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OK, so when you say 'new reels', that's brand new SM911 stock, right? Not 456 off ebay? If so, that would indicate some problem with the tape path. If the shed is purely at the edges, that can happen if the machine was run on Ampex/Quantegy for its whole life and then suddenly switched to a...

They started in 1985, apparently.

It's difficult to tell from the photo whether that's dirt on the record head or reflections. Make sure it's clean, it takes a surprisingly small amount of crud to stop it recording clearly. Out of interest, have you tried flipping the tape for playback, to see whether tracks recorded on 1 and 3...

SM900 should be bias-compatible with 499, actually. That'll be RTM LPR35.

I've managed to get four 2" SM900s so far, two BASF and two EMTEC. One of the EMTECs was a real treat, it had all the frills. Oh, I recently managed to acquire a 5000ft roll from France which I'm going to spool onto some empty reels eventually, when I can figure out a sensible way to do so...

I'm using a mix: RTM for 2" and 1/2" and ATR for 1/4". 2" ATR is a bit too expensive, and the TSR-8 is designed for 456 or compatible. EDIT: I also try to get NOS BASF or EMTEC SM900 when I can, but that's relatively rare.

Too bad, they won't ship here.

I'd try reflowing the solder on the RCA sockets, it might be a dry joint.

Video of it doing this might be useful.

Question: Is there tape loaded on the machine, or have you just defeated the tape sensor and fired it up to do a quick check? If the machine is just spinning empty reels you will get strange effects like that, because it tends to run the motors backwards gently to provide back-tension and stop...

The TSR-8 has a switchable attenuator for the track 8 input. Does the ATR60? It sounds obvious, but I had track 8 go dead on mine and I had the machine in pieces before I realised that the attenuator switch had been knocked between poles...

I'd be a little surprised if it needed to read the timecode in rewind mode. Most decks can't even do that because they need a wideband amplifer for the timecode channel, which AFAIK is usually an optional extra even on high-end decks. It should be happy with just a tach pulse from the rollers...

Good, glad that helped!

Try placing a piece of card in the tape sensor's slot. You may also need to lift the right tension arm, as many TEAC decks have a microswitch there to shut down if the tape suddenly goes slack.

As for properly threaded, is it passing through that optical sensor?

As JamesPerrett says, that's almost certainly a tape presence sensor. You'll see a similar device on the Studer A807 and even the Revox B77. The added-on look is very strange, though.

The transmit and receive channels are for communicating with an external sequencer or controller via MIDI. They won't affect sync, and they are usually set to the same channel. The idea is that you can attach two synths to the same MIDI port, either using a splitter or the THRU port to...

Yeah, again, if it were me, I'd try to get full-song sync to work first and then worry about trying something more exotic afterwards. Looking at the manual. It can either accept SPP via MIDI, or FSK input via the 8-pin cassette interface. Either mode would work, though obviously you'd need...

I don't know, but that makes sense given that everything I've ever seen about tape sync is about synchronising the linear position of the song rather than providing just a clock pulse or something to lock to. I would try that - make a short song with a couple of patterns and see if the sync...

Apparently the RX8 has three sync modes - internal, MIDI and FSK. It should respond to SPP messages over MIDI, but it might be necessary to set it to use MIDI sync first as it might ignore everything else if it's set to internal sync. EDIT: It's worth mentioning that there are several...