Fostex A8LR - playback on rewind?

O

olbean

New member
I just picked up a great price Fostex A8 - which has a very strange issue. When hitting rewind or RTZ, sometimes I can hear the tape playing backwards at fast speed, and other times I can’t. It seems to be completely random. Any ideas what this could be?

Also, possibly related, sometimes it doesn’t rewind at all, and I have to play the tape for a few seconds then try again & all works fine!
 
How loud is it? On the A807 you can faintly hear playback during winding. Most of the later decks mute playback during fast wind, I don't remember if the A8 does that or not. If it's very faint, that may be normal. If it's at full volume, you've got a problem.
Something to check is whether the tape lifter is working properly. During fast wind two metal prongs should extend to hold the tape away from the heads. If that's not happening you'll need to investigate as it will wear out the heads (and the tape).
 
The A8 that I have does something similar, but it's within normal volume. The FF/RW guard that lowers when you hit either button only lifts the tape 1/8" away from the head, if that, so it's close enough to be heard. Like jpmorris said, if it's really loud then maybe the guard isn't coming down, in which case there might need to be some work done.

The model I have also has problems rewinding and I have never gotten around to fixing it. My advice would be bring it to a qualified tech to get it running 100%.
 
Tape flap.

One point about dropping into play from FW? some machines gave an output before the tape had reached play speed (schreech!) and the up-translated mid band energy popped the tweeter in our Kef Chorals. New tweeter was fitted along with fuses in the tweeter feed!

Dave.
 
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