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Head alignment tape - where to buy

T

TerryS

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
I have a "vintage" Aiwa AD-M700 cassette deck that I am trying to get back into good working condition. I replaced the belts and had new rubber put on the pinch roller and one of the drive rollers that was "melting down".
I ordered an alignment cassette from MCM and it is junk.
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/DISTRIBUTED-BY-MCM-38-200-/38-200
It was cheap ($26) but worthless.
The only other alighment tapes I see are in the $300 range. Does anyone know of a source for a reasonable priced head alignment cassette?

Thanks,

Terry
 
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Why is the tape junk? Was it recorded out of alignment?

Another option is to have a reference tape made on a cassette recorder of known good calibration. But that means you will be aligning your deck to that deck and if the deck is believed to be in good alignment, all is well. But if not...
 
Doesn't TEAC still make these things? MTT-121?? A-BEX??? Do you want to plot the playback performance to check the condition of the heads? If you've got to mess with the PB eq to make it agree with the PB tape, the PB head's probably no good.
 
SaSi said:
Why is the tape junk? Was it recorded out of alignment?

Another option is to have a reference tape made on a cassette recorder of known good calibration. But that means you will be aligning your deck to that deck and if the deck is believed to be in good alignment, all is well. But if not...
Click to expand...

The one I bought from MCM seems like it is just made very badly. The test signals vary several dB up and down in amplitude. I can't really trust it for setting the playback levels, although I did use it to check the relative phasing of the two channels for head alignment. I do have a tape that I made many many years ago when the machine was failrly new and presumably aligned correctly. But it isn't a great alignment tape either. I'd like to buy a new alignment tape, but Google isn't finding any for me.....

Terry
 
Jon_Logan said:
Doesn't TEAC still make these things? MTT-121?? A-BEX??? Do you want to plot the playback performance to check the condition of the heads? If you've got to mess with the PB eq to make it agree with the PB tape, the PB head's probably no good.
Click to expand...

I'm just trying to align the heads. I also wouldn't mind checking the playback levels if I could find a tape that had properly recorded levels. I'm not really ready to spend the $300 that a professional alignment tape seems to cost. I was hopeing there'd be something better than the MCM piece of junk for well under $100.

Terry
 
Where did you find a $300 alignment tape (link please)?

Teac is out of calibration cassette business (for about a year and a half). MCM calibration tapes are trash (flutter, dropouts, inconsistant and incorrect levels, etc.). I know of no current source for good quality cassette alignment/cal tapes. Good ones are always around $100, unless you find one on the Bay, and that is always a crap-shoot.

R2R alignment tapes are available from US Recording, on Emtec or ATR tape. They too are around $100.

Enjoy,
Rich P
 
Sony used to make some alignment tapes that seemed ok. They were inexpensive but you had to buy one tape for every meaurement: one for 400Hz level, one for 10KHz alignment, another at 15KHz for playback equalization, one for speed and wow/flutter. I have the last one, it is very good. I don't know the numbers for the others. You might have to look in a Sony service manual for a cassette deck, they list the part numbers for the test tapes there. I concur the MCM tape is junk. I use a tape I made on my Denon DR-M44HX to align everything, but I would also like to find a good reference tape. Let me know if you do find one.
 
pustelniakr said:
Where did you find a $300 alignment tape (link please)?

Teac is out of calibration cassette business (for about a year and a half). MCM calibration tapes are trash (flutter, dropouts, inconsistant and incorrect levels, etc.). I know of no current source for good quality cassette alignment/cal tapes. Good ones are always around $100, unless you find one on the Bay, and that is always a crap-shoot.

R2R alignment tapes are available from US Recording, on Emtec or ATR tape. They too are around $100.

Enjoy,
Rich P
Click to expand...



Looking back through my previous searches, I only found R2R. No cassette yet.
 
pustelniakr said:
Where did you find a $300 alignment tape (link please)?

Teac is out of calibration cassette business (for about a year and a half). MCM calibration tapes are trash (flutter, dropouts, inconsistant and incorrect levels, etc.). I know of no current source for good quality cassette alignment/cal tapes. Good ones are always around $100, unless you find one on the Bay, and that is always a crap-shoot.

R2R alignment tapes are available from US Recording, on Emtec or ATR tape. They too are around $100.

Enjoy,
Rich P
Click to expand...

Here's a link that shows some prices. I didn't bother trying to actually purchase one given the cost:

http://www.jrfmagnetics.com/basftapes.html
 
TerryS said:
I stumbled on his page a while back, but for the life of me I don't see any ordering information.....

Terry
Click to expand...

You have to scroll down, it's on the same page:
"These are a must have if you intend to do some adjustment on your deck, and are for sale! The set of two tapes, cost 75EUR plus s&h, 5EUR to western europe, 10EUR elsewhere. They are payable by paypal, or international monety transfer if you are located in Europe. You can write to me for further details: luis at peromarta.org"
 
I may or may not buy these. I really don't work on many cassette decks these days, to justify the expense. My own decks just have to be aligned to the Denon, so I may just continue to use what I have. I aligned the Denon to a Nortronics AT-200B alignment tape (now worn out) when I got it.
 
I can vouch for Luis' tapes, they're excellent. They are clones of four different Nakamichi cal tapes: the 400Hz level, 15kHz azimuth, 3kHz speed/W+F and the 1kHz head height. With these four tapes (actually each side is a different tape, so two tapes) you can do 95% of everything you need for a cassette deck.

I bought a set a couple of years ago and did many alignments with them but I was always on the lookout for genuine Nakamichi calibration tapes. Eventually I found a complete set of genuine Teac alignment/calibration tapes, thinking these would be even better than Luis' copies.

I found that Luis' tapes were spot on, no difference from the genuine Teac tapes. His tapes are made on carefully calibrated Nakamichi Dragon and CR-7 decks and then compared with the originals that he has. Like many of you, I tried to find the real things but whenever a used Nak tape would pop up, the prices they always went for were in the $100's per tape. Too much for me!

So even though Luis' tapes are copies, you won't find anything better for less than several hundred dollars. If all you need to do is one deck, this may be not worthwhile but if you need to do this occasionally or for several decks, they are well worth it, IMO.
 
dr*audio said:
You have to scroll down, it's on the same page:
"These are a must have if you intend to do some adjustment on your deck, and are for sale! The set of two tapes, cost 75EUR plus s&h, 5EUR to western europe, 10EUR elsewhere. They are payable by paypal, or international monety transfer if you are located in Europe. You can write to me for further details: luis at peromarta.org"
Click to expand...

Thanks,
I see it now. It looks like a little over $100 to get a set of tapes. I may go ahead and do it if I can't find something else...
It doesn't make sense financially. I've already spent well over a hundred bucks getting this tape deck back into good condition. But what about this hobby makes financial sense???:lmao:

I'm still worried that there may be something wrong with the transport however. When I play back a tape of 1kHz and 5kHz tones I made many years ago on this same machine (when it was almost new), The relative phase of the two channels jitters quite a bit on the oscilloscope like the tape is not moving smoothly across the heads. Ive had the pinch roller rebuilt and it helped quite a bit, but it still jitters more than I would expect. I don't have much experience with such things, so I may be wrong. I don't have a wow and flutter meter, but the distortion at 400 Hz 0dB is in spec, so maybe it is OK.

It would probably make sense to send it to someone who knows what they are doing and have them check it out and align it, but I'm a DIY kind of guy (meaning I waste much time and money because I'm too pig-headed to admit I don't know what I'm doing).

Terry
 
It sounds like the tape is skewing. Normally this would be the fault of the pinchroller. If Terry Witt rebuilt it, it should be fine. I would look at the take up torque, it may be too high, or the clutch might be grabbing.
 
I hate to ask you this question so feel free to answer or not.
I have a pioneer cf-t1000 casstte deck and everytime i push play nothing happens and the play button clicks off. I tok the top off and the motor seems easy to stop by hand (maybe that's the reason for the flywheel).
The belts all seem good.
Got a pizza (pick up only) for the answer.
Bty,,,old genesis (huge) fan.
Albert
 
dr*audio said:
It sounds like the tape is skewing. Normally this would be the fault of the pinchroller. If Terry Witt rebuilt it, it should be fine. I would look at the take up torque, it may be too high, or the clutch might be grabbing.
Click to expand...

Terry Witt rebuilt the pinch roller and one of the drive rollers. They look like new. The clutches are pretty simple devices with no adjustment that I can see. I think I'll hook it up and do some listening. If it sounds OK, I'm good with it.....

Terry
 
marantzroom said:
I hate to ask you this question so feel free to answer or not.
I have a pioneer cf-t1000 casstte deck and everytime i push play nothing happens and the play button clicks off. I tok the top off and the motor seems easy to stop by hand (maybe that's the reason for the flywheel).
The belts all seem good.
Got a pizza (pick up only) for the answer.
Bty,,,old genesis (huge) fan.
Albert
Click to expand...

Can you put a tape in it and watch what happens when you hit play? See if the motor is turning or if it is stalled, I'm not familiar with that model, so I don't really have any good suggestions. On mine, the belts were slipping. That was pretty easy to spot.

Good luck,
Terry
 
Hi, I have the same AD-M700U deck. while I'm not fimilar with tape head adjustments, I wonder if you could tell me where I could find new belts. I need the play or flywheel belt. Also my playback Hi-end seems to be low. Any suggestions?
tuneman88@aol.com
 
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