General tape / cassette talk here.

Moderators: lazyben, static14, texasvinyl

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By maxlevel
#109508
Mateo Sanboval wrote:
maxlevel wrote:I’ve always loved Endtroducing for this reason
One of the greatest albums of our lifetime.
Try getting it on tape! Hahah no chance gringo
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By Mateo Sanboval
#109513
maxlevel wrote:
Mateo Sanboval wrote:
maxlevel wrote:I’ve always loved Endtroducing for this reason
One of the greatest albums of our lifetime.
Try getting it on tape! Hahah no chance gringo
I honestly never tried. I love having it on LP. Seen Shadow a handful of times and it's always a bit of a revelation to see him mixing on the fly. He's a true wizard.
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By maxlevel
#111292
Been having an adventure in the last few weeks! In the post this morning, Panasonic rx-sa79 for £15. Arrived just now, looks in fantastic condition.

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I’ve had a run of bargain finds. 2x wm-2 for £15, 2 Panasonic for £15 and 2 basic wm-dd for £30 each. Im not happy with the DD, I should have held my powder... I was so annoyed I went for a Japanese dd100 boodokhan. Which I’m too scared to touch.

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By maxlevel
#111307
@inksby that Panasonic pictured just went in the bin. I pulled it apart in a rage, still couldn’t find what the issue was and snapped the ribbon for the playback head. Such a shame, but I can’t stand having shit that dosnt work or can’t be fixed. It’s just taking up room on this planet, it should be melted down and made into something useful.
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By Bezulsqy
#111668
maxlevel wrote:Holy shit. New levels of awesomeness - ray samuels Tomahawk mini headphone amp

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Love you placed them on your Waxwork sub notepad....
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By maxlevel
#111733
@bez Someone at work told me all my photos were shit, so I’ve been trying to think about them a bit more, use more colours and ideas

This arrived this morning: Image

It sounds pretty great for a non Dolby unit, it drives my headphones nicely but it’s a bit hissy as a consequence.
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By maxlevel
#111888
Bought two aiwa PX this week! Pics to follow

Edit: pair of aiwas. One is totally fucked, the other is quiet in one ear... mystery

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By inksb
#113611
I found this in storage at work today. It was covered in thick layer of dust. I cleaned up the outside. I'll clean the heads tomorrow and test it out to see if the tape deck still works. Surprisingly it had batteries in it and it turned on. It'd be kind of neat to have a tape deck at work.

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By inksb
#113767
I'll find out today. I brought in a few "junk" tapes and some alcohol to clean the heads. I'll keep you updated :)
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By inksb
#113769
It works just fine. I don't think a single tape has ever been played on this thing. The head was crystal clear, no gunk or build up on the roller. This seems to have been used just for the radio. Sound quality isn't great, it's low end is muffled and the highs are thin but hey I have a working tape deck at work if I feel like bringing in something to listen to.

No auto-reverse
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By maxlevel
#115021
Message for @scojo about dirt cheap muktitracks - this one is £15 if you make an offer. It looks like the play heads have the same tension issue as my one. Take the front off, turn the flywheel with a cotton swap and the heads will reset. If the belts are actually gone then that might cost £25 for a pack. Then, power wise the polarity is negative at the power socket and this isn’t obvious but are freely available from wherever. My one has a switch to change it.

Then clean and replace front. It’s like 6 screws. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 3129724211
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By maxlevel
#115540
So I picked this beaut up for £7 on friday, technics SL K6. Door jammed, deck bulb gone, radio broken - last night got the bulbs going, the radio loud n crispy and the door works fine. Waiting for new belts. What surprised me was how much string is involved, it’s all over the place and runs the length of the unit and back just for the radio dial tuner!

It weighs a ton but potentially can stimulate human sensations such as love, thoughtfulness and degrees of violence

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By Bezulsqy
#115544
maxlevel wrote:So I picked this beaut up for £7 on friday, technics SL K6. Door jammed, deck bulb gone, radio broken - last night got the bulbs going, the radio loud n crispy and the door works fine. Waiting for new belts. What surprised me was how much string is involved, it’s all over the place and runs the length of the unit and back just for the radio dial tuner!

It weighs a ton but potentially can stimulate human sensations such as love, thoughtfulness and degrees of violence

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Love it, @Max !
Keep at it!
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By inksb
#115549
My JVC amp has the same thing going on with the string. It's crazy how much there is for it.
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By maxlevel
#116598
So I was gifted this ex-194 over the weekend. It was sitting on the floor of a shed for ten years, which is where most of these probably now reside. But, it’s actually a really nice, basic, well made Sony walkman and I can definitely recommend it to someone who has no budget - it’s nearly totally plastic, it feels cheap but the guts are still working perfectly after living outside-ish for most of its recent life. The head, the rollers and metal plates are all intact, and you get 25 hours from 2aa which is a lot better than many higher end/higher featured models. It’s really well made, and if you’re inclined it only has one belt to change.

The mega bass is also excellent. There’s a limiter on the top to protect your shells too.

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Edit: tried some chrome tapes with this, does not like those one little bit. Type 1 only!
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By maxlevel
#116647
So I sent away my favourite Walkman for a proper service in November and finally got it back today! Holy shit it was worth the wait

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By maxlevel
#116654
The shell design is first rate, but the playback quality is also very high. The DOL feature is basically megabass before it became standard, using a dynamic EQ. The Panasonic shown above has a fixed bass EQ which is really good, like the fixed EQ you see on the front of many walkmans with a slider only with just On and Off switch. these both came out around the same time so technically pretty advanced for 1987. The difference between fixed and dynamic just allows the circuit to increase gain without flattening the whole playback, so the bass remains punchy.

The playback here is also rock solid now that the centre gear has been replaced. It’s only drawback is lack of auto reverse which Sony had in other models, but the space saving allows for a great headphone amp and high end circuitry which you don’t get in a lot of auto reverse models especially the EX series which can play for weeks on a single AA but can’t power any headphones larger than a fingernail! It also has a metal and chrome bias switch which you don’t get everywhere, and it has basic Dolby NR. The DC2 has Dolby C, that unit is closer to the D6C or D3 series. But I never use C anyway, hardly use Dolby as I try and avoid cheap tapes. For example That’s VX-90 you dont have hiss, so why use Dolby? It just takes away the highs if your recording is good enough.
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By Mateo Sanboval
#116797
maxlevel wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2019 5:15 pm The DC2 has Dolby C, that unit is closer to the D6C or D3 series. But I never use C anyway, hardly use Dolby as I try and avoid cheap tapes. For example That’s VX-90 you dont have hiss, so why use Dolby? It just takes away the highs if your recording is good enough.
Exactly why I own a D6 and not a D6C.
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