About the service
Machines reach my bench with the same handful of complaints. The tape will not pull. The transport chews it into the capstan. Speed wanders, so a steady note turns seasick. The sound has gone dull and muffled, as if a blanket were thrown over the top octave. One channel is silent, or there is hum and hiss under everything. Behind those symptoms you almost always find the same short list of causes: a belt stretched into a loose loop, a pinch roller gone hard and glazed, a head caked with oxide, worn idlers in the drive, and dried-out electrolytic capacitors in the power supply. I take every unit in against a written inventory, noting the case, the knobs, the reels and any tape left inside, then open the transport and show you what actually failed before quoting.
A word on safety, meant literally. The mains section sits at live voltage whenever the unit is plugged in, and the capacitors keep a dangerous charge for a long time after you switch it off, so opening one of these at the kitchen table is not a rainy-afternoon project. A cracked mains cord and bulging capacitors get replaced, never taped over and never nursed along. For a fair number of machines the original parts have not been manufactured for decades: I either match an analogue by its real parameters or tell you plainly that the repair is not worth the money, rather than billing you for an endless parts hunt.
If the tape carries a family recording that exists on one cassette only, we reverse the usual order. The recording is digitised first on a known-good transport, and only then do the mechanics get exercised. Running an irreplaceable tape through a machine that chews is how such a tape is lost for good. Quotes are honest and given before the work starts, the deadline is agreed the same day, and everything you leave with me is signed for.
What the job covers:
— replacement of stretched belts, tyres, idlers and glazed pinch rollers
— cleaning and demagnetising of record, playback and erase heads
— azimuth alignment and tape tension or pressure adjustment
— full overhaul of the transport: bearings, brakes, clutches, lubrication
— replacement of aged electrolytic capacitors in supply and audio stages
— cleaning of potentiometers, switches and contacts to cure crackle and a dead channel
— speed and wow measured against a test tape, not by ear
— gentle cabinet cleaning that leaves the printed lettering intact
— digitising of family recordings on request
— itemised quote before work, agreed deadline, written intake list
A word on safety, meant literally. The mains section sits at live voltage whenever the unit is plugged in, and the capacitors keep a dangerous charge for a long time after you switch it off, so opening one of these at the kitchen table is not a rainy-afternoon project. A cracked mains cord and bulging capacitors get replaced, never taped over and never nursed along. For a fair number of machines the original parts have not been manufactured for decades: I either match an analogue by its real parameters or tell you plainly that the repair is not worth the money, rather than billing you for an endless parts hunt.
If the tape carries a family recording that exists on one cassette only, we reverse the usual order. The recording is digitised first on a known-good transport, and only then do the mechanics get exercised. Running an irreplaceable tape through a machine that chews is how such a tape is lost for good. Quotes are honest and given before the work starts, the deadline is agreed the same day, and everything you leave with me is signed for.
What the job covers:
— replacement of stretched belts, tyres, idlers and glazed pinch rollers
— cleaning and demagnetising of record, playback and erase heads
— azimuth alignment and tape tension or pressure adjustment
— full overhaul of the transport: bearings, brakes, clutches, lubrication
— replacement of aged electrolytic capacitors in supply and audio stages
— cleaning of potentiometers, switches and contacts to cure crackle and a dead channel
— speed and wow measured against a test tape, not by ear
— gentle cabinet cleaning that leaves the printed lettering intact
— digitising of family recordings on request
— itemised quote before work, agreed deadline, written intake list
