Topic: Magnetizing effects of a cassette deck on another deck in close proximity?

[unidentified]

I am working my way through converting seemingly zillions of cassette recordings to flac.  I have a fully re-habbed 1990s dual bay cassette deck and a second way on the way in the event that I run the first one into the ground.  If I take the one that I am now using almost constantly to feed into my computer and sit it atop the intended back up deck, is there any chance that I might be passively magnetizing the heads of the inactive lower deck through near constant use of the upper one?  In other words, how far do the magnetic effects of playing a cassette in a deck extend? I am of course regularly cleaning an demagnetizing the heads and capstans of the deck that I am using.  Demagnetizing always seemed like some form of arcane and mysterious magic involving unseen forces, even to the point of using a wand.  Many thanks in advance! 

[rocksuitcase]

Wow! Great thought and question. I would say the upper deck won't create enough magnetic field to affect the lower deck. I have four decks on top of the other and I have never experienced this. I do have a Radio Shack Demagnetizer. This dude has good advice but does not address your question. Anyone else?
http://www.soundfirst.com/cleandemag.html

His contact info if you wish to post him your question.
If you have comments or suggestions, email me at Ray@SoundFirst.com

[Gutbucket]

Make sure to only engage in the erotic de-mag wand dance upon confirmation that there are no innocent audio/video tapes or mag-strip ID/credit cards hanging around in close proximity, as those are the items most susceptible to the corrupting influence of strong magnetic fields.

I'm no expert on the mysteries of magnetics, but doubt the heads of one deck will effect another that happens to be stacked above or below it, simply because if that was the case a tape set on top of or immediately adjacent to the deck would be even more strongly effected, and AFAIK that isn't an issue. 

But it's easy enough to clean and de-mag whichever deck is about to be used simply as best practice, well away from any innocent tapes.

I still have my now 40 year old Radio Shack demag wand buried deep somewhere.  Last I used it several decades back I was specifically leveraging its magnetic corrupting abilities.  I screwed up some old cathode-ray-tube color TV's pretty good with that thing and a handful of of old hard-drive magnets doing a projected light show using an old overhead projector lens afixed to the TVs with a cardboard box.  Whoa! double rainbow!

[audBall]

Sorry, I barely passed my E&M class.

[Gutbucket]

A couple musical magnetic tutorials on the push and pull, covering what you already know-

https://youtu.be/gZgl2VUdFWg

https://youtu.be/FABDWZPOWLs

Although it may be polarizing, I've no problem at with pie for breakfast.

[unidentified]

Thank you all!!!   Good advice and reassuring words!!

[unidentified]

" I have four decks on top of the other...."

Thanks again for the good advice--but I have to note that is a measure of how obsessive we folks who are on this list--and especially those of us who collected cassettes back when--tend to be that one of us has FOUR decks stacked on each other . I mean, I must have five or six in my house but only the two fully functional ones are atop each other.  Tell us more. 

[rocksuitcase]

This is the four Nak deck stack from 2019 Before the middle CR5A was brought in for repair and Before I picked up the other LX-5.
Currently the stack has 2 LX-5's and a CR5A and a 680 ZX
I had all these decks refurbished in 2019 by a great tech and they have been running great ever since.

[unidentified]

Wow. Wow! I totally get it. Very nice.

[rocksuitcase]

I just found this one from 2020. More workload after getting them refurbed! lol
I am turning the corner on the GD masters, over 100 shows completed, another 70 or so to go. Maybe another 300 Non GD masters left.

[unidentified]

And all those great little handcrafted cassette J-cards in those boxes.  My wife thinks I am going to toss them all when I finish transferring them.   I never will.  Don't have the heart. 

[rocksuitcase]

So funny. My wife thinks the same. I told her I was emptying out the drawers of this old wooden pants bureau they have been in for 30+ years. But I am just putting them into metal filing cabinets. LOL

[EmRR]

My father left a stack of cassettes on the CRT TV in the mid '80's for a year, those were partially erased by the CRT field.   

[unidentified]

Yes, that will do it. I move my deck out of my music room and into the kitchen away from all cassettes and other magnetic media before I demagnetize it.