I have one of these, pulled it out after seeing this thread. I got it several years ago still new in box, I find it a very quite unit, a lot of other such decks seem to put out more noise than what is actually on the tape. I Pulled out some old tapes and most play flawlessly. As feared and expected several broke on the splice so I ordered some foil splices to fix them. I used to just remove the foil and use a regular piece of splicing tape and then just switch tracks manually. On tapes with the rotted foam pad I just remove it and the tapes seem to still play fine. I'm debating if I should replace the pads, don't know if the tapes will play any better (on this deck ) or not with the foam installed. I've had at least a couple tapes ruined by the sticky foam mess from those rotten rotted pads.