Thank you Naresh. In order to check the contacts of the motor, I need to further open the case of this tank built cassette deck.
But the idea is good by itself.
Without a cassette, and by pressing the upper sensing contacts (with a finger, to simmulate a cassette) the take up spindles rotates quite rapidly, and you can use the other finger to simulate a take up hub of a cassette. The clutch is working fine. But then when playing the cassette itself, and this happens randomly, usually not at the beginning, but thru the middle of the cassette tape, you can see the take up spindle suddenly stops, and then the machine detects that stop, and cuts the play (to protect the tape). Its like the motor does not receive current or similar. This is usually restored by turning off the deck, waiting a few seconds, then turning it on again.
When this thing happens, nothing works. Neither fast forwind or rewind, play, pause etc. You need to shut down and then on again the machine, to restore these functions. It looks more of a controls logic than a problem with the motor. But I will check with a multi tester, to see what is happening with the take up spindle's motor.
If there is a relay in the circuit controlling the supply to the motor, it may have poor contacts, or the relay control circuit may be bad.
Take a look at the schematic, as you say only a reset by cutting out and restoring power works.
And some of the ICs may be difficult to replace, may be obsolete.
Look for bad electrolytics, and dirty contacts first, and also in the power supply to the logic section.
I had that problem in a dot matrix printer, would stop in the middle, restart, then resume printing (with missing print data), turned out bad 220uF/35V from Samhwa, the other two were Keltron, putting a new Keltron worked. This happened after 15 years, so I am not complaining, but just telling you this happens, and the cap looked okay, no bulge or leak.
And be careful, a lot of those parts are difficult to find.
Take a look at the schematic, as you say only a reset by cutting out and restoring power works.
And some of the ICs may be difficult to replace, may be obsolete.
Look for bad electrolytics, and dirty contacts first, and also in the power supply to the logic section.
I had that problem in a dot matrix printer, would stop in the middle, restart, then resume printing (with missing print data), turned out bad 220uF/35V from Samhwa, the other two were Keltron, putting a new Keltron worked. This happened after 15 years, so I am not complaining, but just telling you this happens, and the cap looked okay, no bulge or leak.
And be careful, a lot of those parts are difficult to find.
Thank you Naresh. I will see what I find out.
I have this machine from ebay for a few months now. It looked in great condition, but it was sold to me with this condition.
I have this machine from ebay for a few months now. It looked in great condition, but it was sold to me with this condition.
I'm not familiar with that deck but reel motors in general can be problematic suffering from worn/dirty commutators which cause intermittent operation or randomly low torque. Solder some wires to the motor and bring them outside the deck and leave a DVM connected to see what the supply does.
Worn out motor brushes, bad capacitors, dried lubrication, just name a scenario. Since this is a closed loop dual capstan deck though, it can have a melted or loose back tension belt. Maybe a tension sense mechanism stops it at a point not to chew tape.
What would be in your view the best 5...10 transports you found...most reliable , good w&f.
I'd trade some w&f for reliability though...I have two pioneer transports with 0.02 w&f and none of them works well due to some worn idlers...
I'd trade some w&f for reliability though...I have two pioneer transports with 0.02 w&f and none of them works well due to some worn idlers...
For me the Revox DD mech, then the Alpage DD, the Akai DD, the Sankyo DD, the Sony DD.
I found good idler tires I put in a couple of Naks there. If you contact them with the diameter & width measurements maybe there's a fitting tire they can provide for your Pioneer mechs too.
I found good idler tires I put in a couple of Naks there. If you contact them with the diameter & width measurements maybe there's a fitting tire they can provide for your Pioneer mechs too.
There exist solid tyres, for example used for fork lift trucks...
Means rim and wear part are different material, basically
Means rim and wear part are different material, basically
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Tire/Tyre was once the iron band around a wooden wheel.
If anyone can instill some guilt in me for why every good yet noisy prerecorded cassette I have sounds so much pleasant on a poor walkman than its noiseless youtube version I quit audio forever cause it looks like anything audio would do for me as long as the music is good...
Total tapehead here. (I'm ChrisNAK over on tapeheads.net)
I grew up with cassettes in the 80's in an era of taping my favourite The Fall sessions from John Peel's Radio1 show and borrowing mates' Pink Floyd albums to bootleg onto tape. Sigh, happy days.
That sort of nostalgia rekindled my interest in tape about 10 years ago when I dug out my John Peel tapes and listened to them on the last deck I bought back in the 90's; a Yamaha KX580SE. They still sounded fantastic and the Yammy played them perfectly. A real time-capsule opening moment!
This led me down a slippery path towards 'investing' (well that's how I justified it) in various decks, walkmans and NOS cassettes and is a hobby that is both totally enjoyable and keeps me interested/busy learning how to repair, refurbish and maintain various cassette decks.
I was lucky enough to have 3 Nakamichi Dragons on the bench until recently. 'failure-anxiety' got the better of me (those things are EXPENSIVE to repair) so 2 were offloaded and I kept the first one I bought which is a mid-term production run example in pristine condition and last serviced in 2017. Hoping it doesn't go koff-wheeze on me during my ownership but it's a joy and an occasion everytime I use it.
I have quite a few portable cassette devices including models in the Sony 'Professional' range - D3, D6, D6C, TC-D5m's and my absolute favourite is the TC-D5M as it sounds incredible and is built like a tank, even though it's not the most portable of portable devices! 😆
A few piccies of my little collection.
Score of a lifetime!
3 Dragons. Who really needs more than 1 Dragon??
Portable sound comaprison test on the bench.
Result = they all sound great! 🤔🤣
Favourite 'portable' tape device; the vox-pop journo's favourite - Sony TC-D5M. The one in the foreground was a beautiful score - no marks or signs of use anywhere and still played flawlessly after languishing in a box for 30 years!
Current bench stack
The latest acquisition - A lovely Sony D6. Needed some fettling to bring it back into spec, but now sounds epic, better even than the D6C which came later. Contentious claim amongst Walkman afficionados, but true! 🤔
I grew up with cassettes in the 80's in an era of taping my favourite The Fall sessions from John Peel's Radio1 show and borrowing mates' Pink Floyd albums to bootleg onto tape. Sigh, happy days.
That sort of nostalgia rekindled my interest in tape about 10 years ago when I dug out my John Peel tapes and listened to them on the last deck I bought back in the 90's; a Yamaha KX580SE. They still sounded fantastic and the Yammy played them perfectly. A real time-capsule opening moment!
This led me down a slippery path towards 'investing' (well that's how I justified it) in various decks, walkmans and NOS cassettes and is a hobby that is both totally enjoyable and keeps me interested/busy learning how to repair, refurbish and maintain various cassette decks.
I was lucky enough to have 3 Nakamichi Dragons on the bench until recently. 'failure-anxiety' got the better of me (those things are EXPENSIVE to repair) so 2 were offloaded and I kept the first one I bought which is a mid-term production run example in pristine condition and last serviced in 2017. Hoping it doesn't go koff-wheeze on me during my ownership but it's a joy and an occasion everytime I use it.
I have quite a few portable cassette devices including models in the Sony 'Professional' range - D3, D6, D6C, TC-D5m's and my absolute favourite is the TC-D5M as it sounds incredible and is built like a tank, even though it's not the most portable of portable devices! 😆
A few piccies of my little collection.
Score of a lifetime!
3 Dragons. Who really needs more than 1 Dragon??
Portable sound comaprison test on the bench.
Result = they all sound great! 🤔🤣
Favourite 'portable' tape device; the vox-pop journo's favourite - Sony TC-D5M. The one in the foreground was a beautiful score - no marks or signs of use anywhere and still played flawlessly after languishing in a box for 30 years!
Current bench stack
The latest acquisition - A lovely Sony D6. Needed some fettling to bring it back into spec, but now sounds epic, better even than the D6C which came later. Contentious claim amongst Walkman afficionados, but true! 🤔
@Triodos Which one of your cassette decks you like the most?
The Nak is a proper Nak even if two head. Their same line models had very alike circuitry and parts. Your AKAI is very nice with Hitachi Dolby chips and a straightforward enough signal path. Being DD dual capstan is cool even if not Quartz.
Your DD Quartz single capstan Technics is also nice. Better its not a dual capstan because more reliable than their TOTL dual capstan RS-BX965 which is known for mechanical troubles. The dbx NR is an extra feature I enjoy in that bigger model though. A friend has one and its dbx recordings also play 100% compatible on an AIWA Excelia XK-009. In my experience dbx renders more impressive impact and dynamics than any Dolby. Even Dolby S.
Its a pity both the AKAI GX-6 and the Technics RS-BX626 miss rec level Cal oscillators in case you want to record with NR fully properly on any tape in hand.
For DAT I used to also have a SONY 55ES like yours but with wooden side panels. I bought it in the UK in 1991. Very good performance from the machine itself but I was disappointed to find out that my DAT tapes could develop few dropouts with use. Especially after re-recording on them. I eventually sold it in mint condition and later bought a portable MiniDisc and a double CD Recorder deck. Both SONY.
The Nak is a proper Nak even if two head. Their same line models had very alike circuitry and parts. Your AKAI is very nice with Hitachi Dolby chips and a straightforward enough signal path. Being DD dual capstan is cool even if not Quartz.
Your DD Quartz single capstan Technics is also nice. Better its not a dual capstan because more reliable than their TOTL dual capstan RS-BX965 which is known for mechanical troubles. The dbx NR is an extra feature I enjoy in that bigger model though. A friend has one and its dbx recordings also play 100% compatible on an AIWA Excelia XK-009. In my experience dbx renders more impressive impact and dynamics than any Dolby. Even Dolby S.
Its a pity both the AKAI GX-6 and the Technics RS-BX626 miss rec level Cal oscillators in case you want to record with NR fully properly on any tape in hand.
For DAT I used to also have a SONY 55ES like yours but with wooden side panels. I bought it in the UK in 1991. Very good performance from the machine itself but I was disappointed to find out that my DAT tapes could develop few dropouts with use. Especially after re-recording on them. I eventually sold it in mint condition and later bought a portable MiniDisc and a double CD Recorder deck. Both SONY.
Thanks for reply 🙂
I bought Nakamichi CR-2E not so long ago and it is working but ... not always 🙂 Sometimes cassettes stuck inside. So I do not use it with any of my good tapes - just waiting for a time to take a look into mechanism (I know what is wrong - just cleaning and new grease needed and new belt). Maybe replacing capacitors.
So I cannot say more about the sound. But for sure silent mechanism is a great thing. I love how it works (when it works ofc).
I have Technics RS-BX626 from the beginning in 1993 - I'm connected with it emotionally and I was more than happy how it performed those days.
Even today, after so many years without any single maintenance, it works fine and I like how it sounds. I have many tapes recorded on it, but almost all in Dolby C and today's worn tape heads make it pain.
Now it needs more attention - microswitches from front panel are going crazy, probably tape head should be replaced and pinch roller.
I have no idea how to find new tape head for it, so probably it will stay as it is, sadly 🙁
That pushed me this year to search for some company for my old Technics and I bought AKAI and Nakamichi.
And about AKAI GX-6 - it plays very often - glass tape heads are in great condition, I took a lot of care for mechanism last month - now it works very smoothly, quietly, just lovely 🙂 Motorized loading/unloading tape is not very useful but it gives that last detail that is strongly missing in the two previous my decks.
I like the sound of this AKAI, there is nothing to complain about. I just started to collect some service tapes to calibrate all of my analog decks.
I suspect that during the calibration process I will discover some minor problems and probably there will be needed replacing capacitors.
So now I don't do any critical listening on any of them - I'm just celebrating manual manipulation with them and all tapes I have (still buying NOS tapes or used).
Even that hiss between tracks is not annoying me at all nowadays, I'm using Quad ESL-63 and some Stax headphones and it is great fun and music experience.
I have for years my SONY DTC-55ES and I like how it performed, but last year it started to show many dropout - probably tape head amp needs attention ,maybe old caps need replacing, maybe something more.
But I like it, for a nice working mechanism, nice display, I have also wooden side panels for it, but others machines doesn't, so I decided not to use them with 55ES. I was using it to record some vinyls with success.
You are absolutely right about thing that I miss so much with my analog decks - it is calibration feature - I do not even want any automatic - just simply generators could do the job.
I hope I will have an opportunity to find some good decks with that function.
I dream about some Nakamichi with NAAC 🙂
As I wrote before - it is my return to tape decks after 30 years - so I have to take care about my current collection, that is really, really nice hobby 🙂
Something good for that coming cold winter (I mean really cold with lowered heating possibilities in my country, unfortunately).
Sometimes performance loss is just about stubborn dirt or simply a head alignment issue, but sometimes it's really worn.
The head can be inspected even with a USB microscope. If there is a groove formed by tape on the metal surface, if the magnetic gap area is pitted or oxidized. In some cases this is not necessarily the end, there is still restoration potential through relapping.
For service tapes use nothing else than full track recorded ones.
The head can be inspected even with a USB microscope. If there is a groove formed by tape on the metal surface, if the magnetic gap area is pitted or oxidized. In some cases this is not necessarily the end, there is still restoration potential through relapping.
For service tapes use nothing else than full track recorded ones.