and just throws it out rather
| than pushing it into whatever the used book resell channel
| looks like.)
| betamaxthetape wrote:
| I'm impressed at the level of detail in this guide, and have
| bookmarked it for when I (eventually) get round to fixing my
| decks (one with an electrical issue affecting the left channel,
| one with mechanical issues, and several more with just general
| "issues" that will need to be diagnosed before any repair can be
| carried out!)
| vanadium wrote:
| Pretty timely as I'm hunting down an old (practically
| bulletproof) Sony TC-D5M field recorder for my system here and
| want to know what I'm getting into since there are some known
| issues that crop up in due time. I already restore old videogame
| consoles and try to do my own stunts in repairing and maintaining
| what I've got, so this is really helpful.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| If you want to save money, go for Marantz PMD430 or one of the
| mono ones if that's OK for you:
|
| https://www.fullcompass.com/common/files/2039-PMDRecordersDa...
|
| I recently bought a PMD221 as a high-end data cassette
| recorder/player. I was having trouble transferring zx-spectrum
| games onto cassette using a cheap recorder, but PMD221 works
| great.
| easton_s wrote:
| I was hoping for a new episode of Community...
| LaputanMachine wrote:
| > The smoothing out is done by the elasticity of the belt which
| provides mechanical isolation and by a flywheel. With the
| exception of one esoteric Eumig brand deck, all cassette decks
| have flywheels.
|
| I just had to look this up. Interestingly the Eumig tape deck
| used a small mechanical fan to dampen the tape movement. The
| white fan can be seen in the third and fourth pictures on this
| site:
|
| http://www.captndifool.de/index.php/cassettendecks/eumig/eum...
| bluedino wrote:
| ThisDoesNotCompute is a great YouTube channel for cassette player
| repairs (and repair attempts)
| davesque wrote:
| I remember when compact discs came out, in a way it felt like a
| downgrade from cassette tapes. Tapes were smaller, more durable,
| cheaper, record-able (CDs fixed this later but it took a while),
| and didn't skip when you played them while moving or jogging. The
| sound was perhaps a bit lower quality but it didn't stand out
| significantly IMHO. CDs were definitely cool. But the gadget
| factor was pretty heavy in their value proposition. I guess the
| other part of the value prop with CDs was that they eventually
| also became useful as a digital storage medium for PCs. But it
| felt almost like the economics ended up forcing them on
| audiophiles.
| tpmx wrote:
| My reaction back then (late 80s) was pretty much the opposite
| of yours.
|
| To me CDs were the promise of clean digital noiseless audio,
| without needing to go through the expensive hifi jungle to find
| something that sounded decent. I welcomed it with open arms. It
| felt like a way of democratising high quality sound.
|
| I was super excited because it allowed me to experience music
| in a much better way.
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(page generated 2021-10-27 23:01 UTC)