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Looking for Tascam 388 Rec/Play head
- Thread starter Tinball
- Start date
Is your head missing/open circuit or merely worn out?
John French re-lapped a number of them with great success for me when I recently had to restore a BUNCH of 388s.
To me it's a better solution than replacing the head because he does some crazy-accurate optical alignment after it is relapped. Then you will know that it won't wear unevenly (the dreaded trapezoid)
Another bonus is that it's usually really easy to get the machine to record/play back flat with a relapped head, assuming the EQ trimmers haven't been messed with since it was new (this actually seems to be the case most of the time)
John French re-lapped a number of them with great success for me when I recently had to restore a BUNCH of 388s.
To me it's a better solution than replacing the head because he does some crazy-accurate optical alignment after it is relapped. Then you will know that it won't wear unevenly (the dreaded trapezoid)
Another bonus is that it's usually really easy to get the machine to record/play back flat with a relapped head, assuming the EQ trimmers haven't been messed with since it was new (this actually seems to be the case most of the time)
Hey - Thanks for the reply. I didn't realize how scarce the heads are for this machine. I have (2) 388's and I'm putting together into one fully functioning 388. Everything is functioning great except record on track 1. Both heads work perfect in playback. Record on track 1 and nothing comes back. Swap heads and the 2nd head 1k comes back really low -10 db. Swapped bias and record cards and still the same. No obvious wear on the heads. Azimuth is good. Gonna clean and demag today. Going try flipping tape and see if anything shows on track 8. Waiting for some fresh tape to show up in a few days to see if that helps.
Fingers Crossed,
Ed
Fingers Crossed,
Ed
All of the PCBs in the 388 are really prone to developing cold solder joints at their connectors (they're cheapo FR-2 phenolic, without plated through vias). I'd inspect and reflow all of the molex connector solder joints on the backplane PCB that connects all of the channel PCBs to the master section before I suspected a problem with the record amps or the head.