SA find, Akai CS-M02

[adamm]

Found this for $6.99, anyone have any experience with it? Any major problems? think I'll pick it up anyway along with a denon dcm 320 6-disc changer.

picture and description - http://www.vintagecassette.com/Akai/CS-M02

 

[TAGO MAGO]

Found this for $6.99, anyone have any experience with it? Any major problems? think I'll pick it up anyway along with a denon dcm 320 6-disc changer.

picture and description - http://www.vintagecassette.com/Akai/CS-M02

Most of the Akai decks I've used from that era have been fantastic. I'd go for it. That age may need belts, although I have picked up plenty that have been fine. Just depends how well the previous owners kept it up.

 

[adamm]

yeah, it looked to be in decent condition, nothing that I noticed off hand. i found a belt kit for it incase I need it. thanks, think I'll pick it up tomorrow on my lunch break. might pass on the cd player though.

 

[adamm]

Turned it on, lights, spools still spin. only problem is that the record button doesn't push down and I can't see anything stoping it from engaging. I'm going to give it a closer look tonight, I think I'm going to take it apart (with pictures) to clean it so maybe it's stuck on something.

 

[Alex Nikitin]

Turned it on, lights, spools still spin. only problem is that the record button doesn't push down and I can't see anything stoping it from engaging. I'm going to give it a closer look tonight, I think I'm going to take it apart (with pictures) to clean it so maybe it's stuck on something.

Record button can only be pressed if there is a cassette inside with a tab intact.

CS-M02 is a nice deck - a good long-life sendust head, nice meters and a decent sound. There is one particular problem with that model as I recall - the capstan has got too much movement in-out and as a result the azimuth is not stable - I've fixed it at the time (about 25 years ago!) by putting a small spring under the flywheel.

Alex

 

[adamm]

Good to know it's not stuck on something. I'm a novice when it comes to this stuff, is there any way you could explain the capstan bit a little more. any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks for the info, think I'll do a little research this weekend.

 

[Alex Nikitin]

Good to know it's not stuck on something. I'm a novice when it comes to this stuff, is there any way you could explain the capstan bit a little more. any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks for the info, think I'll do a little research this weekend.

I do have CS-M02 in my collection - probably will open it tomorrow to take few pictures for you.

Alex

 

[adamm]

that would be fantastic, thank you

 

[Alex Nikitin]

I've bought Akai CS-M02 for my collection of decks about a year ago - purely out of a sentiment, as I owned one in 1980-s. I remember it as a nice deck with a good sound. However this time it was just sitting on the shelf waiting its turn to be serviced and as I had many other very impressive recorders to deal with, poor old CS-M02 had a long wait. Now it's over - the deck is fully serviced, modified (with a spring on a capstan) and performs rather nicely.

Here is a small album of photos I've taken today. On the picture #8 you can see a small spring I've fitted to stop the capstan from moving during play. Without it it takes a while for the azimuth to settle and it is not very stable. With the spring the azimuth is reasonably stable. W&F after the service measures rather well for a single capstan 30 year old deck - 0.09% DIN, 0.06% RMS wtd. Playback response (typically for many Japanese decks at that time) is rolling HF somewhat, about -3 dB at 8 kHz and after that quite flat up to 18 kHz. Record-playback response on a Type I tape (BASF FE1) is from 40 Hz to 16 kHz (-3 dB).

This deck has a nice sound, not perfect, but very easy to listen to - both playing back pre-recorded tapes and on its own recordings.

Alex