Re: [ARSCLIST] Use care with new-to-you tape machines

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Anyone remember the tape-eating monster on "The Missing Watergate Tapes"?
National Lampoon LP.

dl

"Richard L. Hess" wrote:

> I am hearing more and more stories about (and fixing some of the
> tapes from) tape machines chewing original master tapes.
>
> I've had a rash of micro-cassettes recently. Prior to that there were
> some DA-88 tapes and some standard cassette tapes.
>
> Often, it seems people will acquire a new machine and then not use an
> old tape to test it first. This is a great risk with machines from
> eBay, but, as we heard from Brandon at Stanford, it can happen right
> out of the box. Now Brandon's could have been a tape defect and the
> machine could have played a test tape fine, we don't know, but
> PLEASE, EVERYONE: when you get a new machine, try out a scratch tape
> or two first before using it with a good tape. I do that. Everyone
> should. I don't want that kind of work.
>
> Funny story (sort of). The guy who had the DA-88 eat a tape was a
> previous client. Since he was a good previous client, I bought an
> eBay DA-38 to transfer his tape after I repaired it. The eBay machine
> was supposedly only used 75 hours. I got it, put an old tape in it.
> Chewed. I found the local Tascam-recommended repair shop and they
> fixed it up fine for me.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
> Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.