JonG Posted December 6, 2014 Report Share Posted December 6, 2014 A friend of mine has an Akai reel to reel tape machine from the 70s, which is a consumer machine that would play stereo/quad tapes. It is now displaying a constant white noise of sorts whenever it is powered on, whether or not it is playing a tape. No signal comes from the tape when it is playing, however all mechanical evidence of it working seems to check out ok. The noise comes from the built in speakers, as well as all outputs including the headphone jack. Has anyone here experienced this sort of issue and found a solution other than bringing it into be repaired? He is a DIYer so can do simple repairs if he knows where to look. I myself am curious so I thought I'd ask the people here who have extensive experience with tape machines. Any thoughts or ideas are welcome, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted December 6, 2014 Report Share Posted December 6, 2014 Are the meters pinning when it makes all that noise? Does it continue in input or playback mode? There are a lot of things it could be, incl dead caps. Pop the back off and see if anything looks bad--like a ribbon connector disconnected, a broken wire etc. Wiggle stuff. Turn it on and let it idle for many hours. Light a black candle. A tech will be $75-100/hr. Sorry. philp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Wielage Posted December 6, 2014 Report Share Posted December 6, 2014 Sounds like the caps have gone to capacitor heaven. You need somebody who can do a board-level test and go through every component and see what's blown and/or what needs replaced. And you'll also need a service manual to figure out voltages and so on. In the long run, it might be a better idea to find a new/old stock replacement on eBay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigF Posted December 7, 2014 Report Share Posted December 7, 2014 I'll agree the caps are probaly dead but it sounds like more than just caps, I'm thinkg output amp section, repro head amp section if mointoring the input is clean (I'm assuming a 4 channel OpAmp IC is used) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonG Posted December 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 7, 2014 Solid info. Thanks for the input fellas! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 11, 2014 Report Share Posted December 11, 2014 JonG: " a solution other than bringing it into be repaired? " use it for target practice..? door stopper ?? boat anchor..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted December 11, 2014 Report Share Posted December 11, 2014 You never said whether the noise was the same on both/all channels (and if the same, is it in phase)? If the noise is the same, then the only common circuit I can think of is the power supply. Unless for some reason they routed both channels through a dual DIP preamp, and both sides of the chip died the same way. Look at the filter capacitors, and also any small caps around the voltage regulator. If the noise is different or only on one channel, then the problem is harder -- it's probably not the power supply -- but also easier, because you can trace the dead channel against the good one to see what stage is broken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonG Posted December 13, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2014 We opened it up and there was a small board that connects to the main board inside. This board connects to one of the tape heads, but was dislodged from the main board, and the connector was cracked. This was a pretty easy fix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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