I have a bunch of old DATs that I would like to get onto my hard drive. At this point, I have a Fostex D5 and Tascam DAP-1 that need work. The Fostex gives me a drop out or two every hour of playback and the headphone out makes crazy noise when you adjust the volume. I can live with the volume issue but don't want to playback old tapes if it's going to give me dropouts. My assumption is that it just needs the heads cleaned. Is this something I can do myself? Is this something I can get a local electronics repair person to take care of (Albany, NY)? Ran a cleaning tape and that didn't help. Don't want to invest much money into this project and shipping the D5 will add up.
The Tascam would be cheaper to ship but has more issues. There is a tape in there that is jammed and the digital out doesn't work. Also, my memory is that the D5 was way better for playback. There were tapes that I though were garbage because of dropouts and but the D5 would play them back clean. I don't recall the Tascam having that magical ability.
I know that people around here help out with transfers and that there is a working D5 in the yard sale. Both of those things will being taken into consideration. It just feels funny to have someone else do the transfers or buy another DAT deck.
Any ideas?