I must be blessed, I rarely can notice wow and flutter. It took me a long time to understand what everyone was talking about. When it is really bad I can hear it in a piano piece but that test tape sounded great to me. I think I'm the audio equivalent of those people who still think they cant see a difference between DVD and bluray :D Even though I cant hear is, I try to detect and rectify wow and flutter because I know how it affects the ability to load data off my C64 tapes.
I actually had a tape deck that sounded really good, almost digital. Using Denon HD8 cassettes and DBX, it was really hard to tell the difference between the tapes and the CDs. It was also a three head machine with bias control. Yamaha KX-800. It developed flutter and I think it was the motor in that instance. Changed belts and checked flywheel for warpage. Couldn't source a part at the time, so the deck is gone. Kicking myself now!
You can make a belt with superglue and an oversized belt.I had a Sony deck from the 90s that had Dolby C. My goto tape was Maxell XL-II. With Dolby recordings these tapes were nearly indistinguishable from the CD. I used to copy them over all the time to play in the Walkman because the Discman I had was like 2nd gen and did not have anti-skip.
I have found MOST of the time, a slow flutter is related to the flywheel or capstan (debris, gum from old belt etc>) Much of the time fast flutter is caused by belt gum on the motor shaft / pulley itself. All about the RPMs lending their revolution timing to the tape travel (at least when I have looked & listened).
@@MikinessAnalog Bad motor... bad drive circuit... I haven't had good luck with Chinese belts which could easily be the problem. I've had them come in not sized correctly despite purchasing the correct size.
@@MikinessAnalog I have a 1961 Roberts(Akai) reel to reel Japanese open cap special that I did a 90% recap on(wouldn't run). Belts turned to goo. Cleaned it up and changed belts but new main drive belt seems too large and plays slow. Changed out the unobtainium rechargeable battery carrier for one that takes D cells. I actually got the Sam's for this thing but shelved it and never tried adjusting the speed (probably the belt). Oddly, if you set it on its side it plays normally. I lubricated everything but no dice.
I rebuilt an Aiwa Midi Hifi from around 1989, belts had turned to tar. Interesting to see that it used the exactly the same cassette transport chassis X2, but with the extra capstan, revolving heads and actuators fitted for auto reverse.
I don't know what tape deck and cassettes you used to do your mixing back in the day . I too have tapes that I recorded back in the 80's and mine still sound excellent . Rivaling anything digital from these times , especially mp3's or streamers. My system from back then was all Technics , tape deck and turntable. I mostly used TDK normal , some chrome and few more expensive metal cassettes . The metal bias cassettes I used for recording favorite songs . I also noticed you used magnetized screw drivers in this video which is a big no no. You will magnetize the tape heads which in turn will make any cassettes sound like crap . I used to de-magnetized and clean the tape heads often .
Same experience here... I restore vintage decks. Sometimes I find 70s decks quite down the range in which recording = source... and I am accustomed to very high quality deck, I have my own collection.
Without being right there I can't assume much. I did find the belt path a bit weird on this one. Every cassette deck/player I ever had seen or worked with has a direct belt to the flywheel to the motor system. Better ones had another belt to the motor to run the ff and rw option, some other ones ran a rubber drive to the fly wheel. The play mode take up reel side often was ran off the capstand shaft. One thing I recall that will give a random flutter or jerk was the full side hub was a little loose on the fit on the cassette reel causing that reel to do a flop and affect the sound. The simple solution on that was a piece of scotch or packing tape one wrap around the left hub. It looked dumb but fixed the flopping left reel problem.
I have a WX-999 dual deck that has an issue, it plays ok on the second deck but the reverse does not engage when pressed or when the tape reaches the end, the two reels rotate in the opposite direction then switching back to the working direction. Only one reel should moving. The other transport controls don't lock in FW/RW, they stop when depressed.
HI! im trying to fix my vintage technics RS-263AUS, but im running into trouble with the sound sounding very washy and tends to stop here and there.... any solutions? Much appreciated if theres any
Only when needed. You will know that. Either they break, slip or turn to tar. If they work leave them alone. In other words if it ain't broke don't fix it
The cheaper tape decks can not be adjusted for playback speed, better off buying a good unit, Sony, Sansui, Yamaha, etc, they are better quality units, mine got a look at years ago he adjusted the speed, it is a Sansui twin tape deck, not a high end one but it is good. A good tape deck can still deliver good sound quality!!!! Sounded alright with music, it is a good idea to demagnetize the heads at times too.
I've had units to come in where the customer has attempted to change the belts. Thing of it is, they use whatever they can find sometimes. A wide white rubber band or a newspaper rubber band. Then they throw away the belt if there was one and you don't know what was there before without the service manual for the unit. Then again you have situations where like this one where you got to keep trying sizes. I've worked on my share of Aiwa stuff and it's budget quality at best. If it's not a simple repair, a lot of these went to the dumpster fast. I seen more than a few of these come in with loose RCA jacks and bad connectors from the power supply and cassette deck to the PC Board. Great Video! Cheers! 🍻 -Al
@@stevenuttley Greetings... Most of the Aiwa cassette decks I worked on sounded acceptable. This particular model he worked on here sounded good to me. This is a later model of production. They certainly don't have the quality of signal to noise and wow and flutter of the older models. The parts are cheaper and they cut corners. They wear out faster. Lot of brands got like that though. Last of the cassette decks barely had any thing in them serviceable other than belts. They all sounded acceptable as long as they pulled the tape over the head. Best Aiwa cassette deck I ever heard was the AD 6900MKII. That was a kick ass sounding tape machine and looked good. Good quality parts and design in the playback and recording circuits. I don't know about anyone else, but I always thought they had crappy turntables. Seen a lot of those go to the garbage....LOL Cheers! 🍻 -Al
AIWA was Sony's testbed. I doubt any of them were that bad... Sony put out decent stuff in the 90s.The build of this unit seems pretty typical of the time.
@@equid0x Like everything, IC's and logic chips started running everything so they were able to eliminate a lot of the circuitry and build the units faster and cheaper. Most customers just bought another unit instead of paying for repairs that cost 3/4 of the price of the unit. In the last days of cassette deck production we rarely worked on any of those decks. Almost all brands went to just making them work, and that was basically it. When CD players came out, it was just a matter of time before the cost came down and media was available widely and everyone ditched their tape decks and phonographs. Only repairs I get in tape decks are mostly the older more expensive models made 70's through early 90's. They been saying cassettes will make a come back like records, but I just don't see the format making that kind of leap back in the scene. No companies are going to jump back in and start duplicating cassettes on a large scale. Only records and CD's have any real future comeback as far as old formats. I actually worked on a Realistic 8 track deck the other day for a boy that still really loves and collects the tapes. I really want to see all formats, at least to some degree, being enjoyed. It's the history of electronic innovation and music. -Cheers 🍻
I picked up a Pioneer cassette deck recently that was suspected of a belt issue. On opening and checking I found someone had been into it already and replaced the belt, but they had installed two square belts where there should have been one flat belt. Needless to say both square belts had come off the flywheel.
I've seen this before, common problem with those AIWA cheap decks. It's the take-up roller's slide cloth, and/or its spring. Both the roller and the tape take-up are powered by the same motor. If one fails, the other fails too. That's a difficult one, because it requires a replacement cloth (pad under take-up) and a tool to adjust spring pressure. Fixable, but not easy.
I've found that the later aiwa decks- the black ones that they started knocking out mid-late 80s, as opposed to things like the AD-6900 & so on- just don't reward any sort of fixing effort. they're decent enough for a couple of years, but they're not built for a long stay on the planet. that, to me, immediately sounded like bad pinch roller, though that belt was definitely a bit narrower than one would expect. a bit of rubber-renue or else fit a new one, but if it takes an hour to do the whole job, you've basically doubled the cost of the thing.
After the early 80s, with the exception of some receivers and amplifiers, most component systems, even the name brand ones started being made into throwaway systems. Other then changing the belts, pinch rollers and cleaning the heads and tape path etc., they were really non serviceable. Almost everything in the transport mechanisms are made out of plastic and flimsy metal which would eventually become brittle and break over time and they started using microchips and ICs which were mostly proprietary to that make and model and they can't be removed without expensive tools, which means you would have to replace the entire board if anything besides a capacitor or a resistor failed and if anything on the transport also failed, they were pretty much expensive paper weights or doorstops unless you could find an exact duplicate for parts and hope that it doesn't have the same issues. Anything from the early 80s and up are like old tube TVs and really aren't worth anything. You would actually be lucky if you were able to find anyone to give it away to lol.
Classic ALPS transport used by AIWA in the mid 90's. It needs a 4mm (or wider) belt otherwise it will lock if you press pause and then play. It typically sounds better than this one, but being typically coupled with rather cheap heads it does not sound great.
Replaced belt on a Sony Walkman WM-EX190, & bad wow/flutter; realised I had twisted the replacement belt when installing it. Great expert knowledge here. Thanks 12vv
With Aiwa, it was always hit-or-miss. They had some excellent quality decks like the Excelia series but their midrange wasn't usually blessed with good build quality. I have an AD-S950 which is a Dolby S machine with a dual capstan drive. The supply side flywheel is made out of frickin' plastic 😳
AIWA used very cheap plastic, and by now most of their decks have broken pieces. In most cases they are harmless cracks, but in some cases it can render the deck unusable.
@@enricoself2256 All plastic deteriorates with age. I doubt AIWA was unique in that regard. These decks were designed with maybe a 10 year lifespan in mind. Don't forget, tape was on it's way out. Consumer recordings were pushing minidisc by the late 90s. There were even consumer targeted DAT machines.
@@equid0x From the mid/early 90's, Aiwa was the "budget" division of Sony. Aiwa's products were aimed at the low end budget market and not in any direct competition with similar Sony Products. They were made cheap with lower quality components.
@@enricoself2256 Mine is ADF-770.. 1983-1986 -Top model.Only 990 was a little bit more with auto rec and anamorph head. A very hard to beat in same price segment.Love me AIWA.
Very clever idea to use a music instruments tuner to adjust speed to the reference tone.By the way the speed is double checked using my guitar and all found tuned perfectly in note LA 440HZ.
I bought a highly used compact JVC system from 1992 and the tape decks don't work [has auto reverse, dolby, high speed dubbing ect]. No noise, no nothing. Doesn't start. The playback deck A is missing the slave capstan & pinch-roller. I cleaned the head and master capstan/pinch roller, then it played for a about 1 second then it stopped. I don't know where to start in repairing the inside. It tries to start and I hear some noise, but no music. I believe I have some tools to start like a duster, alcohol & swabs but no demagnetizer ..yet. I downloaded the service manual for the bottom unit [radio tuner/6CD changer player] on my phone, but have yet to read the jargon. I am asking cause I am unable to find a local business to repair it. I live in the Inland Empire Southern Cali. Any pointers would help..
Hey, have you ever worked on something and had to put things completely on hold due to a lousy screw that refuses to come out? Therefore making something that should be easy 10 X harder?
Hello . I wondered if you knew anything about valve crt tvs . Im scared to attempt to power one i have up, i bought it faulty , it looks all original, i just wondered if maybe i should remove the valves before powering it up since i dont have a variac ? I also dont have an old light bulb to act as a fuse/current limiter ..i just want to try get it to power but i dont have all the replacement caps dont really have anyone to ask for advice , this is all before my time .
I worked on them briefly at the start of my career. I'm not the one to ask though. Tube audio gear yes but i haven't worked on tube TVs in so long. There will be plenty of old wax caps to change. Shango is the tube tv guy. You really do need a variac and incandescent light bulb limiter to do it safely. Safely as in preventing a catastrophic failure of a transformer or coil which will be impossible to source should another fault be present. This will prevent over loading other components.
Inspect it first. If there are no obvious failures then run it through maybe a small UPS. The UPS should isolate from line and switch out automatically if there is a short. Otherwise, just don't get it warm until the high voltage paper caps are changed. Pull the horizontal output tube like Shango does to see if it fires first. The real problem with tube chassis (and internet folklore) is the paper caps. Don't be afraid. If it smokes yank the plug.
@@equid0x that's right paper caps have to go. I have a b&k television analyst flying spot and i am not plugging that sucker in till i change the paper caps.
once a problem happens and a flywheel becomes cracked or warped there is only so much you can do unless a replacement can be sourced some of the pioneer and yamaha models that use an alps made mech can have flywheel cracks from what i have seen on the net ,i had a basic budget denon deck i was testing after belts and general maintenance and head alighnment it sounded great but a few moments later it failed while doing a recording test i never sell anything unless i have used it for at least 5 or 6 hours with out problems and it suffered a flexible gear problem i have no trust in a 3d printed part so i stripped it for spares gear failure is a common problem on panasonic mechs like the denon used .
@@12voltvids Difficult to see on my tablet, but the original looked square though. One question I had about square: During use, do they ALL eventually "right" themselves or does it require pre-"orientation" before use?
I read all the comments and no one else mentioned this. As you were getting ready to put in the 1st Aimo special you said put the pulley over the belt. It made me laugh hehehehehehe. I do the samething purposely say something backwards to see if people I'm speaking with are REALLY listening. Great job as always Dave. I adore the deep dive you take when trouble shooting electronic problems bad caps, bad transistors and popped resistors (those can be far easier to spot) caps and transistors take a bit more equipment to verify as being bad. Anyway always enjoy your videos THANK YOU for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us 😄😎😃. I just finished watching the video and you had a light switch on your work bench left side, can't imagine what your going to incorporate that into LOL.
That belt that you replaced may not be the original, judging by what the pulleys look like. It looks as if the belt failed previously and was replaced by whatever was at hand at the time.
Someone is talking crap again!, restored Bull Crap!!. Speed variations are a bloody pain to stop :-( The flywheel front bearing could be worn a bit, the pin will ride around the bearing a bit. Tapes did a job well enough for the era, and cheap enough. Mini disks were really good, but they didn't last. Dat tapes also seemed good, but i dont know anyone that has one now. C.D's never sounded quite right to me, but that could have been my faulty hearing. Also the processing didnt always go well.
CD sounds fantastic with a good player. Unfortunately CD suffered a race to the bottom very quickly and as the prices fell so did the musicality of the player. Bad engineering on most pop rock records didn't help either. Most CDs from the '80s and into the early 90s were made using the same analog mix that had already been pre-equalized for cassette and vinyl replication, so it already had the life breath of the Dynamics squeezed out of it. If you listen to classical or jazz you got fantastic sound out of CD better than anything else because those musicians had higher standards for their sound and demanded that their work be reproduced in the highest quality possible. Take a listen to Dave grusin mountain dance on CD they don't know what I'm talking about.
And it is worn out, no doubt about that. These units work great in the wild flutter department to begin with because the accuracy of the pitch is directly proportional to the inertia of the flywheel. The beefier the flywheel the less variations can affect the pitch. One of the reasons that citizen cheap ass mini system sounded as good as it did was because the flywheel weighed about half a kilo
@@12voltvids That's why i like the old full metal chassis machines, the flywheel is a propper energy storage lump. Hard for small speed variations to happen. I am supprised that some of the crap plastic/metal composition ones work at all from new.
I'm sure you put a little dab of grease on that rear capstan bearing and drop of oil on the motor and capstan bearings while they were right there in the open begging for it? You probably just forgot to mention it ..
I don't even mess with high hour cassette decks anymore. A waste of time. Ordered belts for two Teac CX-400 decks only to get the wrong size belts, which seems to be the norm these days. Then after cleaning all the goo off of the melted old belts of both decks only to find one of the flywheels is crooked on the capstan shafts. Must have been dropped to cause that I would think. The replacement belt on the second deck is too thin, tight, and rides to the side of the curved motor pulley causing high flutter. Single capstan three head decks, not high end like the cosmetically flawless Pioneer CT-F1250 I have. Even though it has almost no use it still needs belts and probably some capacitors. Just ESR check, I don't believe in changing every capacitor unless it is symptomatic.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but very strange that this single deck mechanism has a dual speed (4 wires) motor, unless it's a 2 speed cassette deck.. A thin belt wouldn't cause this problem but incorrect motor may. Also tight, worn or hardened roller can cause these problems. Roller should spin freely on its axle. Damaged or warped flywheel can also cause this. I have been doing these repairs for 50 years - from Nakamichi to the cheapest deck - now retired, but happy to help. First thing I would do would be to check the motor. Regards, Robert
Well they've gone with the multi-speed motor because the same mechanism would have been used on dual speed double decks for high-speed dubbing. Rather than make two completely different mechanical transports one with a single speed and one with a multi-speed motor they just went with the multi-speed motor. it isn't really a multi-speed motor all it is is the control to set it is external instead of in the back of the motor so it's just a pot placed across two of the terminals. But in the double decks there would be a switching circuit to switch between two different pots for a normal and high speed in this case there's just a single speed control. Motor won't typically cause flutter like that what will cause flutter like that is either a flywheel that's bent or the caps and shaft that's slightly bent worn pinch roller will also cause it or a belt that's too tight. Another thing that can cause this flutter is a worn take up limiter clutch as the same belt drives the take up mechanism so antjjbg dragging on that could cause flutter. Better decks would use a seperate belt, or better still a seperate motor to drive the tape reels.
@@12voltvids Good try, but it doesn't work like that. The 2 speed, 4 wire motors have a different RPM rating and that is why your machine is running fast. The motor will flutter if you connect just the positive and negative rail to it. The motor wiring, from what I see in your clip, doesn't look original either. Whoever serviced this deck has absolutely no knowledge of electronics. If you log in to Hi-Fi Engine (it's free - and invaluable) you can look at the ADF360 which depicts a standard 2 pin motor. There is no service manual available for the ADR370, but in all my years as a technician, I have never seen a 2 speed motor used in a single mech deck. Trust me on this - check the 4 wires from the motor to the board and confirm that it's all original. I doubt it!
@@sdi1111 The 4 wire motors are completely adjustable. I have put them in decks where the original was a single speed, and attached the speed control to the back of the motor. Many decks use 4 wire motors which are single speed. Where do you think the motor I used came from? A single speed single deck with a 4 wire motor. Took the speed control off the board and stuck it to the speed adjust pins. If I popped that motor open, the location on the board where the speed control pot would have been is still there, and the traces lead out the back. I can assure you this is the original motor. The speed control is factory. Nobody changed it. You say you have been doing this 50 years? I find that hard to believe as you would have seen decks just like this if you had. I have seen hundreds of more recent decks with the 4 wire motors. It just makes economic sense from a manufacture stand point to use a single motor across all their decks. This machine was running fast because the belt that someone else put on it was so bloody tight that they cranked the control up to get it to the right speed. I put the right size belt on , and it was not running fast. These are not FG servo motors. If you just connect the positive and negative it will actually spin up to probably 6000 RPM. The speed decreases as the resistance decreases. If you short the speed control pins the motor stops. Try it some time.
@@12voltvids My apologies to you and your viewers - the 4 wire motor is original in this model, though in my 50 years repairing hundreds of tape decks, I have never come across this design before. I spent a little more time researching and yuu are right too when you say this is a factory modified single speed motor that has been utilized simply because of cost saving..... In your clip you appeared to give up on the machine because of the wow & flutter and speed discrepancy. A tight belt will slow the speed and a loose belt will slip and not engage. The degree of wow I heard can only be attributed to either a worn flywheel or a bad motor. Good luck and apologies once again.
@@sdi1111 It's a bad flywheel or limiter clutch for the take up torque. The motor won't cause this type of flutter. It is rotating around 3000 rpm. This flutter rate is consistent with rotation of flywheel ganerally indicating that the flywheel is out of balance or the capstan shaft slightly bent. This can happen if for example the unit was dropped in the box. The packing would protect the cabinet but the heavy flywheel can easily be damaged. it's not that I've given up on the unit it's just that there's not a hell of a lot that I can do to fix this other than change the flywheel capstan assembly and that part would not be available and even if it was there's a $20 bill on the line for me to fix this. How far would you go when the guy that brings it to you it says I paid 20 bucks for this on Facebook if you can fix it for 20 go for it otherwise you can just recycle it. So I changed the belt and he will decide if it's good enough otherwise it becomes my tape deck. So in that case the only money I make off it is from people watching the UA-cam video.
I’ve owned all the top decks. Many Naks including Dragon, Tandberg 3014A, Sony, HK, etc. Yes they can sound “good”, with the right tape and on a serviced machine. But 10/10 times even a 10 dollar CD player will blow the best deck out of the water.
Because they've stupid. Needless to say I didn't make anything on this one. They are into but for 40 bucks now. The 20 they paid for it and the 20 they paid me to fix it. Does it sound better. Yes, a little but still sounds like a cheap tape player.
0:44 when you started that tone i thought my smoke alarm was going off somewhere, same exact tone! LOL
Thanks Dave for taking the time to record these useful videos.👍
I must be blessed, I rarely can notice wow and flutter. It took me a long time to understand what everyone was talking about. When it is really bad I can hear it in a piano piece but that test tape sounded great to me.
I think I'm the audio equivalent of those people who still think they cant see a difference between DVD and bluray :D
Even though I cant hear is, I try to detect and rectify wow and flutter because I know how it affects the ability to load data off my C64 tapes.
I actually had a tape deck that sounded really good, almost digital. Using Denon HD8 cassettes and DBX, it was really hard to tell the difference between the tapes and the CDs. It was also a three head machine with bias control. Yamaha KX-800. It developed flutter and I think it was the motor in that instance. Changed belts and checked flywheel for warpage. Couldn't source a part at the time, so the deck is gone. Kicking myself now!
You can make a belt with superglue and an oversized belt.I had a Sony deck from the 90s that had Dolby C. My goto tape was Maxell XL-II. With Dolby recordings these tapes were nearly indistinguishable from the CD. I used to copy them over all the time to play in the Walkman because the Discman I had was like 2nd gen and did not have anti-skip.
I have found MOST of the time, a slow flutter is related to the flywheel or capstan (debris, gum from old belt etc>)
Much of the time fast flutter is caused by belt gum on the motor shaft / pulley itself.
All about the RPMs lending their revolution timing to the tape travel (at least when I have looked & listened).
Well this is every rotation if the capstan flywheel.
What else could a rapid acceleration then deceleration do to audio gear?
@@MikinessAnalog Bad motor... bad drive circuit... I haven't had good luck with Chinese belts which could easily be the problem. I've had them come in not sized correctly despite purchasing the correct size.
@@equid0x made with a tube and seam and the seam causes the variable when it is sliced into belts.
@@MikinessAnalog I have a 1961 Roberts(Akai) reel to reel Japanese open cap special that I did a 90% recap on(wouldn't run). Belts turned to goo. Cleaned it up and changed belts but new main drive belt seems too large and plays slow. Changed out the unobtainium rechargeable battery carrier for one that takes D cells. I actually got the Sam's for this thing but shelved it and never tried adjusting the speed (probably the belt). Oddly, if you set it on its side it plays normally. I lubricated everything but no dice.
I rebuilt an Aiwa Midi Hifi from around 1989, belts had turned to tar. Interesting to see that it used the exactly the same cassette transport chassis X2, but with the extra capstan, revolving heads and actuators fitted for auto reverse.
I don't know what tape deck and cassettes you used to do your mixing back in the day . I too have tapes that I recorded back in the 80's and mine still sound excellent . Rivaling anything digital from these times , especially mp3's or streamers. My system from back then was all Technics , tape deck and turntable. I mostly used TDK normal , some chrome and few more expensive metal cassettes . The metal bias cassettes I used for recording favorite songs . I also noticed you used magnetized screw drivers in this video which is a big no no. You will magnetize the tape heads which in turn will make any cassettes sound like crap . I used to de-magnetized and clean the tape heads often .
Same experience here... I restore vintage decks. Sometimes I find 70s decks quite down the range in which recording = source... and I am accustomed to very high quality deck, I have my own collection.
Without being right there I can't assume much. I did find the belt path a bit weird on this one. Every cassette deck/player I ever had seen or worked with has a direct belt to the flywheel to the motor system. Better ones had another belt to the motor to run the ff and rw option, some other ones ran a rubber drive to the fly wheel. The play mode take up reel side often was ran off the capstand shaft. One thing I recall that will give a random flutter or jerk was the full side hub was a little loose on the fit on the cassette reel causing that reel to do a flop and affect the sound. The simple solution on that was a piece of scotch or packing tape one wrap around the left hub. It looked dumb but fixed the flopping left reel problem.
I have a ps subwoofer amp that won’t receive power, would you take a look at it if I sent it in?
I have a WX-999 dual deck that has an issue, it plays ok on the second deck but the reverse does not engage when pressed or when the tape reaches the end, the two reels rotate in the opposite direction then switching back to the working direction. Only one reel should moving. The other transport controls don't lock in FW/RW, they stop when depressed.
HI! im trying to fix my vintage technics RS-263AUS, but im running into trouble with the sound sounding very washy and tends to stop here and there.... any solutions? Much appreciated if theres any
How often do you recommend changing the belts on old tape decks?
Only when needed. You will know that. Either they break, slip or turn to tar. If they work leave them alone. In other words if it ain't broke don't fix it
The cheaper tape decks can not be adjusted for playback speed, better off buying a good unit, Sony, Sansui, Yamaha, etc, they are better quality units, mine got a look at years ago he adjusted the speed, it is a Sansui twin tape deck, not a high end one but it is good.
A good tape deck can still deliver good sound quality!!!!
Sounded alright with music, it is a good idea to demagnetize the heads at times too.
Aiwa made one of the coolest decks ever. DBX decoder ++
I've had units to come in where the customer has attempted
to change the belts. Thing of it is, they use whatever they can
find sometimes. A wide white rubber band or a newspaper
rubber band. Then they throw away the belt if there was one
and you don't know what was there before without the service
manual for the unit. Then again you have situations where like
this one where you got to keep trying sizes. I've worked on my
share of Aiwa stuff and it's budget quality at best. If it's not a
simple repair, a lot of these went to the dumpster fast. I seen
more than a few of these come in with loose RCA jacks and
bad connectors from the power supply and cassette deck to the
PC Board. Great Video! Cheers! 🍻 -Al
Hi Al would you say that's the case with the Aiwa 3 Head decks also ? (budget quality I mean). They seem to sound good.
@@stevenuttley Greetings... Most of the Aiwa cassette decks
I worked on sounded acceptable. This particular model he worked
on here sounded good to me. This is a later model of production.
They certainly don't have the quality of signal to noise and wow
and flutter of the older models. The parts are cheaper and they
cut corners. They wear out faster. Lot of brands got like that
though. Last of the cassette decks barely had any thing in them
serviceable other than belts. They all sounded acceptable as
long as they pulled the tape over the head. Best Aiwa cassette deck I
ever heard was the AD 6900MKII. That was a kick ass sounding
tape machine and looked good. Good quality parts and design
in the playback and recording circuits. I don't know about anyone else,
but I always thought they had crappy turntables. Seen a lot of
those go to the garbage....LOL Cheers! 🍻 -Al
AIWA was Sony's testbed. I doubt any of them were that bad... Sony put out decent stuff in the 90s.The build of this unit seems pretty typical of the time.
@@equid0x Like everything, IC's and logic chips started running everything so they
were able to eliminate a lot of the circuitry and build the units faster and cheaper.
Most customers just bought another unit instead of paying for repairs that cost
3/4 of the price of the unit. In the last days of cassette deck production we rarely
worked on any of those decks. Almost all brands went to just making them work,
and that was basically it. When CD players came out, it was just a matter of time
before the cost came down and media was available widely and everyone ditched
their tape decks and phonographs. Only repairs I get in tape decks are mostly the
older more expensive models made 70's through early 90's. They been saying
cassettes will make a come back like records, but I just don't see the format making
that kind of leap back in the scene. No companies are going to jump back in and
start duplicating cassettes on a large scale. Only records and CD's have any real
future comeback as far as old formats. I actually worked on a Realistic 8 track
deck the other day for a boy that still really loves and collects the tapes. I really
want to see all formats, at least to some degree, being enjoyed. It's the history of
electronic innovation and music. -Cheers 🍻
I picked up a Pioneer cassette deck recently that was suspected of a belt issue. On opening and checking I found someone had been into it already and replaced the belt, but they had installed two square belts where there should have been one flat belt. Needless to say both square belts had come off the flywheel.
Cool video! I have changed the belts of a sony CT-W200 and one deck still woobles, I will try with different belts and see what happens !
I've seen this before, common problem with those AIWA cheap decks. It's the take-up roller's slide cloth, and/or its spring. Both the roller and the tape take-up are powered by the same motor. If one fails, the other fails too. That's a difficult one, because it requires a replacement cloth (pad under take-up) and a tool to adjust spring pressure. Fixable, but not easy.
the supply reel like on my soundesign the tape wood play or record about as bad as it sounded i fixed it but still leader hater sometimes but it works
I've found that the later aiwa decks- the black ones that they started knocking out mid-late 80s, as opposed to things like the AD-6900 & so on- just don't reward any sort of fixing effort. they're decent enough for a couple of years, but they're not built for a long stay on the planet.
that, to me, immediately sounded like bad pinch roller, though that belt was definitely a bit narrower than one would expect. a bit of rubber-renue or else fit a new one, but if it takes an hour to do the whole job, you've basically doubled the cost of the thing.
After the early 80s, with the exception of some receivers and amplifiers, most component systems, even the name brand ones started being made into throwaway systems. Other then changing the belts, pinch rollers and cleaning the heads and tape path etc., they were really non serviceable. Almost everything in the transport mechanisms are made out of plastic and flimsy metal which would eventually become brittle and break over time and they started using microchips and ICs which were mostly proprietary to that make and model and they can't be removed without expensive tools, which means you would have to replace the entire board if anything besides a capacitor or a resistor failed and if anything on the transport also failed, they were pretty much expensive paper weights or doorstops unless you could find an exact duplicate for parts and hope that it doesn't have the same issues. Anything from the early 80s and up are like old tube TVs and really aren't worth anything. You would actually be lucky if you were able to find anyone to give it away to lol.
Classic ALPS transport used by AIWA in the mid 90's. It needs a 4mm (or wider) belt otherwise it will lock if you press pause and then play. It typically sounds better than this one, but being typically coupled with rather cheap heads it does not sound great.
Same head I've seen in the TEAC V-200 MKII, purely mechanical transport. That sounded modest, to be fair.
Replaced belt on a Sony Walkman WM-EX190, & bad wow/flutter; realised I had twisted the replacement belt when installing it. Great expert knowledge here. Thanks 12vv
Can it be just badly balanced flywheel from the factory?
You're the guy who reviews the headphones too ?
With Aiwa, it was always hit-or-miss. They had some excellent quality decks like the Excelia series but their midrange wasn't usually blessed with good build quality.
I have an AD-S950 which is a Dolby S machine with a dual capstan drive. The supply side flywheel is made out of frickin' plastic 😳
I've got that deck and mine is metal.
AIWA used very cheap plastic, and by now most of their decks have broken pieces. In most cases they are harmless cracks, but in some cases it can render the deck unusable.
@@enricoself2256 All plastic deteriorates with age. I doubt AIWA was unique in that regard. These decks were designed with maybe a 10 year lifespan in mind. Don't forget, tape was on it's way out. Consumer recordings were pushing minidisc by the late 90s. There were even consumer targeted DAT machines.
@@equid0x From the mid/early 90's, Aiwa was the "budget" division of Sony. Aiwa's products were aimed at the low end budget market and not in any direct competition with similar Sony Products. They were made cheap with lower quality components.
@@enricoself2256 Mine is ADF-770.. 1983-1986 -Top model.Only 990 was a little bit more with auto rec and anamorph head. A very hard to beat in same price segment.Love me AIWA.
Very clever idea to use a music instruments tuner to adjust speed to the reference tone.By the way the speed is double checked using my guitar and all found tuned perfectly in note LA 440HZ.
I bought a highly used compact JVC system from 1992 and the tape decks don't work [has auto reverse, dolby, high speed dubbing ect]. No noise, no nothing. Doesn't start. The playback deck A is missing the slave capstan & pinch-roller. I cleaned the head and master capstan/pinch roller, then it played for a about 1 second then it stopped. I don't know where to start in repairing the inside. It tries to start and I hear some noise, but no music. I believe I have some tools to start like a duster, alcohol & swabs but no demagnetizer ..yet. I downloaded the service manual for the bottom unit [radio tuner/6CD changer player] on my phone, but have yet to read the jargon. I am asking cause I am unable to find a local business to repair it. I live in the Inland Empire Southern Cali. Any pointers would help..
Hey, have you ever worked on something and had to put things completely on hold due to a lousy screw that refuses to come out? Therefore making something that should be easy 10 X harder?
Ever heard of a drill?
@@12voltvids I’m worried I’ll have to resort to that.
You need a dremel. Had one hanging on the bench in the 90s.
Hello . I wondered if you knew anything about valve crt tvs . Im scared to attempt to power one i have up, i bought it faulty , it looks all original, i just wondered if maybe i should remove the valves before powering it up since i dont have a variac ? I also dont have an old light bulb to act as a fuse/current limiter ..i just want to try get it to power but i dont have all the replacement caps dont really have anyone to ask for advice , this is all before my time .
I worked on them briefly at the start of my career. I'm not the one to ask though. Tube audio gear yes but i haven't worked on tube TVs in so long. There will be plenty of old wax caps to change. Shango is the tube tv guy. You really do need a variac and incandescent light bulb limiter to do it safely. Safely as in preventing a catastrophic failure of a transformer or coil which will be impossible to source should another fault be present. This will prevent over loading other components.
@@12voltvids i do follow shango , hes brilliant . Thanks for the advice . Ill save up for the caps
Inspect it first. If there are no obvious failures then run it through maybe a small UPS. The UPS should isolate from line and switch out automatically if there is a short. Otherwise, just don't get it warm until the high voltage paper caps are changed. Pull the horizontal output tube like Shango does to see if it fires first. The real problem with tube chassis (and internet folklore) is the paper caps. Don't be afraid. If it smokes yank the plug.
@@equid0x that's right paper caps have to go. I have a b&k television analyst flying spot and i am not plugging that sucker in till i change the paper caps.
@@equid0x thanks for the advice guys . Ill wait for the caps.
That thin belt in that (maybe from a Walkman) must be the equivalent to putting really small wheels on a big Mercedes
Did you remove the video with the elevator incident?
No, it's there.
once a problem happens and a flywheel becomes cracked or warped there is only so much you can do unless a replacement can be sourced some of the pioneer and yamaha models that use an alps made mech can have flywheel cracks from what i have seen on the net ,i had a basic budget denon deck i was testing after belts and general maintenance and head alighnment it sounded great but a few moments later it failed while doing a recording test i never sell anything unless i have used it for at least 5 or 6 hours with out problems and it suffered a flexible gear problem i have no trust in a 3d printed part so i stripped it for spares gear failure is a common problem on panasonic mechs like the denon used .
I had one of those AIWA decks but mine had auto reverse & Dolby B,C & HX Pro & the head gets sucks when you use auto reverse a lot.
i have a magnavox that a belt off on both sides but can't figure how to fix the bad channel
You wont be at all surprised that this mech used by Bang Olufsen in their Beosound ouverture systems it should be 4mm wide ‘5/32” wide’
The belt I put in 4mm
@@12voltvids Difficult to see on my tablet, but the original looked square though.
One question I had about square:
During use, do they ALL eventually "right" themselves or does it require pre-"orientation" before use?
@@MikinessAnalog no you have to install without a twist.
I read all the comments and no one else mentioned this. As you were getting ready to put in the 1st Aimo special you said put the pulley over the belt. It made me laugh hehehehehehe. I do the samething purposely say something backwards to see if people I'm speaking with are REALLY listening. Great job as always Dave. I adore the deep dive you take when trouble shooting electronic problems bad caps, bad transistors and popped resistors (those can be far easier to spot) caps and transistors take a bit more equipment to verify as being bad. Anyway always enjoy your videos THANK YOU for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us 😄😎😃. I just finished watching the video and you had a light switch on your work bench left side, can't imagine what your going to incorporate that into LOL.
That belt that you replaced may not be the original, judging by what the pulleys look like. It looks as if the belt failed previously and was replaced by whatever was at hand at the time.
The best turntables for mixing is the Technics SL-1200s, period!
Someone is talking crap again!, restored Bull Crap!!.
Speed variations are a bloody pain to stop :-(
The flywheel front bearing could be worn a bit, the pin will ride around the bearing a bit.
Tapes did a job well enough for the era, and cheap enough.
Mini disks were really good, but they didn't last.
Dat tapes also seemed good, but i dont know anyone that has one now.
C.D's never sounded quite right to me, but that could have been my faulty hearing.
Also the processing didnt always go well.
CD sounds fantastic with a good player. Unfortunately CD suffered a race to the bottom very quickly and as the prices fell so did the musicality of the player. Bad engineering on most pop rock records didn't help either. Most CDs from the '80s and into the early 90s were made using the same analog mix that had already been pre-equalized for cassette and vinyl replication, so it already had the life breath of the Dynamics squeezed out of it. If you listen to classical or jazz you got fantastic sound out of CD better than anything else because those musicians had higher standards for their sound and demanded that their work be reproduced in the highest quality possible. Take a listen to Dave grusin mountain dance on CD they don't know what I'm talking about.
And it is worn out, no doubt about that. These units work great in the wild flutter department to begin with because the accuracy of the pitch is directly proportional to the inertia of the flywheel. The beefier the flywheel the less variations can affect the pitch. One of the reasons that citizen cheap ass mini system sounded as good as it did was because the flywheel weighed about half a kilo
@@12voltvids That's why i like the old full metal chassis machines, the flywheel is a propper energy storage lump.
Hard for small speed variations to happen.
I am supprised that some of the crap plastic/metal composition ones work at all from new.
Dove acquistare il modello di quel rilevatore di frequenza, grazie
Facebook Marketplace has a lot of good stuff, I got a Digital8 Handyman with analog playback for $20 using Marketplace.
I picked up an old radio. Don't need any more digital 8 cameras with analog playback. Have 5 cameras and that gvd800 so i think i am good for awhile.
I'm sure you put a little dab of grease on that rear capstan bearing and drop of oil on the motor and capstan bearings while they were right there in the open begging for it? You probably just forgot to mention it ..
Maybe cleaning and oiling the flywheel would help?
Not if it is bent
I don't even mess with high hour cassette decks anymore. A waste of time. Ordered belts for two Teac CX-400 decks only to get the wrong size belts, which seems to be the norm these days. Then after cleaning all the goo off of the melted old belts of both decks only to find one of the flywheels is crooked on the capstan shafts. Must have been dropped to cause that I would think. The replacement belt on the second deck is too thin, tight, and rides to the side of the curved motor pulley causing high flutter. Single capstan three head decks, not high end like the cosmetically flawless Pioneer CT-F1250 I have. Even though it has almost no use it still needs belts and probably some capacitors. Just ESR check, I don't believe in changing every capacitor unless it is symptomatic.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but very strange that this single deck mechanism has a dual speed (4 wires) motor, unless it's a 2 speed cassette deck.. A thin belt wouldn't cause this problem but incorrect motor may. Also tight, worn or hardened roller can cause these problems. Roller should spin freely on its axle. Damaged or warped flywheel can also cause this. I have been doing these repairs for 50 years - from Nakamichi to the cheapest deck - now retired, but happy to help. First thing I would do would be to check the motor. Regards, Robert
Well they've gone with the multi-speed motor because the same mechanism would have been used on dual speed double decks for high-speed dubbing. Rather than make two completely different mechanical transports one with a single speed and one with a multi-speed motor they just went with the multi-speed motor. it isn't really a multi-speed motor all it is is the control to set it is external instead of in the back of the motor so it's just a pot placed across two of the terminals. But in the double decks there would be a switching circuit to switch between two different pots for a normal and high speed in this case there's just a single speed control. Motor won't typically cause flutter like that what will cause flutter like that is either a flywheel that's bent or the caps and shaft that's slightly bent worn pinch roller will also cause it or a belt that's too tight. Another thing that can cause this flutter is a worn take up limiter clutch as the same belt drives the take up mechanism so antjjbg dragging on that could cause flutter. Better decks would use a seperate belt, or better still a seperate motor to drive the tape reels.
@@12voltvids Good try, but it doesn't work like that. The 2 speed, 4 wire motors have a different RPM rating and that is why your machine is running fast. The motor will flutter if you connect just the positive and negative rail to it. The motor wiring, from what I see in your clip, doesn't look original either. Whoever serviced this deck has absolutely no knowledge of electronics. If you log in to Hi-Fi Engine (it's free - and invaluable) you can look at the ADF360 which depicts a standard 2 pin motor. There is no service manual available for the ADR370, but in all my years as a technician, I have never seen a 2 speed motor used in a single mech deck. Trust me on this - check the 4 wires from the motor to the board and confirm that it's all original. I doubt it!
@@sdi1111 The 4 wire motors are completely adjustable.
I have put them in decks where the original was a single speed, and attached the speed control to the back of the motor.
Many decks use 4 wire motors which are single speed. Where do you think the motor I used came from? A single speed single deck with a 4 wire motor. Took the speed control off the board and stuck it to the speed adjust pins. If I popped that motor open, the location on the board where the speed control pot would have been is still there, and the traces lead out the back. I can assure you this is the original motor. The speed control is factory. Nobody changed it.
You say you have been doing this 50 years? I find that hard to believe as you would have seen decks just like this if you had. I have seen hundreds of more recent decks with the 4 wire motors. It just makes economic sense from a manufacture stand point to use a single motor across all their decks. This machine was running fast because the belt that someone else put on it was so bloody tight that they cranked the control up to get it to the right speed. I put the right size belt on , and it was not running fast. These are not FG servo motors.
If you just connect the positive and negative it will actually spin up to probably 6000 RPM. The speed decreases as the resistance decreases. If you short the speed control pins the motor stops.
Try it some time.
@@12voltvids My apologies to you and your viewers - the 4 wire motor is original in this model, though in my 50 years repairing hundreds of tape decks, I have never come across this design before. I spent a little more time researching and yuu are right too when you say this is a factory modified single speed motor that has been utilized simply because of cost saving..... In your clip you appeared to give up on the machine because of the wow & flutter and speed discrepancy. A tight belt will slow the speed and a loose belt will slip and not engage. The degree of wow I heard can only be attributed to either a worn flywheel or a bad motor. Good luck and apologies once again.
@@sdi1111
It's a bad flywheel or limiter clutch for the take up torque. The motor won't cause this type of flutter. It is rotating around 3000 rpm. This flutter rate is consistent with rotation of flywheel ganerally indicating that the flywheel is out of balance or the capstan shaft slightly bent. This can happen if for example the unit was dropped in the box. The packing would protect the cabinet but the heavy flywheel can easily be damaged. it's not that I've given up on the unit it's just that there's not a hell of a lot that I can do to fix this other than change the flywheel capstan assembly and that part would not be available and even if it was there's a $20 bill on the line for me to fix this. How far would you go when the guy that brings it to you it says I paid 20 bucks for this on Facebook if you can fix it for 20 go for it otherwise you can just recycle it. So I changed the belt and he will decide if it's good enough otherwise it becomes my tape deck. So in that case the only money I make off it is from people watching the UA-cam video.
I’ve owned all the top decks. Many Naks including Dragon, Tandberg 3014A, Sony, HK, etc. Yes they can sound “good”, with the right tape and on a serviced machine. But 10/10 times even a 10 dollar CD player will blow the best deck out of the water.
A 10 CD player will blow all analog formats out of the water.
from your experience, do you think a three head deck makes a big difference in sound quality when used only for digitising tapes?
Spelled AWIA. Nice work!
that belt looks so stupid i mean really! come on 😆
Somebody has done a repair before, but hasn't have the right belts in stock.
Probably done by whoever sold it so they could say it works.
A nice Aiwa smoke alarm 😉
Как ? Часы нарушение ТБ .
Replace CAPSTAN
why would anyone pay to fix a $30 tape deck????
Because they've stupid.
Needless to say I didn't make anything on this one. They are into but for 40 bucks now. The 20 they paid for it and the 20 they paid me to fix it. Does it sound better. Yes, a little but still sounds like a cheap tape player.
i saw dave motor macushita BURN IT THIS MOTOR!! REPLACE ONLY THE SANKYO!