NOT a Newbie question about DAT
So I picked up a Tascam DA-20 from a person who swapped ex boyfriend leftover items with her best GF when they both became Exes at the same time TEN YEARS AGO. So I got a DAT deck she had stored in a storage room and never touched for ten years. I gave her $80 for it which was probably $30 too much, but it was a friend of a friend dealio. It did not play tapes, it FF'd and REW'd but no play, no levels etc.
Then I took the deck to Juan at Stereo Repair World who found the belt needed replacing, cleaned it up, checked the electronics and told me it was almost a zero hours on the head, he had not seen such a clean DAT deck in a long time. HE recorded on it and that tape played back great. I brought four tapes I had recently taken off and knew they were not precious. The deck plays all tapes but has some digi zaps and dropouts which I suspected to be the tapes not the deck. Especially after the third tape I played ran for 10-15 minutes flawlessly. (Gov't Mule 1996 master on an HHB DAT tape) $130 is what he charged me for the servicing, so I have $210 plus gas for two trips to Long Island in this thing.
So I get the deck home and start testing it. Aside from not having a long enough spdif digi cable to use, I finally got it set up and running into a Tascam DR680, analog in. (HQ commercial RCA to 1/4 inch interconnects)
Each tape Ive played out of four has had some digi zaps and drop outs. They seem to not start until 70-80 minutes into the tape, and/or when a track marker comes up. I had a Joan Osborne tape (Maxell DAT125,1996 master) which played flawlessly until the track marker at about 78 minutes. Then: I heard zzzzn stststst digizap noise and both channels would drop 90% down then back up. I had already just stopped the takeoff on two other tapes (both Fuji 90m's)which did this. But this one I really wanted a clean takeoff. So, I paused the recorder, stopped the tape, rewound it about 15 minutes, FWD'd it to the track point and it played flawlessly until the end (about 25 more minutes), so with some editing of the raw file, I will have a clean copy.
Questions for the DAT heads among us:
1] should I be FF and REW each tape before I transfer?
2] Is this possibly a tensioning element in the tape guide which Is beyond Juan's servicing ability? To be clear: I think he has done what he could, made it work, cleaned the heads etc. Playing back all these old tapes, many of which were made on not studiously aligned decks is not his fault.
3] I have several different brands of DATS, most of them Fuji 90m DDS tapes. But a lot of HHB DAT, Maxell DAT 125's and Sony 60m DDS. Am I going to have to have different players for these tape types?
4] has anyone experienced the deal where the DAT takeoff has issues then you FF or REW and it plays flawlessly?
Lastly, if anyone wishes to part with a working Fostex D5, shoot me a PM.