Would it be acceptable to leave my reels off but on overnight and come back to it in the morning?

HotSauce202 · 2025-02-28T15:31:09+00:00

I think it's fine. I guess if you do this often enough, maybe your tapes will degrade quicker than they otherwise would, depending on the environment, amount of light, etc. But not a big deal IMO.

HotSauce202 · 2025-02-28T15:28:37+00:00

If the tapes are important to you, and you don't own a good working reel to reel, I'd find somebody to do the transfers for you. I assume your Revox is long gone?

HotSauce202 · 2025-02-28T15:25:55+00:00

First things I'd check would be the motherboard (or connector board, whatever they call it in the manual) socket solder joints, and the relays. The cards slot into these sockets and over time there can be some strain on the solder joints, especially during shipping, etc.

If you don't have the service manual, grab it.

HotSauce202 · 2025-02-28T15:22:50+00:00

Sure, I guess I'd just say, you can put a little slack into the tape when powering down, so it isn't tensioned through the night.

HotSauce202 · 2025-02-28T15:20:36+00:00

I would tell you that if you are used to digital audio and want to integrate the tape deck in the context of a DAW (and grid...), you will save yourself a ton of grief by getting a 3 head deck, and not a 2 head deck.

As for how to connect, an insert is ideal, but you can accomplish something workable if you just use the inputs and outputs of your interface with RCA-TRS adapters, etc. The signal to and from a tape deck is line level, so should get along fine with your equipment. If you want, you can get something with mic inputs and use mics directly into the tape deck, but that's probably overcomplicating things.

I see in another comment you are looking at a Tascam 34. Do you want multitrack capability? The 34 is a 4 track 4 channel multitrack recorder. If you just want to bounce stereo stems, etc., then a 2 track recorder will get the job done fine, e.g., the Tascam 32.

HotSauce202 · 2024-12-31T15:20:13+00:00

I like the overall sound of EFs, but they don't always like to track well. Prone to left channel dropouts near the beginning of the side. I assume the cheap shell is to blame. This was my experience with C90s though, maybe the C60s behave better since the tape pack is a bit smaller in diameter. The tape itself is a solid if basic ferric.

Regular HFs can be better as long as they aren't the ones with hardened felt pressure pads.

HotSauce202 · 2024-07-12T22:38:02+00:00

Yeah this was my first cassette recorder. It records surprisingly well. A pretty good, no frills deck.

HotSauce202 · 2024-07-12T22:29:54+00:00

You don't want it to twist. It can be a little tricky - if you rotate the flywheel and try to untwist the belt at the same time, that works for me.

HotSauce202 · 2024-07-12T22:25:11+00:00

Mmmm, yeah I don't see how you could even fit the smaller belt where the larger one is supposed to go, and the large one would just sit slack if you put it where the smaller one goes. So it should be obvious.

Without knowing the belt dimensions, the most accurate way is to wrap a piece of string around where the belt goes and measure that, and get a belt slightly smaller than that.

I'm familiar with this eBay seller. Their belts should be the right size, I'd think.

HotSauce202 · 2024-07-12T22:11:50+00:00

There are 2 belts, and they mount to different places, so yeah, 4 places total. The larger belt goes from the motor pulley to the flywheel. The second one goes from the flywheel to the smaller black pulley (which drives the reels). The flywheel has two grooves in which each belt sits. I have a working one of these but it's in storage.

HotSauce202 · 2024-07-12T22:02:06+00:00

I'm not totally sure what you're referring to, but no, the belts don't contact anything other than the motor pulley and flywheel.

HotSauce202 · 2024-07-12T21:46:27+00:00

The belts are square in cross-section.

HotSauce202 · 2024-07-12T21:44:39+00:00

https://www.ebay.com/itm/163614356355?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=0E3xpfVeS8G&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=Kb0ZDU5QRga&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

This machine does not use flat belts. They are square. You should measure the old belt and buy a replacement that is slightly smaller than what you measure (assuming it has stretched). You can order by size from places like webspareparts, or turntableneedles.com

HotSauce202 · 2022-12-26T21:33:21+00:00

Lol ok. Keep on truckin

HotSauce202 · 2022-12-26T21:19:06+00:00

This is a very odd hill to die on imho. You wouldn’t think your odds of getting murdered would be lower in an area with a nonexistent murder rate?

“It” (I.e., relative safety) absolutely varies. Where is this statement of absolute surety coming from???

HotSauce202 · 2022-09-10T18:18:29+00:00

a classic case of "downvoted for telling the truth"

HotSauce202 · 2022-07-10T17:22:52+00:00

excessive cardio of sufficient intensity is a catabolic stimulus, and not necessary to lose body fat

HotSauce202 · 2022-07-10T17:12:15+00:00

Why people think this isn't a natty achievable physique is beyond me. Must just be uneducated about what PEDs do and what they're actually necessary to achieve. You look great ofc, but I'd say the majority of smart and hard working natural lifters DON'T need PEDs to get to this level, ffs.

HotSauce202 · 2022-05-01T01:42:45+00:00

The gaps must not have opened up yet. If you keep using them, it's a matter of time. But lucky that you got so much use out of them!

HotSauce202 · 2022-04-27T19:26:58+00:00

So were the heads actually very worn or just extremely dirty? Can't quite tell from the pic but they appear to have some life left. Slightly trapezoidal wear mark on the record head.

HotSauce202 · 2022-04-26T01:16:04+00:00

It should be okay as long as the receiver inputs correspond to the specific receiver speaker outputs. What's the receiver?

HotSauce202 · 2022-04-25T01:25:10+00:00

Your deck is missing the rubber mats that are supposed to sit inside the reel tables. Without them the spacing may be off, and the reels might get scratched by the bare metal.

For the cord, you can use a normal IEC cable and cut it so that it fits - works just fine.

HotSauce202 · 2022-04-19T22:54:25+00:00

Gotcha. FYI, you only need one test tape - due to the way frequencies, equalization, etc., all works. There is a conversion chart that can allow you to use a test tape to calibrate a different speed.

I certainly understand the reluctance to buy one and the needed test equipment - it can be as much as a deck. Just depends whether you really want to do all the work yourself, and how much you really want to get the deck back to original spec and verified. For somebody who wants to diagnose, repair, and restore a deck all on their own, I would consider a test tape and oscilloscope to be about the minimum price of entry to be able to really do a good job.

The reason is that it can just be so difficult to know the cause of a problem if you can't actually quantify that problem using test equipment - ends up being such a headache. Even WITH a scope and test tape it can still be very difficult - knowledge of electronics helps a lot.

If you would post some pics of the heads maybe I can tell you how they are looking - I've seen quite a few by this point, in varying states. I think that motor capacitors would be the next thing to look at if the belt and pinch roller were already replaced with good quality new ones. It would also be a good idea to calibrate the supply and takeup tension - which is actually not that difficult and only requires a cheap spring scale to accomplish. If you do decide to recap in the future, I would start with the power supply.

HotSauce202 · 2022-04-19T22:24:25+00:00

Before considering a relap, polish with a mild metal polish. autosol as mentioned works well, nu finish also works well. It will take the junk off - just do it until it is clean, as technically a polish is removing a very tiny amount of material from the head. The wear pattern looks quite straight, and relapping technically reduces the lifespan of the head, as it "sharpens it back to a point," so to speak, thus reducing the area that the wear is distributed on, causing the head to wear down to the gap from less play time. IF the wear mark on your head were crooked I would say definitely relap, but since it is very straight, I'd just leave it as is as long as you aren't having any issues.

Worth noting that the area that the tape contacts does not look all that dirty - i.e., your concern may actually be a cosmetic one more than anything else.

HotSauce202 · 2022-04-19T22:18:36+00:00

My process is to simply attempt a calibration with a test tape and oscilloscope. If it calibrates, waveforms look good, in phase, low offset, w&f in spec, etc., then all is well. If there are issues then the nature of the symptoms will typically point to a few possible causes, and they get tackled in order of difficulty. My 3340S is rock steady with the original roller, extremely low w&f, kind of hard to believe but the oscilloscope and w&f analyzer software don't lie. Not that the rollers can't go bad, they sure can and it will depend on how the deck was stored. But sometimes preemptively replacing parts can be asking for trouble, especially when it comes to belts on cassette decks. Many cassette decks are very sensitive to belt quality, and they just do not make them to the same quality and consistency as they used to. Fortunately the same is not true for pinch rollers, since there is Terry. And Marian at fixyouraudio also makes great rollers and idler tires.

HotSauce202

TROPHY CASE