SilverBall
New member
I recently picked up a Fostex G24s. My collection is mostly 60s, 70s, and 80s TEAC Reel to Reel players but I couldn't resist a studio Reel to Reel player/recorder with 24 tracks. I also have quite a few AMPEX Grand Master 1" tapes which should have some original music recordings I'd like to check out. They all had sticky shed which is temporarily gone after using a dehydrator on them. The Fostex G24s looks like new. All voltages are spot on, just one large cap slightly out of spec that I replaced (along with the original rechargeable battery). All controls (FF, RW, Play, etc.) work flawlessly. This thing is amazing!
The problem is recording and playback just won't do anything. Tapes that should have content don't move the sound meters at all on the 24 cards. Setting it to input monitor and sending it music to record also does nothing on the 24 meters (and doesn't appear to record anything). Here's the really strange thing - If I run the RCA cables into my receiver from ANY of the 24 inputs or outputs, all I get is a buzzing sound. It also happens when the G24s is off but still plugged in! It makes no sense to me. All 24 cards are present, and yes - the SMD capacitors that notoriously leak will be replaced eventually (around 700 total), but I find it impossible that all 24 cards are completely bad and won't allow anything to play or record. I'm guessing that there's a bad amplifier chip or something somewhere upstream that's shared by all the channels and causing this strange behavior, but I'm just not sure where to even start. Visually everything looks perfect, and all connectors are on the way they should be. Maybe a short to ground somewhere?
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated! I just need something to point me in the right direction of where the problem might be. It's much more difficult to trace down an issue on SMD boards (and other tiny boards crammed full of components) than on 60s to 80s solid state equipment. I really think this is a great piece of history and I'd love to get it back to the operating state it was in when it came from the factory back in the 90s! Of course, without the soon to be discovered defective capacitors.
The problem is recording and playback just won't do anything. Tapes that should have content don't move the sound meters at all on the 24 cards. Setting it to input monitor and sending it music to record also does nothing on the 24 meters (and doesn't appear to record anything). Here's the really strange thing - If I run the RCA cables into my receiver from ANY of the 24 inputs or outputs, all I get is a buzzing sound. It also happens when the G24s is off but still plugged in! It makes no sense to me. All 24 cards are present, and yes - the SMD capacitors that notoriously leak will be replaced eventually (around 700 total), but I find it impossible that all 24 cards are completely bad and won't allow anything to play or record. I'm guessing that there's a bad amplifier chip or something somewhere upstream that's shared by all the channels and causing this strange behavior, but I'm just not sure where to even start. Visually everything looks perfect, and all connectors are on the way they should be. Maybe a short to ground somewhere?
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated! I just need something to point me in the right direction of where the problem might be. It's much more difficult to trace down an issue on SMD boards (and other tiny boards crammed full of components) than on 60s to 80s solid state equipment. I really think this is a great piece of history and I'd love to get it back to the operating state it was in when it came from the factory back in the 90s! Of course, without the soon to be discovered defective capacitors.
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