help finding a suitable replacement for an old tape deck?
Hi all,
Recently I came to the realization that a lot of my old tapes were doing little good sitting in a box, scattered about as if someone just threw them all in there (which is pretty much how they got there in the first place). So I decided at one point to start digitizing them. It went well for a week, and just as I was getting more comfortable with it, the old 1990 tape deck I was using decided it was finally done putting up with me, and one of its capacitors blew, meaning that I only get one channel of sound. The other channel makes loud fizzing sounds if I cut power to the tape deck, and sometimes makes fizzing distortion when sending audio through it. The cable I am using is fine, I have already checked. Sometimes I can force it into submission by cutting power to the deck and quickly powering it back on, but that only works for a few seconds if at all, then the channel goes out again. Thing is, it worked just fine only three days ago, and I can't think of anyth
ing possibly I may have done to elicit this. Ah well, things like that just happen I suppose.
I know a friend who can fix it, but he's very busy, and quite honestly if I'm using something that's older than I am (which I didn't even know how old it was until I looked it up), then I see relatively little sense in trying to fix it, when there are probably newer alternatives which won't blow capacitors so quickly. Besides, this old one I was using was from Radio Shack. I didn't know this when I first got it, I just found out yesterday, and now things are starting to make more sense, as things I've bought from radio shack never lasted me for more than 6 months, let alone 25 years. Of course in the early 90s, they may have been slightly better build quality, or maybe I just got lucky and had something that lasts. I did take really good care of the deck but their build quality got so bad in the years leading to their closure that the quality of TLC y
ou gave it really could've mattered less.
In any case, while I know I can get it fixed, and as I say I know someone who could potentially do it, I don't really know if it's worth it. I might as well find something else.
Problem is, tapes are so out of style these days that finding a deck that was as simple as the one that copped out on me isn't easy, partly because the kind I had are no longer made, and partly because I'm not sure exactly what to look for online. Potentially, all I need is something which is portable enough to hold in your hands, that I can sit on a small table and so isn't a big stereo system. It should be able to play tapes, have a headphone jack so I can connect it to line in, and also can connect to a power outlet so I'm not wasting batteries. I could care less whether it can record or not; I'm done recording on tapes for good. The same can be said about speakers, as I'm not big on internal speakers anyway,
especially not on something like this which I would keep in one spot and would use mostly to digitize old archived stuff. Also, and this is arguably the biggest requirement, it must have 2-track, or stereo sound for output. a lot of cheap portable tape recorders have 1-track mono sound because they are only meant as voice recorders, not for good playback.
I'm not going to go all crazy about sound quality or supporting the famous tape noise reduction schemes, because I can't think of a single tape I have which uses them. Furthermore, I have nothing which is so sentimental or otherwise produced in such a way as to benefit from spending hundreds of bucks to preserve every possible detail when digitizing it, as I'd only be getting more detailed worn tape noise. That said, I don't want something which is going to alter the sound to the point where I can notice it's been tampered with.
Since I don't know exactly what to look for and not being able t
o test it to make sure it looks and sounds okay, the only real things I've come across are those huge stereo duel deck systems which support FM radio and or CD playback. Which totally baffles my mind, if you're going to get a tape deck, wouldn't you want a tape deck? You can get CD players and FM receivers everywhere these days, why get a tape deck which contains all that? If they're going to do that, it would be very similar to having turntables which also have an included MP3 player, again I see little purpose in it. Who knows, that may already be out. Lol. I just have no space for something big like that for now. I can make space but would prefer not to have to.
Then there are USB tape decks, but I've universally heard that they sound horrible. I don't have any hard evidence saying that I wouldn't like them, but it sounds too high-tech for me, since they don't seem to say if you can just load stuff in and listen if you want. instead al
l they talk about is recording tapes to PC, and then splitting tracks and cleaning up the sound with their included E Z transfer software. Those are things I can do on my own using software which I am more familiar with and which I will probably like more and will find easier to use. I could always get on Ebay and get something similar to what I had, but I'd rather not chance a capacitor blowing out again, as I'd want this thing to last at least a little while, to allow me time to work through the hundreds of tapes I have. Then again capacitors really don't seem to have a life expectancy, I've had poorly made electronics do similar things after only 12 hours of use out of the box. I just know very little about these things so I figured I'd ask people who perhaps? may have more experience.
Any ideas on what I should look into, and if it's generally a good idea to buy it from a used place like Ebay or some second-hand store, or if on the odd chance I
can find something that's still made new? Price range I'm not horribly concerned about, I can spend a bit more money if I know it's going to be good, and same can be said for the big stereo system. If I absolutely must get one, I could shove it in a space under my desk or something if it comes to that. I'd just prefer it not.
Thanks for your help!
Thanks.
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