Tascam Porta Two HS - Repair story and test recording

famous beagle

Well-known member
I can’t remember If I mentioned any of this in other threads, so forgive me if I have. This is just a little happy-ending story about my Tascam Porta Two HS recorder.

I had a Tascam 246 4-track cassette recorder (from 1986) that I really loved. However, one day I happened to see one listed on eBay for $1K. I thought they were crazy. (I paid $240 for mine a few years ago.) But I was curious, so I did a “sold items” search, and sure enough, I saw several 246s that had sold for $850, $950, $1,000. It was crazy! Well, there was some other gear I was lusting after (like the Korg Minilogue synth), so I figured that price was too good to pass up. I knew I could sell the 246, get some other gear and also get another (less desirable to the market) cassette 4-track as well, because I just always have to have a cassette 4-track in the studio.

So I sold the 246 for $1K and bought some other stuff, including a Tascam Porta Two HS 4-track, which is from 1986 as well, but it’s just not quite as fancy as the 246. Still has the cool VU meters, but it has a less comprehensive EQ section and a few other missing features. (Although it does have the option to be powered by C batteries, which is pretty cool.) Nevertheless, it should do just fine for my purposes.

Well, it arrived (that was about 8 months ago I guess), and, despite the fact that the seller had assured me “It had been totally checked out by his guy,” it wasn’t functioning. I’m curious as to how the guy had “totally checked it out,” because when I got it, you couldn’t even stick a tape in the machine because the head stack was sticking out. I knew this was almost surely because the belt had been broken, and that would be a pretty simple fix, comparatively speaking, but since I wouldn’t be able to test out the rest of the functions before making this repair, I just told the dude it was broken and asked to send it back for a refund. Surprisingly, he refunded me my $150 and told me to just keep the machine. So that was pretty sweet.

I replaced the belt, and the transport was working great. After testing it, I found out that tracks 3 and 4 were recording very weak signals, though everything else seemed to work. So I put it aside for the moment.

Like I said, that was about 8 months ago. I also have a vintage Kay 752 guitar amp that I had messed up a bit when trying to fix something. I had recently listed a vintage Sony reel to reel recorder on CL because it just wasn’t getting enough use, and my wife was tired of it taking up room in the music room (even though it looked amazing!). Someone contacted me and told me they repaired gear and asked if there was any repair I needed that they could trade for the Sony. “Actually,” I said, “ I have this vintage amp.” So we made a deal that, if he repaired the amp, I would give him the Sony.

That in itself is a really long story, and the short of it is that I still don’t have the amp back. But before weeks had turned into months on this amp repair, he had offered to repair something else if I needed it, because he felt that he was getting too good of a deal on the trade. I thought, “Well maybe he can repair my Tascam Porta Two.” I told him about that, and he said that would be fine.

Like I said, that was a while back, and I still don’t have the amp back. So needless to say, I gave up on the prospect of him repairing the Porta Two. I was just getting ready to make a decision about whether to try to repair it myself, take it to someone else to repair (but I really didn’t want to put too much money into it, even though I got it for free), or just shelve it for now and look for another one. I had contacted an old high school friend of mine because my wife had a gig in Houston, and I asked if he wanted to get together. I told him about the Tascam Porta Two because he had had a Porta One back in the day. This was before he inherited $200K on his 18th birthday because of a life insurance policy on his father, who I assume had passed away. So when he inherited that, he bought a Tascam 688 in 1991. (I know I mentioned this in Sweetbeats' thread, but just in case anyone else is curious.)

Anyway, when I told him about the Porta Two, he said, “I still have the 688 in a case in my garage. I don’t know if it still works, but it’s your if you want it.” “Hell yes," I said! I didn’t know if it would work, but I knew that it was a single-owner machine that was treated well and at least stored in a hard-shell case since it was out of use.

So I picked that up when I was in Houston. After replacing the belt, which I expected it would need (and it did), I made a few test recordings and noticed that, again, it was recording weak signals on three of the tracks. This was basically the same issue my Porta Two was having. So, while I had it open, I decided to re-plug all the little connectors that I could get to. This was something that Sweetbeats had told me about when he helped fix my 388. So I did that, and sprayed some contact cleaner in the plugs while I was doing it. And holy smokes, that did it. All 8 tracks are recording and playing back beautifully now.

So … I then looked at my Porta Two and said, “Could it be that easy?” The short story is yes! I did the same thing, and now it’s working beautifully as well.

So …. After years of analog recorder woes, I feel that the universe is finally paying me back. Over the past few years, I’ve gotten:
• A free Tascam 388 (8-track reel to reel) that’s now fully functional (thanks to Sweetbeats)
• A free Tascam 688 (8-track cassette recorder) that’s now fully functional
• A free Tascam Porta Two HS (4-track cassette recorder) that’s now fully functional

Granted, I had to get my hands a little dirty to get them working, but that’s alright by me!

Last night, after fully testing the functionality of the newly repaired Porta Two, I made a quick test recording. I did part of Radiohead’s “You and Whose Army.” (I don’t know if you know that song, but it’s one of my favorites from Amnesiac.) I just plugged an SM57 straight into the 4-track (using an XLR adapter because it just has ¼” inputs) and used that for everything. Recorded my Epiphone jumbo acoustic on track 1 in one take. Then I recorded a vocal on track 2 in one take.

Then I added reverb by using a Behringer DR600 Digital Reverb guitar pedal in the FX loop. I used the plate reverb setting, and it sounds surprisingly good to me!

And I added some delay to the acoustic with my vintage (80s) Fostex digital delay rack unit. Even though the Porta Two only has one FX send, it also has a “Tape Cue out,” which sums the cue mix and sends it out, just like an FX send, basically. And, as the manual suggests, it can be used as a second FX send, which is really awesome. You can even return a stereo effect with this if you want by using the Channel 5 and 6 inputs. (The actual FX send has its own dedicated stereo return.) So I used that to add the delay.

And that’s it. But I’m pretty stoked about the quality it got for such a quick and dirty recording. (You’ll have to excuse the pitchiness on a few spots; like I said, this was one take.)

Anyway, I'm a happy analog camper these days! :)
 

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Cool! And that sounds great. I have a porta one that I have been meaning to look over. Will have to get on that.
So your saying a 246 can go for a grand!!! I have a mint condition one, hardly used with original box. I'm tempted to see what I can get, but I also like holding onto my gear. I haven't gotten around to using it much, but I would still like to put it through it's paces.
 
Cool! And that sounds great. I have a porta one that I have been meaning to look over. Will have to get on that.
So your saying a 246 can go for a grand!!! I have a mint condition one, hardly used with original box. I'm tempted to see what I can get, but I also like holding onto my gear. I haven't gotten around to using it much, but I would still like to put it through it's paces.

I was truly shocked when I saw the prices. Mine was fully functional (with a new belt) and in really good physical condition, but it did have two noticeable scratches below the faders on the top. Also, my selling price included the RC-71 remote as well).

But if yours is in mint condition with original box, I'd be interested in what it would go for!
 
Great sound Beagle! Does the Porta Two have dbx? I'd love to hear any recordings you make on the 688 - is that the one you can sync up with another to make a 14-tracker?
 
Great sound Beagle! Does the Porta Two have dbx? I'd love to hear any recordings you make on the 688 - is that the one you can sync up with another to make a 14-tracker?

Yes the Porta Two HS has dbx, and I was using it on this recording. (I'm assuming the Porta Two, which only runs at standard cassette speed instead of double speed like the Porta Two HS, has dbx as well, but I'm not sure.)

Yes the 688 has built-in MIDI sync technology. I'm pretty sure that, if you're just syncing the 688 with synths or a DAW, all you need to do make the connections via MIDI and stripe track 8 on the 688. But if you want to sync two 688s together, I think you need an external device, such as the Tascam Midiizer, to generate and read the SMPTE code.
 
Thought it had to be dbx - it is so rich and clean. Yes I think I remember you need the extra device to sync 2 machines and it cost a fair amount. Would be quite a thing to make a 14-tracker cassette wouldn't it!
 
Thought it had to be dbx - it is so rich and clean. Yes I think I remember you need the extra device to sync 2 machines and it cost a fair amount. Would be quite a thing to make a 14-tracker cassette wouldn't it!

That would be something else for sure! :)
 
Good for you on those results. I don't get them in that easy to fix but it s possible that oxidation can take it's toll on decks not used for a lot of years.
These decks are plastic and cheaply made but there have been some pretty good stuff that came from them even though you think they can not.
I have fixed all kinds of them over the years.
 
Did you ever get your amp back? Those are all awesome machines
Sorry, I missed this post. I never did see the amp again. I imagine it was likely sold for drug money or something. What's crazy is that he even built a matching external cab for it because he said he was feeling so bad about it taking so long. At least, I think he built it. He showed me the construction in process in various stages and the final product - each time with my Kay amp in the picture as well.

But he eventually stopped responding to my emails. We eventually moved up to Milwaukee, so I just let it go. I didn't know where he lived (we met at a Starbucks or something when I gave him the amp), so I would have had to go to the police to try and find him, which wasn't worth the trouble for the $200 I had spent on the amp. Maybe the whole thing was just a scam from the beginning - I don't know. If it was, though, he certainly played the long game, because he was responding to emails with picture updates of components he'd switched out (I know it was my amp chassis because it had an identifying mark) for months.

Anyway, I haven't thought about it in years.
 
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