Hi, Zabble, Jon, Mike, Circular Vibes, Clint Eastwood, Snood, Phillip Spinner, Zmacman and others!
I appreciate your help in advising on my cr-8–dss. I actually ordered and received the han-d-mag and my rubber cleaner and head cleaners. I opened up my other technics rs 858 dus deck first since it has been sitting under my bed and I wouldn’t have to uncable it and I could get familiar with han-d-mag. It was clean on the inside and who knew how much easier to access! I then put it in my system and its heads are not as well-aligned, but it will do until I feel like dabbling into head alignment. I will say that it spits carts out fast when trying to play to the splice and catch it before it breaks on my last 20 or so carts that have yet to be fixed with new foil. So, then I got the manual from Hi-Fi Engine on my ipad and followed directions (it was for the “ss” model, not “dss” but as far as I can tell, the only physical difference was absence of the “tone” knob. So here goes:
What a difficult way to get in! The unit was one that Quadbob was to have restored in 2006 (I labeled it at the time). But I guess that did not involve replacing the spongy stuff between faceplate and internal stuff. Luckily I just scraped the loose stuff off and none got in the deck. But I was not about to try to remove the leads and such from the meters, so sort of had the faceplate attached. But, unlike the technics, I could not access to within a quarter inch the heads (for demagnetizing). I will talk about that in a moment. So, the main head was very clean, but the capstan was not. I must have cleaned it with 50 long q-tips with head cleaner and then a brass polisher good for stainless steel and other metals. I then used a scotchbright pad I cut and was able to reach the capstan with using some reverse scissors things I found in a computer type tool package I have. Still, after all that, I cannot make that thing shiny, but there is no loose tape or fibers. I have not put the unit back in my system to test yet, but I have questions about the demagnetizing process. I watched probably hours of youtube videos about this and I knew to go very slow and approach from a couple of feet away, go slow and then go back very slowly before unplugging. Here was the surprise - in the technics deck, it had a fairly strong magnetic pull (the unit) pulling the han-d-mag to different parts and the chassis. Still, I was able in that unit to get close to the head and capstan. I did not know about the pull and it was a bit scary and I know the rubber tip did get sucked onto parts before I wrestled it away. But, then, in the akai, wow what a magnetic pull! It did clang on the parts as I tried to get at least near the head and capstan, so it was jerky motion, not smooth and no way to be smooth even if I had big muscles! I still tried to back away very slowly to avoid magnetizing everything. And I did in both cases back away about two feet.
So, my questions are:
1. What does that mean? In the videos, nobody showed the pull of the head of the demagnetizer so strongly. I hope that was normal, but both decks had the pull to the chassis, just the akai was stronger.
2. How bad it it to have a clean capstan, but not shiny?
3. If the unit does not perform well when I hook it up, how do y’all feel about technics? That deck has not been services]dmand Imhave to turn the volume on my 9001 up more. And when I went to raise the level on one of the rear channels using the tecnics knob, it made a loud hiss, loud! So I backed it off. Not sure if that is a sign of an issue. And hopefully the akai will play well. I hate that I reassembled it, but did not take pictures. Anyway, I know I have one more deck in storage and it may be an akai - I honestly cannot remember because at one time I had four, but I gave one away (to my chagrin, the guy, my mom;s neighbor, never even got into quad yet kept my nice gesture to help somebody and he is wealthy! Has four cars, expensive ones - I guess I should ask for it back since my mom;smhusband won’t go over and ask for me). In my youtube watching, I came across Barry who has great credentials and made lots of helpful videos. He, though, does not recommend the akai units because of their proprietary parts being hard to get. He likes, for quad decks, the technics. Do y’all have opinions here? I would love to know.
So, I love my quad and I did grow up buying 8 tracks (stereo) complements of Columbis House record and tape club!) and I threw them out the window of my ‘69 Nova I had in 1979 as a sophomore in high school. Never even knew about quad until the 80s. And I have fixed 90% of my tapes and noted it on them so I can just plug and play. I love vinyl, too and have that part of my system running great with my nice AT20ss cart, and vinyl sounds clearer, but I do not mind the “darker” sort of sound of 8 tracks. I do want this to work and I wish I had better skills. Is there anyone who does thorough work to make a more pristine-playing, well-aligned restoration of these that you would recommend? I do not want to pay and have many future repairs and I will only feed it good tapes. I may consider having one of mine done up right, but which one if I do and is there someone who does truly understand quad decks well? In the meantime, I will enjou]y the technics for a bit so I can compare when I put the akai back in. And school starts next week, which irritates my plan, but I will only be doing a long-term sub position which will pay my insurance for the year and then I will be officially retired and immerse myself back in my hobby again! Yay! Thanks in advancemto any and all who can help with any of my questions or offer further assistance. I can take it if you have to criticize my learning curve on electronics! I am fascinated by both sound and music! That is, I love to try to tinker and then my gemini self will vascilate back to only wanting to listen and not mess with equipment. I mainly did not want to get electrocuted and I did meet that goal and I am proud of what I have done here. I can be careful and will study and follow directions, but I had no idea that the magnetic pull of the de-magnetizer would be a thing, or so strong of a thing!
My final comment is this: I have never had full confidence that my system sounds great. I realized in reflecting these past weeks that we have a great community here. I think I get more plugged into life here than my real life sometimes. This interests me and hardly anyone I know even understands when I tell them they are looking a Q8’s Not “oh, I remember these” regular 8 tracks or regular albums. And they do not “get” what discrete means and so I do not try to share music listening except with just a few because then they just want background music. And I remembered years ago that Mike visited. I wonder if people here do travel and ask to visit each other? I just got back from Vegas (I do not gamble or drink - went to see Stevie wonder and the fabulous Michael Jackson One Cirque du Soleil program) and I wish I had thought to see if there was a quad person who lived there who would let me hear their system. I also went to Philly for a wedding this summer and may have missed a chance. Do people visit? As a woman, I would probably bring a friend and “vet” anyone I was not familiar with, but I would love a tour of quad homes in the US and abroad! Would that not make awesome travel experiences! I thinks so. Jon - you don’t want to start a quad travel forum do you?!
. Or a quad vrbo or quad airb&B? My home is too small for sleepovers, but really - visits to quad homes to live and learn would be cool! Okay, I have written a book with two fingers on my ipad. I look forward to any responses!
Laura
..at least for us it would be fun
