Some of my tapes play fine on side-a but has severe drop-outs on side-b.
To the extent that the b-side becomes unplayable.
Could this be the tapes themselves or is it the player?
Many tapes play just fine on both sides.
Try an analog, chromium cassette and test both sides. maybe there’s too much wow and flutter, or something else in the sound produced.
Also, if this is only on a couple of tapes (self-recorded?), then it could have gone wrong at the time of recording.
Always check the tape visually. It could be already damaged at an earlier time by bad pinch rollers.
All the tapes I use are pre-recorded.
I lean towards bad/damaged tapes rather than the player.
I’ve played 5 tapes now with this 2nd player and 2 of them had severe drop-outs on side-b.
The other 3 played perfect on both sides.
I got this Dire Straits “Love Over Gold” tape and it has severe drop-outs on side-a.
So much that the audio totally disappears for a couple of seconds (8:57 - 9:12)
I stopped the tape at the most severe spot and ejected it and looked at it and it had a matt greyish goo/film on the tape.
I tried to clean it with IPA (as the video posted on YT by DR DCC shows) and managed to get it much better, but the drop-outs still persists the exact same way they did before the cleaning.
But it’s more than likely that this tape is too far gone. This cleaning method is for tapes with minor drop-outs. Not as severe as this.
Strangely though there’s no drop-outs whatsoever when playing the b-side at the same spot.
I guess there’s nothing more I can do to try and save this tape.
I just can’t believe it!!
As a last solution I tried to clean the felt pad as shown on YT by DR DCC and holy macarony the tape plays almost flawlessly through that deteriorated part 8:57 - 9:12 now.
Only two minor drop-outs where the sound totally disappeared before.
Pure magic!
3 Likes
Probably someone didn’t rewind the tape when they last put it away. This is unfortunately all too common with DCC’s.
===Jac