What a beautiful "iron pig" that is. The 70s and early 80s had such great gear from Japan. And although it is just equipped with a standard ferrite head, the features are quite impressive and allowed a sneak peek at the future of cassette decks. Just a few years later, Sony made serious business with their front loaders, offering three heads, calibration and whatnot.
I have a TC-199SD and the soft eject is pretty cool. It's some twine wrapped around a propellor looking thing. Some WD-40 helped greatly with the noise.
Own one, made my own wired remote by changing Amphenol 11p (for Sony RM-30) to an DIN 8p connector. Plastic box with 5 keys (Amazon). Cable is a CAT 5/6 cable with 8 wires. Works fine. Next step wireless controle with 4 relays with RF transmitter.
1:24 Die rote LED als Indikator dafür, ob der Timer auf Aufnahme ist, oder nicht, ist tatsächlich ein garnicht so dummes Feature :D Ich hatte bei meinem Deck die Aufnahme-Timer Funktion ausversehen eine Zeit lang eingeschaltet und als ich das Deck in angeschaltenem Zustand an den Strom angeschlossen habe, habe ich damit eine Aufnahme ruiniert...
Great heads on this deck. Ferrite, never ever wares out. It was often said that the standard metal heads sounded better than ferrite but tended to be very soft and ware was a common fault and decks a couple of years old lost all the HF. A replacement head was the only solution. Very common to use ferrite erase heads but ferrite record/playback heads mainly used on up market decks only.
I have one of these decks which matches my TA5650 amp and matching Sony Dolby ST tuner. They are great decks but a lot of demand is put on the belts to both engage the transport mechanism and deal with auto stop via the tape counter. It's what I call Sonys Tank era where they built things to last. I am looking to buy a TC766-2 reel to reel to match this system.
hat's what happens when you work in the Hi Fi trade. I did get rid of the EL7 Elcassette because I saw the limitations and I have a few reel to reel machines anyway. @@DrCassette
Hi, interesting video. I have just acquired one of these. Would you please do a follow up video as I’m sure that I’m not the only person who would find it interesting. All the best. Keep up the excellent videos.
I was very lucky to find a friend who had a Pioneer CT-F1250 with little use and well maintained myself but I guarantee that wasn't cheap.That reminds me that I need to fix my TC-K4A!
I also saw one of these at the thriftshop, didn't buy it though because they didn't accept card, and when I got back there with cash, it was already gone.
This is one of several decks I've seen with separate positions for "low" and "normal" bias. Is "low bias" the same as normal bias on other decks, and what it calls "normal bias" is designed for FerroChrome tapes? That's what the switch positions seem to indicate.
I am also a bit puzzled by that: I know Normal, High and Metal bias (the last one didn't exist when they designed this deck), maybe FeCr, and for Equalisation 70µs and 120µs, I'm wondering what they use for FeCr here, maybe that had not been defined by then?
I think it is unrepaired. If you can buy a Sony deck TC-K5 goes same a the deck you demonstriat. If you can buy broken TC-K5 replacements will be there.
If I recall correctly, this cassette deck needs new belts and rubber idler tyres. Even after all these years I still haven't repaired this cassette deck, it is still there waiting...
Do you have this rare 1976 Model Sony TC-229 SD Cassette Deck hooked up to a amplifier? While you was playing the test recording sample from the cassette? I don't see no amplifier hooked up or anything of that sort? That's why I asked this question? Thanks.
Okay. I figure it would be. Thanks for the kind response. I appreciate it. Keep up the good work. Nice antique cassette deck. I recently bought a 1980 Sony TC-K71 Cassette Deck (Silver Color) from a decent owner from eBay. It looks good as new. Japanese knew what they was doing. When they made good quality top of the line.
i have TC-K15, I've done the azimuth adjustment properly and clean it also. but still, kinda muffled for the HI frequency. what brand/type of azimuth head you suggest for my deck, IF one day i have to change it??
I suggest not to mess with it any further as you don't quite seem to know what you are talking about. "Azimuth heads" do not exist. Azimuth is an alignment property of any record and playback head.
Usually, adjusting the proper azimuth needs a reference tape and a 2-channel oscilloscope for the X-Y graph. If you don't know what you are doing (you need a service manual at least), you could very easily throw the head or entire tape path out of alignment which would then require special tools/gauges to correct. If the highs are muffled on your own recordings, there could exist several reasons. First would be wrong equalisation (e.g playing back a Type I on Type II position) or wrong noise reduction setting. The pb head could be in need of degaussing. Or the pb head is simply worn out. Lots of stuff can go wrong with these older machines.
I have exactly the same issue on my Sony TC-229 too. Please can you tell me what the issue here in your video is and how to resolve it. I’m guessing that it will require new tires but don’t want to spend money on something if I’m assuming incorrectly. Great video by the way
The belts and rubber idler wheels need to be replaced. Please refer to the Sony service manual for further info. This is very important, because a lot of Sony equipment requires rather specific repair procedures or else other problems can occur.
+Wieger Spaan There will be a repair video eventually, but I have a lot of equipment in need of repairs, and not much time to take care of everything. It will be a while.
Hi! Do you plan to make a repair video on this machine? I inherited this model from my father. It is basically still in mostly working condition, but it sounds terrible. I guess it has the "worn out belt" thing going on, you mentioned. I would like to restore it to fully working condition. Not that I have that many cassettes, but this deck has sentimental value to it, as it was the centerpiece of our stereo during my youth. I know next to nothing about audio equipment, much less how to repair it, so I would much appreciate such a video :)
Hi greetings, I have some old cassette decks and I'm setting a challenge for myself; would it be possible to convert these cassette decks onto two full tracks recording providing using only blank cassettes? would it be a matter of just wiring the rec/play head accordingly? The idea is to have a cassette deck version of the open reel professional mastering machines. Any suggestions welcome. Many thanks
No, this would require a special record/playback head. Normal heads are active on only one half of the cassette tape. All you could do is try to find a head out of an Autoreverse cassette device that does not flip around to play the other side (for example a Walkman). Those are four track heads that you could wire up to fit your needs, but those heads are probably optimized for playback, so they won't give very good quality recordings.
same here, I've done the azimuth adjustment properly and clean it also. but still, kinda muffled for the high frequency. what brand/type of azimuth head you suggest for my deck, IF one day i have to change it??
I have no idea what kind of pinch rollers lead you to think this, pinch rollers can be (and should be) cleaned with alcohol. Just don't soak them. Just dunk a cotton swab in isoproyl alcohol, put the deck in play mode and lightly hold it against the pinch roller (on the right side, so the cotton swab won't be pulled by the capstan). Make sure you don't apply too much force as you could deform the pinch roller in the worst case. Just lightly press against the pinch roller for 2-3 rotations, then move the cotton swab to the other part on the pinch roller that wasn't treated yet. Afterwards it helps to clean the roller up a bit, nobody want residual alcohol on their tapes. It is so effective and on brand name pinch rollers it is totally safe.
Cleaning the pinch roller with water is total nonsense. Alcohol works very well and does not hurt the rubber. Yes, it will react with the rubber and it will minimally change the surface, but this effect is desirable as it improves traction in the mechanism. In fact dried out pinch rollers that cause the tape to mistrack and get wrinkled in some cases can temporarily be restored with alcohol.
+DrCassette Metal tape was very expensive and few people used them. They needed a very different bias setting and EQ. Very few decks would give good results simply because they did NOT have the correct bias and EQ. This one did however and gave very good sound. On most material it was quite hard to tell a recording from a live input.
Don't understand why they added a soft eject to this deck. Just some else that can go wrong. I like deck where you physical have to place the cassette into the deck. I hope people will re-watch your video, it the only way to educate yourself. And learn the technical language. Did you make a video on how to clean a noisy P.O.T without replacing it,
+Robert Mattison The direct load and lock type mechanisms were not popular back then. Cleaning potentiometers has been part of many of my other repair videos. Trivial, really.
