My Beocord 9000 will play a tape reasonably well when the cassette is first inserted, but as the tape runs I begin to hear wow and eventually the cassette slows down.  Are these classic symptoms of slipping belts, and if so, is there a belt kit available for this machine?

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Alistair

Hello Alistair,

To me, this is can be a problem with the left spool brake becoming dirty.

I quote an email I got from Tim Jarman ('hope he doesn't mind):

Tim Jarman:

Check the brakes, there are three felt pads that act on the spool
carriers (best accessed with the cassette tray removed), they can get
gummed up with dirt and cause this sort of thing. After repair work they
can also get re-fitted wrongly, check this too. I assume that your
mechanical overhaul has included removing the spool carriers from their
shafts, cleaning away the horrible old grease and lightly re-lubricating
them? This is very important in all Beocords as stiffness here can cause
needless head wear.

If all this fails try re-finishing the record / replay head with metal
polish [edit: not for the faint-hearted!]. A good hard rub will remove any ingrained contamination, after
that wash the surface well with head cleaner.

The brake part did it for me. Also check your pinch roller is not glazed (if so take it out and gently clean it and sand it with at least 2000 grit abrasive). But then a new set of belts can't do any harm! Ask Martin, aka Dillen who has them in stock (send him a PM).

Anyway "reasonably well" is not enough, is it? It should perform very well! I have worked a lot on these mechs (I did four of them—but then Martin has probably fixed dozens!) so if you need any advice, you know where to go...

Thanks for your prompt response, Jacques.  You are, of course, absolutely right that the deck should perform very well.  I said "reasonably well" because I was not quite sure what I should expect when I played some tapes that were recorded a decade ago.  The Beocord was purchased recently from an auction sale, and I frankly do not know when it was last played.  It did come with a packet containing belts and an idler pulley that were replaced sometime in the past -- and the belts are now partially liquified!

The brake tip is a good one.  I can see that I will need to go through the whole mechanical transport system and clean and lubricate everything.  Not a bad project for the Christmas holidays!

Thanks for the offer of advice, I'll probably need some.

Regards,

Alistair

Success!  I cleaned the transport mechanism (which wasn't very dirty), checked the brakes and spindles and fitted two new belts.  The deck now performs beautifully!

Thanks for your advice, Jacques, and your prompt delivery of belts, Martin.

Regards,

Alistair

Hello,

Well done!

Tell us how you like the sound!

My Beocord 9000 sounds at least as good as my CR-4 (which is a discrete 3-head, DD deck).

That is very encouraging.  The whole system (Beomaster 8000, MS150 speakers, Beogram 4002, Beocord 9000) is new to me and I have been progressively repairing the components.  It sounds fantastic to me when playing records or the FM tuner, and certainly my old tapes have never sounded better.  However, not all is as it seems.

Upon closer examination, and after playing a number of commercially recorded tapes, I have concluded that the left channel is at least two segments (of the VU meter) lower in volume to that of the right channel, and the higher frequencies are sounding a bit muffled -- as if the wrong tape type has been selected.  Any ideas on how I can correct these problems?

Regards,

Alistair

Hi,

Tell us how it records first.

Then, if recordings are fine, you will have to re-adjust azimuth (see service manual) by ear with earphones, until you are satisfied with the sound. But beware, a lot of prerecordeds are very bad. You should ideally use a known-as-good one.

If recordings are muffled as well, clean the heads. And degauss the heads using a special degaussing cassette (TDK used to make good ones). 

Do try recording first though.

Well, I tried to record -- and couldn't get any reading at all on the meters.  After checking everything I could think of, I remembered that there was a difference between a Beogram input cable and one for the Beocord.  Sure enough, after exchanging them, everything lit up beautifully.  I recorded one whole side of a record using a new tape and Dolby C, and then played it back in parallel with the record.  The results were amazing:  the recording sounded as good as the record (possibly slightly brighter, but that may have been due to a slight difference in level, and the meters were very close.  The left meter is still slightly below the reading on the right, but in practice you can't hear it and the stereo imaging is very good.

I think that I have just learned a valuable lesson about commercial pre-recorded tapes:  there is some really bad quality out there.

I tried to adjust the azimuth but couldn't hear much difference so I put it back to the original position.  Perhaps I need a test tape with a constant pre-recorded tone to make it a bit easier.

Thanks for your excellent guidance,

Alistair

Alistair Commins:

I tried to adjust the azimuth but couldn't hear much difference so I put it back to the original position.  Perhaps I need a test tape with a constant pre-recorded tone to make it a bit easier.

That would help, but it can be done with a music tape - concentrate listening on the treble, that's where the angle makes a difference. It the tape is old, not that good or has been improperly stored, it might miss all the treble to begin with and the adjustment will be hard to make sense of.

Another approach might be to just forget about setting it right, and adjust it simply so that most of the tapes you are going to play (if you already have a collection) sound the best.

Almost all of my tapes are from the '80s. Fortunately I had a proper deck with proper adjustments back then, but if those tapes had been recorder with a wrong azimuth angle, I'd just adjust my current decks to match that

Thanks for the suggestion -- I'll look through the tapes to see if I can find something with a lot of treble in it.

Regards,

Alistair