On 6 Mar, 16:19, "N Cook" wrote:

These units are called 4 head, 4 pairs of screened stereo wires going to the
head but all seem to relate half the tape. So one question is why 2 pinch
wheels when there seems to be no proper "reverse" side play or loop control
function as a fixed head.

The "reverse" pinchwheel seems to operate only just clear of the reverse
capstan spindle and has a strange guide that protrudes around the pinchwheel
and into the recess of the cassette - what is the function of that
protrusion and a non pinching pinch wheel ?

What do the 4 stereo heads do ?

why would someone need to replay at record - some semi-pro facility for EQ
checks ?

Sounds like a quality cassette deck.

2 pinchwheels are used to pull the tape taut as it passes over the
heads. The reuslt is a dramatic increase in reliability of tape to
head contact, thus eliminating a common cause of poor quality sound.

4 heads are used so that one can listen to the played back signal
during recording. This enables several things:
1. you can adjust the bias and hear the result almost instantly,
which makes a quality improvement with many tapes
2. If there is muck on the head, a bad tape, incomplete erase, or any
other recording problem, you know immediately, and dont waste a lot of
time making a dud recording.

Sounds like its well worth fixing.

As for the pinchwheel protrusion, I dont know what it looks like so
its impossible to say. Peraps its a small protrusion designed to hold
the cassette in exactly the right position, cheaper decks often dont
have accurate cassette shell holding, with predictable inconsistent
results on tape to head contact and alignment.

PS all this technology goes back to the 70s, there was a late 70s
Pioneer that had all the above, and is/was still one of the best
cassetts decks 20 years later.


NT