Tascam 38 playback sounds muffled and fluttery.

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coreytx

coreytx

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This is my first time using a reel to reel. It's a Tascam 38.

The first thing I noticed is when I rewind, the take up reel on the right wobbles a little and the right tension arm bounces around. It's only noticable when I rewind/fast forward.

When I record and playback everything is very muffled and fluttery.

I haven't aligned and calibrated it because I'm not sure that's the problem. The pinch roller is even. I cleaned and demagged the tape path. I'm using brand new SM911. The heads don't look very worn.

Does anyone have insight to what my solution could be? Do you know anyone in the Austin, Texas area who works on these?

Thanks for the help.
 
post a video, and pictures the mechanical part is probably a bent reel table, that is why it wobbles. Needs to be replaced. cost ranges from $15-$50 or so. About the sound, it can be head misalignment or electronics adjustments, or bad heads in the worst case scenario, post some pics and videos if you can with close ups. For the heads use a blank sheet of paper to control light reflection.
 
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The wobble (especially on fast forward and rewind) is better than it was 2 days ago. I havent done anything.

The recorded audio is still bad. On the video, the first song is from a CD and the next two I recorded (the second song vocals are muffled because you're hearing only the guitar mic). I don't know why it's less fluttery from the CD - maybe because I recorded the input hotter? It's still distorted but not as bad as the second two.

I got this on eBay and the seller assured me it was working properly. So maybe it got dropped during shipping. It was packed very well.

Thanks again for the help.
 
I'll listen to this on a proper system to see if I can pick out the flutter, but what immediately stands out is that you've got the tape on the wrong side of the lifters. It's supposed to go in front of those two metal spokes, so that they can pull the tape away from the heads when the machine is winding. Otherwise you'll wear them out in short order.

It's normal for the reel flanges to drift slightly, I think yours are more stable than most of mine :3
 
Oh wow, yeah I bet that's my entire problem.

I recorded and played back with the tape on the correct side of the lifters and it sounds great. Thank you for your help!
 
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