Oh it was sounding soo good too!

[analoge4ever]

The other day I cleaned one of my R2Rs, demagnetized, then started playing some factory recorded tapes.

Everything was sounding great, till I got about a third of the way through a Moody Blues tape I had acquired through fleabay. This tape seems to have a huge dropout, the high frequencies are gone, and what's left is attenuated significantly. When I reversed the machine to play the other side of the tape it almost completely stopped at that point.

My guess is that the tape is ruined, but if anyone knows how to restore a contaminated tape please be so kind as to share your technique. I haven't had time to visually inspect the tape yet, but I suspect some sort of contamination or maybe a splice done with Scotch tape.

 

[squirrelnest]

.....Or maybe got near a magnetic field .....

 

[analoge4ever]

.....Or maybe got near a magnetic field .....

Yea, one of those multi-Tesla super-magnets might stop the tape.

 

[cableguy2]

Did you check the path to see if the tape is shedding a lot? That can gum up everything. You can bake them, but see if they are shedding first, and what brand of tape is it.