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A few weeks back I was perusing the musical instruments section of the local marketplace ads when I happened to see an old reel-to-reel tape deck for just ten bucks. I immediately messaged the seller to see if it was still available, and within an hour I was driving off with a dusty, tar-stained mess. It didn’t have tape, or even the reels, and I was almost afraid to plug it in to find out how broken it was. But plug it in I did, and I made a video all about the process of cleaning it up and making it serviceable again. Check out the video here:
Though not exactly the result I was looking for, it’s a good start, and I know a lot more about fixing up a vintage reel-to-reel tape recorder than I did when I started. I’ll keep messing with it and researching how to work out those phase issues I heard, and hopefully have more updates on my progress in the future.
In the meantime, if you have an old tape machine you’re thinking about fixing up, here are some links to the tools and parts I used for this video:
