Hi all, I was testing a Walkman I'm in the process of selling to someone and played a tape inside it. I didn't check the quality of the tape beforehand though so this could have been an issue to begin with but as I played it through the EX194 I noticed relatively frequently muffled sound or a few drops here and there. After popping out the tape and inspecting it I found regular, somewhat uniform 'dents' along the edges of it almost all the way through (with some exceptions!). Now I'm sure I can't restore it back to being perfect but I'm sure being placed in heat and being played continuously in my deck might help flatten these out but this makes me feel like this Walkman has one of my dreaded problems... A dented pinch roller. However, I inspected the roller carefully using a light magnifier and couldn't see anything particularly visible. Could some kind of interaction issue between the capstan guiding the tape and the roller be the culprit? I've heard capstans can be 'fixed' by submersion in an iron-containing solution but I'd need to look into it. Still I'd much rather be safe than sorry, and I would not want to sell someone a Walkman that could potentially damage their tapes. I am going to test it with some other tapes for now and see if they suffer the same effects. If not then lucky me, if so then I guess I have work to do...
I would start by replacing the pinch roller. Even if there are no visible faults, the original rubber will have gone hard and is probably producing the symptoms you describe. I would do this before playing another tape and risking further damage. If you have access to a mirror tape or can make one, use it to check the tape path.
Hi Deb64, I have found the pinch roller online. However I jumped the gun and tested a few of my blank tapes... Thankfully none of them got any dents or had any drops or distortion, and this is after playing them on both sides two times each. I won't write this off as not a problem yet but I will be careful to only use my recorded tapes in this machine lest I damage one of my more cherished prerecorded ones. Thanks
Before replacing the pinch roller, the "cheap" option would be to clean it first! I audition dozens of used pre-recorded cassettes every week and the muffled/drop-out symptoms described here happen quite regularly, as old tapes shed their particles and I easily forget to do pre-emptive cleaning.
I cleaning my walkman's pinchrollers every month, to keep them clean. So if you never did this, use IPA alcohol and q-tip.
Hi yes I clean once every month or two months, it turned out that the tape (a preowned one) was already like that and other tapes were fine. To be safe I'll probably get a new pinch roller installed at some point but they're very clean right now
With regards to cleaning. My home deck gets cleaned about every 10 hours and is cleaned every time before a recording. I use my personal stereos for my commute to and from work 5 days a week, the time adds up to less then 10 hours a week. I also rotate the units weekly, so at the end of the week before I swap the unit for a different one I always give it a good clean before I put it away. So my units are cleaned about every 10 hours. The units gets used once every 5 to 6 weeks, I rotate through 2 D6C’s, 2 DC2’s, and a DD9 but I have to admit the DD9 does not see the light of day much as the D6C’s and DC2’s sounds so much better.
