..The whole tape mechanics can be removed easily after un-plugging several cables and removing a few screws.
I bought a belt kit online a few years ago, from a guy in Italy and never understood why there was no 4th belt. The counter belt was missing. Seller claimed all belts were there. He probably missed that belt because he managed to find suitable belts by trial and error from people asking him for them, and the counter belt is somewhat easy to miss.
Sadly if I remember correctly - if the counter isn't moving, then the deck will cut whatever transport function is active at the time.
I managed to service mine without takign any cables off, but it was necessary to remove a few screws and all cable ties and stretch every cable a lot in order to move it free to do some servicing.
I cannot help feeling that the ElCaset transport was created by people who wanted to make the transport as clunky an unattractive as possible while also making it an expensive deck to acquire. Why I cannot tell, it is just a gut feeling.
Still the ElCaset came about when decks were not supposed to be small and making tape decks smaller for carrying had not really caught on. Professionals still had to lug a suitcase of considerable weight around, while the consumers later on could manage with a lot less weight and size due to integrated circuits and only rudimentary playback.
So many sacrifices when a new format comes out. All not all of them appear sane years after. I doubt anyone will ever tell how the ElCaset came about from idea to product. I do see a lot of oem models with the Sony deck behind the face plate. perhaps they rushed the development so much that their forgot to make the deck more civil and appealing to regular Joe customer?
They did go for makign a portable model, which shows that someone on the Sony team believed that it could be made better.
Of course many Sony decks of cassette and DAT would also have shortcomings. Sometimes therse flaws would show up in several models when ever a flaw followed a part used in several decks.
It is sad when a poorly designed transport, power distribution, loading and eject mechanism or any electrical choise or pitfall shows up as being a poor choice, but we are not privy to why the choice was made.
I read online somewhere that that around the turn of 1980 or so Sony Europe decided to dump the remaining ElCaset decks in Finland about 2000 decks at a favorable price - with the then remaining tape stock and spares I gather. Same source has it that it is not a whole lot difficult to see them pop up now and then at fleamarkets in Finland.
I got two EL-5, one of which is a demo model. The reset button for the counter differs between them. Dunno why.
I have a lot of NOS tapes and abut a dozen or so that are used. The newst music is I think Depeche modes second album, which puts my tapes last recording around 1982 or so. probably when the oner when with cassettes and called it a day and put the deck in the basement.
I got a RM-30 remote for them both, in their original boxes too. I reckon the ElCaset decks fell out of owners use so quickly they had not bothered to get rid of the original boxes for the remotes.
The only two manufactureres of actual ElCaset tapes are Sony and Technics, I do not know of any others. Does anyone here know of other manufacturers?
-Mikkel