Thread:John Leonhard's Dad/@comment-889116-20130602035116/@comment-10257029-20130606142904

Dear Stuart

Thank you. There are more to come, tape quality will improve for the later ones though there will always be some L/R imbalance caused by the deck I used to record them having a faulty or faulty VU meters, causing me to guess what the adjustment should be when listening to them using the deck where I was living (Austria/Germany). The problem got worse! It was then that I discovered that the deck in the UK's recording/playback head had been wired the wrong way around when it had been replaced.

I don't have the tapes with me here (Japan). They are in my flat in Austria. What I have here is what I recorded on to MDs while there. The more recent MD recorders also have USB facilities which has made it easy for me to make Mp3 files.

There are two main problems with the three or four really bad  cassette tapes:

Quick and heavy oxide buildup on the heads. (If I record track by track, cleaning each time it improves the quality but it's time consuming. Or play several times until the loose oxide stops coming off...??)

The spring/cushion/sponge under the tape has deteriorated or has no more pressure. (Transferring the spools to another newer cassette case may solve this problem)

December 14 1982 is being USBd right now and I'm off to bed.

With best wishes

Patrick