Want another cassette deck...heart set on a Yamaha K1000...

[highfigh]

You can only measure the FR of a reel to reel machine at 0 db. running at 15 ips or higher. Everything else is -20db because of tape saturation. That is why you never make a professional tape recording at less the 15 ips. So yes, that means only good machines running at 15 ips or higher have an FR out to 20 KHz at 0 db. modulation.

In addition the tapes to make the FR are produced and certified by the National Magnetic Reference Laboratory. They make the reference tapes, which cost a fortune. Only the 30 ips. and 15 ips. tapes are recorded at 0 reference db. ALL the rest are -20 db. I still have mine.

This thread isn't about open reel.

 

[TLS Guy]

This thread isn't about open reel.

I know that. But the point of my post is to inform which tape machines have FR measured at 0 db., and which ones at -20db. The take home is that ALL cassette decks have their FR measured at -20 db. The next point was to point out the relationship of FR, tape speed and tape saturation. There is no tape that won't saturate before 20 KHz at 0 db. if the tape speed is less than 15 ips.

 

[highfigh]

I know that. But the point of my post is to inform which tape machines have FR measured at 0 db., and which ones at -20db. The take home is that ALL cassette decks have their FR measured at -20 db. The next point was to point out the relationship of FR, tape speed and tape saturation. There is no tape that won't saturate before 20 KHz at 0 db. if the tape speed is less than 15 ips.

I think I covered the reference level for cassette, although I'm sure someone would have eventually held up 8 Track as a viable medium.

Right- slow tape speed is the case against trying to achieve great fidelity in a small package- the shell can't hold enough tape to use tape of sufficient thickness to allow higher speed.

Back when cassette recorders were still very popular, people would ask why the specs showed -20dB- I told them that it's similar to a conveyor with shallow trays that are being filled with sand as they passed a spout. The flow rate of the sand is the recording level, the depth of the trays is the capacity of the tape to handle the signal and the speed of the conveyor equates to the tape speed- if the conveyor is too slow, the sand will overflow and if the trays aren't completely filled, there's still a bit of headroom.

Cassettes were never intended to be a high fidelity medium, they were always meant to be convenient.

Do you remember these?-

Sony EL-7 on thevintageknob.org

vintage Sony 3-head ELCASET recorder - the best

www.thevintageknob.org

 

[TLS Guy]

I think I covered the reference level for cassette, although I'm sure someone would have eventually held up 8 Track as a viable medium.

Right- slow tape speed is the case against trying to achieve great fidelity in a small package- the shell can't hold enough tape to use tape of sufficient thickness to allow higher speed.

Back when cassette recorders were still very popular, people would ask why the specs showed -20dB- I told them that it's similar to a conveyor with shallow trays that are being filled with sand as they passed a spout. The flow rate of the sand is the recording level, the depth of the trays is the capacity of the tape to handle the signal and the speed of the conveyor equates to the tape speed- if the conveyor is too slow, the sand will overflow and if the trays aren't completely filled, there's still a bit of headroom.

Cassettes were never intended to be a high fidelity medium, they were always meant to be convenient.

Do you remember these?-

Sony EL-7 on thevintageknob.org

vintage Sony 3-head ELCASET recorder - the best

www.thevintageknob.org

Yes, I do remember them, but never owned one. The standard cassette established itself as the consumer tape format. I essentially only used the cassette player to produce cassettes for public distribution. For my own use, it was either disc or reel to reel. I think the amazing thing is that tape formulations made the cassette recorder sound as good as it did, but it always remained inferior to disc and reel to reel.

 

[highfigh]

Yes, I do remember them, but never owned one. The standard cassette established itself as the consumer tape format. I essentially only used the cassette player to produce cassettes for public distribution. For my own use, it was either disc or reel to reel. I think the amazing thing is that tape formulations made the cassette recorder sound as good as it did, but it always remained inferior to disc and reel to reel.

It wasn't for critical listening but if someone spent enough, it was pretty good. I never saw it as a great format, but you should have heard the way people were adamant about their tapes sounding better than the record. Some used a graphic equalizer to 'make the tapes sound better in the car', yet they were using a cheap car stereo that couldn't produce decent sound on a good day. Then, they forgot about the fact that those tapes wouldn't sound right through ANY other system.

OTOH, you would have been amazed by the speakers that were popular in the low-middle price ranges- absolutely terrible.

 

[TLS Guy]

It wasn't for critical listening but if someone spent enough, it was pretty good. I never saw it as a great format, but you should have heard the way people were adamant about their tapes sounding better than the record. Some used a graphic equalizer to 'make the tapes sound better in the car', yet they were using a cheap car stereo that couldn't produce decent sound on a good day. Then, they forgot about the fact that those tapes wouldn't sound right through ANY other system.

OTOH, you would have been amazed by the speakers that were popular in the low-middle price ranges- absolutely terrible.

Those speakers really were awful. The Japanese ones were in general the bottom of the pack. In that era I built quite few speakers for friends. Most of the decent speakers with few exceptions, came from the UK back then. AR, Advent and Infinity tended to be the best of the US speakers back then.

 

[FormerVermonter]

I removed the dust/gunk/fiber/whatever it was from the capstan I mentioned back in post #10. I’d like to find a way to get that capstan back to its original shiny, silver, clean state; to see if the capstan is the reason REW and FF don’t work well. The other capstan is fine. Any comments on the condition of the heads shown here?

 

[TLS Guy]

I removed the dust/gunk/fiber/whatever it was from the capstan I mentioned back in post #10. I’d like to find a way to get that capstan back to its original shiny, silver, clean state; to see if the capstan is the reason REW and FF don’t work well. The other capstan is fine. Any comments on the condition of the heads shown here?

I would cautiously wipe it with Q-tips dipped in xylene.

That capstan I doubt has anything to do with the REW of FF issue. That is almost certainly a belt, or belts, in an advanced state of decay, that need replacing.

You will have to open the unit up to get to the bottom of that problem. Try and see if you can download a service manual.

 

[Eppie]

I removed the dust/gunk/fiber/whatever it was from the capstan I mentioned back in post #10. I’d like to find a way to get that capstan back to its original shiny, silver, clean state; to see if the capstan is the reason REW and FF don’t work well. The other capstan is fine. Any comments on the condition of the heads shown here?

Actually there is only one capstan: the one on the right over the rubber pinch roller. That is what drives the tape. (The exception would be an auto-reverse deck which has two of each, capstan and pinch roller). That dirty pin is just a guide pin which is used to hold the cassette body in alignment. As the tape would run against the surface of the record and playback heads, it would never come into contact with that pin. You can safely clean it and maybe polish it up with 0000 steel wool but it should not affect playback. The head on the left is the erase head which should also be clean and shiny. The black rubber roller can be cleaned and reconditioned with a solution designed for that specific purpose. The best I found was Rubber Magic but I don't think that it's made any mode. Most places carry Rubber Renue now. NOTE: Do not use plastic tip Q-tips with rubber conditioners. Some will dissolve the plastic and contaminate the roller. Always use wooden Q-tips with cleaners.

 

[TLS Guy]

Actually there is only one capstan: the one on the right over the rubber pinch roller. That is what drives the tape. (The exception would be an auto-reverse deck which has two of each, capstan and pinch roller). That dirty pin is just a guide pin which is used to hold the cassette body in alignment. As the tape would run against the surface of the record and playback heads, it would never come into contact with that pin. You can safely clean it and maybe polish it up with 0000 steel wool but it should not affect playback. The head on the left is the erase head which should also be clean and shiny. The black rubber roller can be cleaned and reconditioned with a solution designed for that specific purpose. The best I found was Rubber Magic but I don't think that it's made any mode. Most places carry Rubber Renue now. NOTE: Do not use plastic tip Q-tips with rubber conditioners. Some will dissolve the plastic and contaminate the roller. Always use wooden Q-tips with cleaners.

Actually some unidirectional cassette decks do have two capstans. My TEAC Z2000 is a case in point. There is a capstan either side of the heads. The logic circuit allows the two capstans to keep constant tape tension over the erase, the record and playback heads. In three head decks allowing for off tape monitoring during record, the playback and record heads are in one casing, which is the situation in the TEAC. The reason for the dual capstan arrangement for tape tensioning is to avoid pressure pads to reduce tape wear. So the pressure pad in the cassette is not used in this deck. Later reel to reel decks maintained tension be a reverse torque on the take up spooling motor and a parabolic head layout. These arrangements make a huge contribution to reducing head wear.

I think that Yamaha is a single capstan machine by the look of it, but it does allow off tape monitoring. There is a service manual available on Hi-Fi engine, but I have not downloaded it yet.

 

[highfigh]

Those speakers really were awful. The Japanese ones were in general the bottom of the pack. In that era I built quite few speakers for friends. Most of the decent speakers with few exceptions, came from the UK back then. AR, Advent and Infinity tended to be the best of the US speakers back then.

Some of the worst were sold by the US chain audio retailers and every one of them had at least one brand- Pacific Stereo, Playback Electronics, Lafayette (sometimes referred to as 'Laughalot) Olson Electronics, Schaak Electronics and others had something that made a lot of money for them and allowed them to create packaged systems for people to walk in & buy without needing to go anywhere else. It was a good way make loyal customers and even some of the small dealers found a way to have their own 'house brand' speakers- we had them, sourced from a friend of the store owner and they used decent drivers, but the practice of hiring people who had personal issues didn't do much for the quality. I have a pair of 8" two-way speakers from this era and they have been working for about 40 years.

The US had a lot of oddball speaker builders, too- somewhere, someone always had a 'better idea'- one builder came in to the store with a pair that had cabinets made from thin panels of some kind of stone. Looked OK, didn't sound great. Another small builder was a pair of brothers who were customers at the store where I worked- we had a display that held Phillips and Peerless drivers and they became interested in building. They had the money to buy Leap's software and whatever computer it ran on (probably one of the early PCs) and their results were very good, although very limited in numbers. I think every city had people like this- wanted something they couldn't find, so they made their own.

 

[highfigh]

I removed the dust/gunk/fiber/whatever it was from the capstan I mentioned back in post #10. I’d like to find a way to get that capstan back to its original shiny, silver, clean state; to see if the capstan is the reason REW and FF don’t work well. The other capstan is fine. Any comments on the condition of the heads shown here?

That photo is too small to enlarge- can you save it as a larger file?

If you have a Rockler woodworking store, buy a few of these, in extremely fine grit- they can be found with up to 15,000 grit rating and you do not want to use anything below about 8000 grit, if this is what would be needed.

Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting & Domain Names from Heart Internet

Reseller Hosting, Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers & Domain Names | Heart Internet

www.turnerstoolbox.com

Most substances can be removed using water, oil (including solvents) or acid- don' t use acid for this application. Alcohol (denatured, but don't use it on rubber) is another good cleaner- get the kind without mineral oil (that type is used for massage, not cleaning).

Any time you need to remove a substance and you don't know what it is, start by using water, move to alcohol, then to something like the Xilene.

 

[highfigh]

file:///C:/Users/USER/Downloads/hfe_yamaha_k-1000_service.pdf

 

[Eppie]

I couldn't get that link to work but found the service manual here as well.

@FormerVermonter I had a quick look and that unit does not appear to use a belt for the take up reels. Judging by the diagram on page 4, it has an idler wheel that toggles between the two take up reels. If take up torque is low, you need to use rubber conditioner to clean the idler wheel and also clean the contact surface of the take up reels where the idler wheel runs against them. Remember to be careful with rubber conditioner on plastic. You can test on inconspicuous spot of plastic to see if the conditioner dissolves the plastic, or just avoid it on plastic and use denatured alcohol. If the idler wheel is not visible with the cover off, then the cassette mechanism needs to come out. If you don't have any prior service experience you may need to have an experienced tech look at it.

 

[davidscott]

Anyone using the VHS hi fi medium for recording? Supposed to have better specs than any cassette deck and I bet a lot of us might still have one laying around somewhere. I have a 2013 Toshiba and I'm thinking that I might have to set it up just to see if it meets the hype.

 

[Eppie]

Anyone using the VHS hi fi medium for recording? Supposed to have better specs than any cassette deck and I bet a lot of us might still have one laying around somewhere. I have a 2013 Toshiba and I'm thinking that I might have to set it up just to see if it meets the hype.

If it's a HiFi VHS audio can be very good. HiFi units use the flying record head instead of a separate audio head (which only records along the edge of the tape). With Dolby or Dbx noise reduction it can be CD quality. I used to record 6 hour mix tapes on VHS for parties. Have not done that in years though. Takes a huge amount of time to make the tape and then try and find a particular song in the middle of the tape.... good luck. It's much easier to create a play list on a streaming device.

 

[davidscott]

If it's a HiFi VHS audio can be very good. HiFi units use the flying record head instead of a separate audio head (which only records along the edge of the tape). With Dolby or Dbx noise reduction it can be CD quality. I used to record 6 hour mix tapes on VHS for parties. Have not done that in years though. Takes a huge amount of time to make the tape and the try and find a particular song in the middle of the tape.... good luck. It's much easier to create a play list on a streaming device.

Yeah I have a 2013 Toshiba HiFi deck. I might just hook it up to see how it sounds but I wouldn't do much as I don't have much to record. Thanks.

 

[ccarlton28]

Don't remove the felt strip it is supposed to be there. It belongs to something called "passive dual capstan." The special pin has a piece of felt to press the tape against the erase head. This causes tape tension to aid stable tape flow and guidance Felt hits the inside of the tape. Probably wouldn't notice either way but why mess Yamaha's design - assume they know better than us.

 

[highfigh]

I pulled out my cassette deck a couple of weeks ago and found that REW is very weak, but play, FF and the counter work fine. In my model and many others, the counter assembly has a photo sensor that needs to see flashing which, in many cases, was a turning wheel that was like a fan blade- the gaps allowed light through, the vanes don't.

Same model, not my deck- list price was $340 in 1976, which is similar to $1885 in 2024 dollars, using inflation calculators.

I found a site that has belts, phono styli and other parts- the belt prices are decent, the price for an AudioTechnica AT-30E stylus is $239, so I WON'T be buying one.

Consumer Electronics Medium Flat Rubber Drive Belt 12.7 Inches

www.turntableneedles.com

My views on vintage equipment have changed. As much as I liked the equipment that was current when I left the stereo store, I would no longer buy anything that uses soft touch/logic controls, only mechanical. Mechanical controls work, or they will after being cleaned and lubed- the electronic controls have too many ways to fail.

Turntable would be very basic and I say that as the owner/user of a Sony PS-X600, which has servos to counteract tonearm motion in any direction. I'll hate to give it up- the background noise level is incredibly low and free from anything caused by an uneven LP. I wouldn't play anything that's warped or has a spindle hole that's not centered, though.

 

[Tankini]

My TEAC works fine on the same machine. The problems come with sending the tape to someone with a different machine. That was my situation invariably. Even Dolby C is not reliable for that. Dolby B is tolerant in the extreme.

Nothing is as good as open reel and dbx 1 though at 15 ips. That has a better dynamic range than CD. Until I started my 'museum" I only really used tape machines professionally not for pleasure. So they were workhorses of the pre digital era.

Sir!!

I now understand!! Mark, the love you have for home audio really is.

Quote: "untill I start my museum"

You are a wealth of knowledge for our AH community.