Topic: DAT head diginoise diagnosis....

[shaggy]

So, I bot a used M1 here for cheap and finally got around to testing it.  Diginoise hell, sounds like you are going thru a tunnel of diginoise and there is this kind of repeating effect of the last few samples before the tunnelling.  Can anyone diagnose this?  Bad head, misaligned head?  Certainly not a dirty head...

Why'o why must I always jump on these 'killer deals' all the time?  I am a Yard sale junkie!

[H₂O]

Could be a dried out pinch roller

If the deck sat for a will (esp in a dry environment) the rubber could have dried out and this will cause the tape to "skip" across the heads.

I have had two decks in the last few years with this issue (a SV-4100 and a PCM-7040)

[shaggy]

Okay here is a sample.  I have already noticed that it does it far less frequently and for less total duration each time.  When I first played a tape in it (and it must have sat for a year or more without a tape played in it), it was like 50-70% all diginoise, and it completely freaked me out.  Now it is the occasional sputter and squawk....still not upto roadworthiness but it seems like it is a transport problem and not a head problem.

update: I let it go for about 20 minutes straight and there is no more noise, far as I can tell.  I think it is okay now.....but how do prevent the pinch roller from drying out?

[H₂O]

I don't know if you can.  In both cases where my pinch rollers dried out pro-digital replaced them.